I will continue to say this: the current issue of People Magazine’s cover story about the Duchess of Cambridge is really bizarre. Considering all of the royal crap that happened just in the past month, nevermind in the past year, I would have thought that Kensington Palace could organize a better People cover story than “Kate is chill” and “Kate is training to be a Future Queen but honestly you would never know it.” I mean… Top Ceo, Keen To Work, Zooming Up a Storm, Trotting Out the Kids at Pantoland, the Covid Choo Choo Tour debacle… any of those subjects would have been more timely than what People gave us: an insipid piece solely refocusing Kate’s brand as a simple country girl who does boring things and refuses to work. Truly. Well, People Mag had another excerpt:
Just like Queen Elizabeth, Kate Middleton prefers country life to city life. The mom of three, 38, insiders herself most at home at the family’s country estate, Anmer Hall. Situated on the east coast of England, rural Norfolk offers Kate, Prince Wiliam, 38, and their children, Prince George, 7, Princess Charlotte, 5, and Prince Louis, 2, a welcome escape.
“Even if she were married to a banker, I don’t think she would be much different,” a source close to the royal household tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “She would have wanted to be a country mom and be in town occasionally. I don’t think she would have been living a very different life.”
Of course, she’s living the most extraordinary life imaginable, in an extraordinary year: married to the future King of England and raising the next King while navigating everything from home-schooling during quarantine to her husband’s secret battle with the coronavirus in April. (He was never hospitalized, and the rest of the family was not infected.)
“At the end of the day, she’s in training to be a future Queen, but honestly you would never know it,” says a source close to Kate. “If you go round to her house, you get a cup of tea, and it’s often William who makes it! It’s a lovely, welcoming house, not a fancy, stuffy palace in any way.”
Maybe we’re supposed to be reading the quotes as shady? You know, for a laugh, like the “top CEO” quotes. “At the end of the day, she’s in training to be a future Queen, but honestly you would never know it” should be read as “you really wouldn’t know that she’s in any way a Queen-to-be by how vapid and lazy she is.” And maybe “Even if she were married to a banker, I don’t think she would be much different” should be read as “she should have married some untitled rich guy so no one would expect this lazy woman to actually do anything other than preen and keen.” And that’s the crux of it, right? Kate thinks that she’s refocusing her brand as a “just like you” housewife and stay-at-home mom who lives a humble life in her country mansion. But what she’s really doing is underlining, yet again, that she’s just an airhead who refuses to work and demands that her staffers come up with excuses for why that is.
Anyway, can’t wait for the British tabloids to begin to investigate the identities of the unnamed sources who provided these quotes to People Magazine! Very suspicious.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Yep. No matter who she married Kate would be dull and lazy.
My first thought exactly.
Here’s what personally offends me about Kate. I’m a sahm and it was a very very tough decision to balance my kids’ needs, my own sanity, my husband’s insane work schedule and my own hope I can get back to some kind of career at some point.
Do you know how many moms would KILL to have access to any passion project they wanted, all while closely supervising their babies with the help of nannies, maids, tutors, etc.? A meaningful part time job close to kids is a DREAM.
And you know who is using her privileges this way??? That’s right. One Meghan Markle.
@Gruey I feel exactly the same as you do and I am in the same situation. Kate needs to start realizing how lucky she is. And do something with what she has been given.
The Royal Family completely missed the boat on embracing Meghan and her passions. Her work is actually life changing to people and bringing some much needed attention to causes. (Unlike that Big 5 survey)
I understand your frustration, but some people just don’t have passions or interests outside their own circle. And that’s usually okay. What makes it not acceptable in Kate’s case it that her lifestyle is funded by taxpayers, and so she must provide a return greater than the birth of her oldest son, and that she pretends she is something that she’s not. Personally, I would like Kate a lot more if she just threw deuces at the world and said “I don’t care and you can’t make me” and just went about her life. Because what would people actually do? Print articles for a while and that’s it. They haven’t done anything about Andrew, and he’s an obvious rapist. And Kate’s so boring that the press would eventually tire of her sloth and leave her (mostly) alone.
@TCBC you’re right and I personally know a few people like that. I don’t understand them at ALL, but they’re genuinely kind people (I don’t think Kate is particularly kind, btw, but I digress!) who are just content to raise their kids and that’s it.
