William & Kate’s New Approach

[Thunderbird7]

I was listening to a podcast recently which outlined the differences between William and Kate’s approach vs the traditional approach to being working members of the royal family.

William and Kate are trying to do bigger, more involved projects like Shaping Us and Earthshot. While I think they are both great projects William and Kate are VERY involved, maybe too involved. Obviously the traditional royal approach is getting out there and maybe making less of a personal impact but being seen by as many people as possible, being generalists, and patronising change makers rather than making change themselves.

I have to admit I kind of prefer the old style of monarchy more. I think the point of monarchy is to be seen, not in a superficial way, but in a way that enables subjects to be & do their best.

Plus William and Kate are more involved in their kids’ lives than traditionally royals are which I don’t begrudge them for, I think it’s great, but it does mean they have less time & the two things are compounding each other to make them less visible?

What are your thoughts on the 2 styles? What do you prefer?

I’ll also add a poll, why not.

(I am generally interested in the question so please don’t make jibes about anyone being workshy or bring up Harry, Meghan and Andrew… there are other threads!)

Plus William and Kate are more involved in their kids’ lives than traditionally royals are which I don’t begrudge them for, I think it’s great, but it does mean they have less time & the two things are compounding each other to make them less visible?

im not really sure that being ‘more involved parents’ - aka parenting their own children - is a good enough reason tbh. Most couple manage to work full time and raise their dcs wo any help in the house.

That is precisely why we should use the term. We are legally and according to the British passport - subjects. If using that reminds people that we have to fund a billionaire family as heads of state by dint of birth or marriage then that is a good thing. We are not citizens because we have no say in our head of state or their role.

All the PR about doing "big things" rather than lots of small things is laughable. There is precious little of either compared to their seniors.

As PPs say - they have a full staff including nannies, all the children are in school but the poor loves can't do more than a hundred or so engagements per year. Some of those engagements are phone calls.

Kate in particular has never made much effort before, during or after children. Most parents who actually work don't have the option to just "not do the job" during school holidays. The work ethic seems to have bypassed both of them compared to their own parents.

Agree with this. DH and I are in the lucky position where I don't have to work full time so I can be here with the kids 70% of the week, taking and collecting them from school and doing their tea and their homework. However for that to be facilitated DH has to work full time and often much more than full time. That's just the reality, and I know we are vey privileged to have me at home so much. K and W should be doing the equivalent of this in my opinion, with either a full time worker and a part time worker or two longer part time workers. The way they're doing it and using their school aged kids as an excuse makes me lose any respect that I had for them.

It's appalling that Anne had 300 engagements from the stats from a pp. Single parents are expected to work if in receipt of benefits and have school age children quite rightly. So why are the rules" different for a two parent family with nannies and staff to pick up the childcare.

If Kate wants to be a SAHM then William needs to be doing a full time week of engagements.

Very disappointing he's not building on the princes trust as these projects take years to establish.

Where's the proof that William's not continuing the Prince's Trust? I saw a PP mention it, but more as "I heard this" rather than a fact. It would be a shame indeed if true.

And now that we know Kate has had major surgery, I guess it's possible that her lower work load reflected some kind of ongoing condition

So she has had this ongoing condition for the last 10 years which stopped her working but she was ok going to Wimbledon and the other fancy award shows. Some people on here are totally deluded sticking up for a couple of work shy millionaires and making up excuses for why they can't hold onto a full time job whilst living off the taxpayers.

Quite.

I wish I understood what inspires this loyalty.

It has been announced that the Prince's trust will become the King's Trust

Maybe that's because Charles doesn't want to let it go instead of Wills being unwilling to take it on?

I'm not really interested in blasting people on the basis of speculation, and I'm also pretty willing to consider that there may be stuff going on in the background that we don't know about. I prefer to know more before condemning.

I've already said that I don't think they do enough. The number of engagements listed above is well below what I think the heir to the throne should be doing, and I think KP needs to be a bit more open about why if there are good reasons. If there are not good reasons then they really need to step it up about 5 gears. If nothing else it looks terrible that people in their 70s are doing a hell of a lot more than people in their 40s.

Since when do three school going kids need both parents to the point that they can't hold down one full time job between them. So I guess us working parents children are doomed then and will be completely unstable.

Completely workshy both of them.

Charles has said a few times that he would love one of his sons to take on the Prince's trust so I think it's reasonably clear that William said no. From what we can see from William, he likes his stuff to be more focussed on him - the difference between the two websites is really stark. The Prince's trust one is much more focused on what it does, the royal foundation one is more about nice pictures and publicity for William and Kate

They both need to work harder tbf
There are no excuses for carrying out so few engagements.
Older royals are putting them to shame
The Queen was working right until the end.
I do think that both Kate and William are workshy

They've done bigger all compared to the DoE award and the Prince's Trust and it takes a lot for me to say a kind word about C or his dad.

that is interesting. I did wonder why PW hadn't taken it over.
sad as its such a good thing.

I always think it is funny - and I am not really pro monarchy, entitled due to birth is wrong - that on royal threads the amount of work is always perceived as the visits/events they do. There are probably quite a significant number of meetings that are not publicised and for every meeting, event and visit there will be work behind the scenes. For the big projects that probably means a considerable amount of work. It's a bit like assuming that teachers are only working if they are only actively teaching and ignoring the huge amount of prep and marking. Yes they have a team of people but I get the impression that the royals are more approaching these things as work projects rather than the old way of 'here is your list of visits and ribbon cutting and prepared speeches for you', there seems to be a lot more involvement.

There are probably quite a significant number of meetings that are not publicised and for every meeting, event and visit there will be work behind the scenes

I don't really understand that because every meeting and phone call is logged on the CC.
For instance, in December there is an entry 'Catherine Princess of Wales held a meeting'. It doesn't say what, but it's there.

Of course, there is work behind the scenes but the 70 staff they have will be the ones working hard on it. I don't doubt W&K will be working behind the scenes but I am just not sure about the significant meetings because they are always put on the CC.

I think the folk who do the court circular are probably desperate to add stuff for William and Kate to bulk it out so I really doubt they do loads that isn't recorded.

I know! I don't even really like Charles or Philip but there's no doubt that they actually did/do significant stuff

I used to be on the fence about the Royal Family but Mumsnet has turned me into a bit of a Monarchist. The snide, personal and frankly nasty comments about people who on the whole seem fundamentally decent (Prince Andrew excepted) has been a real turn off.

This and the sweeping assumptions about people’s personal lives that no-one could possibly know. Hate the treatment Harry and Meghan get too.

Exactly. There is a lot of 'the Princess of Wales this morning held a Meeting at Windsor Castle' last year.

No details with whom or what.

(Before anyone says, I wish her all good wishes in recovering from her op and getting back with her children and husband asap. It is so worrying for little ones when Mum is ill)

agree

some of the posts i have seen about the POW this week have been awful.
not up there with the 100's of awful threads about Meghan, but unnecessary and very nasty.

Yes, I agree. I may be no royalist but its irrelevant because she is a woman, a Mum with three little children and in hospital. Some of the posts were disgusting. No idea what goes on in people's heads to be honest.

Agree, it’s like people lose their humanity when it’s a royal.

Surely the CC doesn’t log regular staff meetings though? It logs meetings with external people like e.g. heads of charities, etc.