One of my good friends from elementary school is like this. She’s not a stupid person by any means, but she’s…incurious, I guess? We grew up in a small town (I could not WAIT to leave), she went to a local university and commuted from home, she married someone from the same town, they bought a house in the same town, had a bunch of kids who now go to the same schools we did, and she’s as happy as a clam. She hasn’t read a book since we were required to in HS (which I can’t imagine) and she’s never traveled farther than Orlando, FL (which I also cannot imagine).
She’s always a class mom, PTA volunteer, driving her own and lots of other people’s kids around to various activities, making 30 bags of some crafty little holiday-themed bag of treats to send in to school with one of the kids—all things that are my literal nightmare, lol. But someone has to do it, and she loves it.
She’s the exact opposite of me in so many ways, but I could call her at 3am and she would drop everything to help me in any way she could; give me the shirt off her back if necessary. It takes all kinds, I suppose!
I do wonder what will happen when her children are grown and have left the house because she has absolutely nothing outside of them. I personally can’t understand not having any interests outside of my own child, but there are so many people who are like Kate in this way.
@lorelei already your friend does more work than Kate though. Kate is not doing PTA anything or any volunteer work that doesn’t count as Royal busy work. She focuses on exercising, shopping, keeping up her roots and Botox and some occasional trips with the kids. Stay at home moms wouldn’t be able to relate to her because she is just so self absorbed and lazy and most of them don’t have nannies and housekeepers and gardeners.
@Lorelei IA with @Nic919: Your fantastic homemaker friend sounds like she works very hard!!! She’s busy all day driving, doing crafty things, volunteering for events and projects with the PTA, etc. I bet she has a 10-hour day most days, if not more since a lot of her work is in (and on) her own home. If Kate put in days like that literally doing anything, like even if she just participated in the school carpool plus went to parents’ organization meetings, people would love her and fall all over her to praise her for her work ethic!!! (I know she can’t drive carpools b/c of security reasons but you know what I mean.)
@Nic and Dee, lol, good point.
I think I was talking more about personality types; some people are content to just stay in their little corner of the world being a “homemaker” and don’t particularly care about seeing other places and learning about issues outside their little community bubble.
That’s definitely how I read it too.
She wouldn’t work regardless who she married, so don’t expect more from her.
The version of mom and wife presented in this article really reminds me of Trump assuring “housewives” he’d get their husbands back to work. So anachronistic and useless it’s offensive.
She is the Melania of the royal family. Actually scratch that. Even Melania had the energy to say she didn’t really care about the American people. Sadly the qualities that landed Kate her prince are the very ones that will be her undoing. The tone deaf pandemic express was a huge nail in her coffin. The sight of her playing with a marshmallow with a gloved hand summed her up correctly.
@Elizabeth – “The sight of her playing with a marshmallow with a gloved hand summed her up correctly.” – INDEED!
She would have been better off as a bankers wife. Then she could have been a stay at home wife without expectation of actually having to work and do duties such is required for the wife of a future king.
I was going to say exactly this. She’d be happier just living life as a rich man’s wife.
With no work expectations. I think this was Ma Middleton’s dream. I really think Kate (once she saw what this was like) was not happy with this arrangement.
I think Carol wanted her daughter to be Queen Consort without realizing that Kate doesn’t have the talent or drive to excel in the role.
You didn’t need talent or drive to do it until very recently. Actually scratch that, because Diana never got to do it.
It’s so funny to me because Carole is often painted as the mastermind who plotted out this entire thing. And I believe that’s true, to a large extent.
But it seems like all of her planning included only up until the wedding day, and after that, nothing — she thought that after the wedding, it was game over. If she was really as smart as some people claim, Kate would have acted very differently during the girlfriend years. We would have seen “leaked” photos of Prince William’s girlfriend visiting children’s hospitals a la Diana, etc. She would have studied Diana’s actual work a lot more closely and found ways for Kate to volunteer a ton of time, mimicking her.
It’s like there was a huge blind spot in her grand plan and it will be Kate’s undoing.
My husband once or twice has joked about going into politics and I’m like hellll to the fuck no. Privacy is one of the ultimate luxuries but the Middletons were too dumb to understand that.
I beg to disagree a bit. It depends on the banker. A banker’s wife needs to be more than a mannequin and be useful to her husband. She needs to be able to network, have a little knowledge of the financial markets, her husband’s work, some of the office politics, organise dinner parties and run a household without her mother overseeing things. She would also need to be friendly towards the other banker’s wives. I doubt if she could do that.
A personal assistant does most of that nowadays. Well, two. One for the office, one for the home (as a house manager.) The pay in NYC for the job is pretty good (low 6 figures + benefits minimum)
This all reminds me so much of the Tatler quotes. It doesn’t seem very on-brand for People magazine to be deliberately shady to Princess Catherine though.
I think the difference with Tatler was that it was written with a massive eye roll with a sprinkle of shade on top. Everything that comes from Middleton PR Ltd is told in the same sugary sickly way but to any sane person it reads like a joke. Like when Ma tells Tatler to call kate a “top CEO” she genuinely thinks it makes kate look good, she has no idea how much of a joke that turned into. Like when Ma told Phil Dampier to say meghans smartworks success was all down to kate, that got #katemiddletonsuccesssotries trending on twitter. Ma middy really doesn’t know how to read the room.
The #katemiddletonsuccessstories was such a thing of beauty that I will never recover from. It cannot be topped in its brilliance and hilarity.
Is anyone else as curious about the logistics of the discussions that lead to these articles?
For argument’s sake, let’s assume this did come from Carole. They already know phones have been hacked & probably will be again, and even I (a nobody) operate on the assumption that someday, everyone’s emails & texts will be leaked and searchable by name online so I try to be careful with what I say in writing.
So how does this work? She must have burner phones, but if those records are ever revealed it will be obvious who it was just by what was said. I’m sure she uses code names, but does she…just call people up with whatever narrative she’s currently pushing? If it were me I’d want to meet someone in person to give them all of this info so there’s absolutely no paper trail, but she can’t risk a reporter being photographed leaving Middleton manor or whatever.
I know she has sources but I’m just so curious as to how it actually works, how she does it in a way that leaves absolutely no fingerprints that could be traced back to her or Pippa or any of their employees, etc. Maybe I’m just a freak but it fascinates me! Or maybe she isn’t as careful as I’m imagining and a lot of this *will* be revealed, possibly as soon as Meghan’s trial really gets started.
I suspect the reporters know the sources and just don’t reveal them. That said I don’t think this people article is much more than a collection of old stories plus a call from Carole.
Raises hand,,,,,,
It’s a shame she isn’t married to a banker, because she’d be a functioning adult by now instead of a forever in-training future future Queen repressed and mollycoddled by everyone around her.
I concur. The world of bankers is very shark like. She is very cunning, I give her that but she is not very smart.
The thing is, a Banker is just another sort of entitled, posh and extremely rich type of person. No wonder she’d be no different.
I think it’s more apt to wonder if she would be just the same were she married to an NHS shift worker, a member of the armed forces, a long-distance lorry driver or indeed nobody at all. In other words, if she had to shoulder the same pressures as the rest of us do, every day.
@Aidevee, you’re so right, and I think that alone says a lot. Whoever leaked this to People cannot even fathom that Kate might have fallen in love with and married someone without a fancy job in finance with tons of money; someone who they would consider lower class and unsuitable or whatever. That’s Carole to a T.
Look I’m sorry but if she wanted to sit on her ass all day and do nothing other than the odd charity ball once a month, she should have married the banker instead of the future future King.
She knew who she was marrying. She knew she would have a public role. She knew she would be expected to work and have a public role. So great for Kate if she likes the countryside more and would rather be a housewife but again, she knew she would have to do some work.
She spent almost ten years chasing that life so she can’t pretend she had no idea what it entails. And if we look at the dictionary definition of social climber. Kate’s picture is there. You can’t find a better example of a woman who channeled all her efforts into catching and keeping the attention of a man with social power and money. She literally did nothing else with her life but cater to his needs and desires to finally get a proposal.
How anyone doesn’t find this massively disturbing I don’t know, but you cannot point to any woman who has married in to a royal family in the last 25 years who has dedicated so much to going after a man and involving the family so much too.
Billy the banker would never have gotten all this effort.
Red flags were fluttering and flapping in the wind during her engagement interview with then fiance William. I mean, you are dating the son & heir of the Prince & Princess of Wales. You have to know at some point, you will be asked about Princess Diana and any normal woman would have already kind of had a non-stuttering response to that question.
She stuttered and stammered so much I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. How could you NOT be prepared to answer that question? I knew then – and this was waaaaaay before Meghan – I knew then that William was marrying a very dim bulb. Although that really can’t just be called dumb or ignorant. It was laziness. She just didn’t even BOTHER to prepare.
The best part about that engagement interview is that it was heavily edited with many retakes and that was the best that was on offer.
Ah yes the infamous engagement interview, where she was pretty much told what to say to questions that were vetting in advance and couldn’t even stick to the script. I haven’t watched it in some time but at one point I thought William struggled to hide is frustration with her.
And yet according to folks like Omid Scobie, the Cambridges are very popular in England. I don’t think it’s just the Brexit crowd. Yet she’s been like this and actually worse in some ways, because she’s got more busy work now.
I am rereading some of my favorite 19th century British lit over the pandemic and let’s just say it hits different. The horror that a second son might have to work….it’s very clear that the aristocracy in England has a deep cultural horror of work. And that common people have a deep sense that that’s the natural order of things. Maybe it’s changing in the 21st cent but I have a feeling these attitudes die very hard.
I think they are well liked in general but nobody really has the love and affection that the Queen has – and that includes the Cambridges. It may seem like they get away with it and they do now because of Meghan but before Meghan was on the scene, Kate was being called “Duchess DoLittle” and William was being called “Workshy Wills”. There used to be a lot of snarky comments about their lack of work ethic. It’s been erased now yes but I just wanted to say that they were criticised.
As for the aristos, I think a lot of them do the whole “lads go hunting” and “lady who lunches” lifestyle but they also manage to some philanthropy too. Some of them with estates, actually do put time and effort into managing them and making them profitable. For example, the Duchess of Northumberland turned Alnwick Gardens into a massive tourist spectacle and brings in visitors year after year
With regards to the Cambridges, the rose tint came off with a lot of the populace over the treatment of Meghan esp in the past year when the press has pretty much said that the Cambridges are the reason the Sussex’s walked.
I live in the UK (I’m an immigrant) and the impression I get is that most people don’t pay enough attention to the royals to have strong opinions about the Cambridges. Not everybody reads the Daily Mail. Kate’s pretty and the kids are pretty and a lot of people don’t know much about them beyond that so they’re vaguely popular but I wouldn’t say that they’re beloved.
I think a lot of their popularity has to do with the fact that central casting could not come up with a more unlikable person than Charles. He’s tolerated, but not beloved. And Camilla will always be despised by a large portion of the ride-or-die for Diana population. So in comparison, William and Kate look great. And their kids truly are adorable.
Plus, their popularity spiked with the pro-Brexit crowd as soon as Meghan arrived, because racism. If Harry had married an English rose, or even an actress who a lot of people sort of think of as “American” at this point like Emily Blunt, I don’t think as many people would have become Cambridge stans overnight.
If she were married to a bank she would still be living in the city, a very expensive part but still in the city. Is it that Kate is just waiting to be Queen to become productive in her life?
Agreed. Whomever is spilling to People mag is an expert level troll. I feel they secretly hate Will and Kate so they sneak in these two faced comments that are at face value innocuous but can also be determined as a judgement of laziness. It’s pretty amazing actually.
@watson I mean the British are known to be masters of the art of the subtle put down
I’ve been chuckling about the shade in this article! It seems that whenever one of Kate’s “friends “ speak the resulting quote is super shady by disguised enough that the regular reader, and the Cambridge’s, don’t pick up on it. Kinda sad that even Kate’s “friends “ don’t seem to respect her.
Yes, me too. What I got from that article is that Kate is too lazy to make a cup of tea.
This is a well-known and oft-used technique by celebrity reporters, let’s call them “society” reporters. It was used back in the Victorian era (in the U.K.)/Gilded Age (U.S.) to great effect and it has always remained in use since then. They cover some aristocrat or elite person (in the U.S. these days it’s often tech CEOs or other billionaires) , and write a story so full of simpering flattery that the subject of the article loves it and approves of it, and then meanwhile any normal person reads it and sees instantly it is FULL of shade and disses. I read a Vanity Fair article last year about Sean Parker and his wife (or another similar tech couple) that made them sound incredibly vapid and ridiculous, while using only positive words to describe them.
But I thought Kate’s friends didn’t speak to the press! This is outrageous!
So…Banker’s wife Kate would be doing the same things FFQ does, which consist of shopping, exercising, and assisting Nanny with the raising of the kids with the rare charity luncheon thrown in. Is that what People wants me to get from this story? That Kate does nothing but all hail FFQ?!
Yeah, I don’t get why they keep telling on themselves! We know she doesn’t do any work; why are they bragging about it?
I’m guessing this is Carole trying to make lazy happen.
Kate’s too normal and down to earth to do royal work. They’re hoping the other SAHM’s empathize with her even though they don’t have the kind of help she does, and recharacterize Kate’s laziness as aspirational. Poor lamb will eventually be queen but for now she’s just like you and me. It’s People magazine in December. It’s for women who have had to get everything together for the holidays and want some fun escapism. This is the same magazine that used to regularly put the Duggars on the cover.
@Kalana – well, I am a SAHM and she just pisses me off. Someone downthread talked about how for a lot of us the dream would be to have a nanny and a housekeeper and be able to focus on some real passion projects and that would be my dream. I have half-written about eight children’s stories but just don’t have the blocks of time or mental space to actually do the rest of the work.
And she just squanders her privilege.
@Kalana, ITA. @Betsy, same. I’m currently a SAHM but before that I had a job for many years and I don’t have nannies and cooks and cleaners, etc.
Frankly, in the middle of a pandemic in which my child is doing remote schooling, decorating for Christmas isn’t among my top priorities and this all comes across as insulting. But a lot of their target audience is…just not very intelligent, and they like looking at Kate’s clothes and hair, so.
The main point seems to be: nevermind Kate, William can make tea and is therefore fully qualified to be the King of England! Tea, guys! Tea! So English! Much cup!
She’s a cautionary tale about social climbing not being that satisfactory in the end… there’s of course great literature on the subject, but she’s a strange, public, modern example.
😂🤣”Tea guys….TEA!”😂
“Even if she were married to a banker, I don’t think she would be much different” ”
This is exactly the problem. Kate IS NOT married to banker. Kat IS married to the Future Prince of Wales and the Future King William V.
Exactly! She didn’t marry a banker – she probably should have, but she didn’t. She married the future future king and her laziness is not suited for the role
Most Americans don’t know or care about the particulars re: titles, and we know that no matter what, People magazine will have “QUEEN KATE” splashed all over everything.
It’s kind of funny how they literally act as if Charles and Camilla don’t even exist.
Yes! And she grew up in England during the Diana years; even if the salcious stuff wasn’t front page news, there would have been at least a few articles on Diana’s work that Carole would have read. It might be hindsight is 20/20, but even as a student in London in 1994, I was aware of the gossip and expectations of the BRF. And Kate dated William for 10 years; at some point there were issues with her work ethic. So she knew she was expected to cut a ribbon here or there in exchange for her subsidized lifestyle. Also, as the ex-wife of an actual CEO, I can attest to the fact that I was still busy: planning dinners for clients, parties for employees, making holiday plans while he traveled. I had help, for which I am extremely grateful, but it was still like having a second job as I also had my own career and interests.
I do sometimes wonder what Kate would have done if William had never proposed or if they had never met. Would she have married a banker, a lawyer or maintenance worker? Would she have a satisfying job or career or would Mummy continue supporting her?
The phrase “even if she was married to a banker” is very telling. Kate’s puff pieces never mention any potential career of her own, it’s always on the type of man she would have “married”. She always wanted to live on a country estate, yes don’t we all, but most people have to actually work and earn their own money. All these embiggening pieces confirm is that kate never planned on having a career of her own, and she only ever wanted to marry a very rich man so she can prance around on her country estate. Is that not confirmation she’s a gold digger.
Kate wanted to be served and not to serve. So bleating about duty is meaningless because Kate DGAF and the British media is going to have to come up with reasons to hide her laziness since she’s not going to change.
She’s lazy, boring, and inept, and that trifecta is going to be a big problem for her as things go forward and the british press is either going to have to scramble to cover that up, or they are just going to hang her out to dry. Right now you can kind of cover it up bc she’s not working, but once she’s princess of wales (or duchess of cornwall) she’s going to be a direct comparison to people like Princess Mary or even Crown Princess Victoria (even though she’ll be the next monarch and Kate wont be.) Even as PoW I think there will be comparisons to Queen Letizia. And Kate falls flat compared to them – work-wise, competency-wise, fashion-wise. And it will be interesting to see how far the british press will go to cover that up.
Kate always wanted to be a Real Housewife.
@becks1 is there a difference between the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall titles? I thought they were simultaneous titles? Also, does anyone know what titles Camilla and Kate will hold once their husbands ascend?
@Steph – yes, there is a difference. William automatically becomes Duke of Cornwall when his father becomes king (and Kate becomes Duchess of Cornwall.) He has to be invested as Prince of Wales. It’s not automatic. Charles was already prince of wales when he married Diana, so she became Princess of Wales, but she was also the duchess of cornwall as one of her lesser titles. This is why Camilla goes by Duchess of Cornwall – because Princess of Wales is so associated with Diana – but she IS also the princess of wales.
When Charles becomes king, they have said that Camilla would be Princess Consort, but I think she’ll be Queen. I think if she does become princess, Charles would set it so that the all future wives are known as princess consort. (i.e. if Camilla isn’t queen, Kate wont be queen either.)
but as it stands now, while they say she’ll be “princess consort,” since she’ll be the wife of the king, she’ll be queen, its just a matter of debate what she will go by.
Duchess of Cornwall is automatic because the Duchy of Cornwall goes to the eldest male heir of the monarch. The title of Prince of Wales has to be bestowed by the monarch and it is not automatic. Therefore the spouse of the male hair doesn’t become princess of Wales until her husband has the title bestowed. Charles was already prince of Wales when he married Diana and technically Camilla is currently princess of Wales but chooses not to use it. Kate will not be princess of Wales immediately upon the death of the queen. Charles will have to bestow the title at a later date, and seeing as there will be a mourning period, it will probably be at least a year later. There was a similar gap when queen Victoria died and the future George V was Duke of Cornwall and York for a year before he was prince of Wales.
@becks1 thanks! So will Edinburgh go without someone titled royal until the next time the monarch is a woman? Camilla and Kate won’t become Duchess of Edinburgh bc their titles are based on their husbands’?
@Steph – I don’t know the full history of the duke of edinburgh (like I don’t know if there have been others in the past) but I don’t “think” the title is related to being the spouse of the monarch. The dukedom was bestowed on Phillip at marriage and the thinking at the time was that they would be duke and duchess of Edinburgh for a long time.
Supposedly when Phillip dies Edward is going to be named Duke of Edinburgh.
But no, the next spouse of a female monarch wont automatically become the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Albert was not, for example.) And no, Camilla and Kate will no be Duchesses of Edinburgh. Kate’s next “upgrade” will be duchess of cornwall, then princess of wales, then either princess or queen consort.
The Duke of Edinburgh is a new title made by the queen, and bestowed upon her husband Phillip. In a prior agreement with Edward Wessex upon his marriage to Sophie, he was given the lesser title of Earl with the understanding that the Ducal title would be conferred upon phillip’s death. Yes I know too much about this and have no life.
@nic919 thanks
It’s been stated that Edward will succeed to the DOE title. It’s a hereditary one, it won’t go away to await a future male consort. It was last held by Queen Victoria’s second son Alfred but his only son predeceased him so it reverted back to the crown. (This is what will happen to Andrew’s dukedom as well.) It will thus go to Charles as the eldest son but the apparent plan is for him to relinquish it in favor of Edward.
Edward VII was the longest reigning POW until Charles. When he succeeded his son, the future George V (the queen’s grandfather) wasn’t made POW for a year to put some distance between him and his father. He was known as the Duke of Cornwall and York (his royal dukedom while his father was POW). William would likely be the Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge until he’s named POW.
Thank you! @becks1 @nic919 @courtneyb
The thing is that Kate’s personality isn’t suited to the role she’s in now let alone when she’s the Queen Consort. She doesn’t have the people skills to effectively communicate with the crowds and does’t seem to have found the enthusiasm and follow through to make a difference for any of the causes she allegedly champions.
Kate is the double of a Weybridge (hugely-expensive commuter belt) Wife. They’re hyper competitive when it comes to slimness, their children (largely looked after by a too-young harrassed European au pair, but for whom WWs take all the credit) and how much money their husbands are making. They’re *extremely* middle-middle class, and often Rotarians because they think membership confers some cachet; the kind who think they’re being frightfully Brideshead Revisited because they own a croquet set, and have their houses done out in white marble, London Beige and matt black fixtures. They feel they’ve arrived because they can burn through a Diptyque candle in an evening.
This is a fantastic insight.
Your comments always remind me of a book from the early aughts called “Watching the English” – so detailed and so delightfully phrased:)
I just read that!
@Andrew’s Nemesis this is a fabulous comment, and it also applies 100% to many of the women who live in the pricier suburbs of NYC. It describes them so perfectly, down to the candle.
I love this so much – I have a friend who lives in Weybridge and you are so spot on about it. The place is also popular with celebrities and has several gated communities – the most exclusive being St George’s Hill where celebs like Jenson Button, Elton John, Ringo Starr and John Lennon live or have lived there. It’s also popular with FA premier league footballers (i.e. John Terry). The properties there are palatial.
That part of Surrey is middle class snob central as is Richmond, Surbiton and Shepperton.
I need more info on this species…..
This is where I think Kate’s envy for Pippa comes out. Pippa has the ‘bankers wife’ life, married to a rich man and isn’t required to lift a single finger. If it wasn’t for Caroles (and to an extent Kate) ambitions to chase the future King, Kate would’ve jumped at the chance to be a bankers wife. No matter how much Kate envies her life now because she’s being forced to work, it’s what she chose! She knew exactly what she was getting in to. There’s no use for her non-existent friends* to whisper sweet nothings like these to the magazines all to make Kate look relatable. They’re setting her up.
* I thought friends weren’t allowed to speak to the press too?!?!
yes, I’ve always thought so too, that Kate must really envy Pippa’s life. Kate will have to keep working her whole life, well into her 90s it looks like, while Pippa and Meghan will be in their hammocks 😉
Could anyone look at Princess Diana’s life – not the sad parts, but rather the work she did during and after her marriage – and say it would have been the same had she been married to a banker? And yet they are almost in the same place (Diana was a little closer to being queen, but still.)
Diana’s work was also heavily covered by the media and since Kate was growing up in the UK there is no way she didn’t know that Diana was doing actual charitable work. Not just wearing pretty dresses and tiaras.
Kate’s aim, in marrying into the family, was to be the anti-Diana. Work less, lose her personality, don’t overshadow her husband and to remain quiet.
I don’t think Carole or Kate actually realized that the position would require getting out of bed early, getting dressed, leaving the house, driving somewhere, interacting with randoms, looking interested and guffawing, then driving home and doing it all over again the next day, or the next day. That there wouldn’t necessarily be days and days in-between to recover or lunch out or have the afternoon tennis lesson two times a week or stay in bed if you had cramps. Diana, the Queen, Princess Ann kept up/keep up a rigorous schedule, but I think Kate basically can’t do it without feeling taken advantage of. That’s basically what the being wheeled out like a top CEO quote was saying.
@Harper. I don’t think she realized William would always use her as a shield for his own issues. Carole and Michael also had a long courtship -seven years, but after that Michael seems to have been a devoted father and supportive husband. William was wherever for George’s first six months, went to Kenya for Charlotte’s first Easter, went hunting in Spain while Kate vacationed with her family, cheated with Rose and on and on and on. I can see Kate being one of those people thinking things would change once they got married and she created a nice home and there were cute kids. She wanted to be his Camilla.
The first major fight Kate and William supposedly had after they got married was when Kate left for vacation with her family while William elected to stay on base a little longer and then join the family. Now a normal service member would have no choice so I thought it was interesting that they were indirectly admitting William could come and go as he pleased and Kate knowing that was angry that he wouldn’t go with her.
I don’t think she actually thought about the work that would be involved. I think kate looked at Diana and only saw her stardom. Diana was not only the most famous woman of her time but of all time. Kate thought she would automatically inherit Diana’s stardom upon marriage, without having to lift a damn finger.
@February-Pisces: I wrote something similar upthread before I saw this conversation. I agree; Carole & Kate’s plan ended at the wedding day. They didn’t give a single thought as to what would be required after she was married. Which is insane because Carole was supposedly a huge Diana fan, so she would have known how much work Diana did.
Doesn’t anyone find it odd that they refer to what she would be doing as a banker’s wife and not being a banker herself? It’s not the 1950s and most women are excepted to get a job nowadays so this retrograde approach to Kate not even thinking of getting a job is weird. Especially to an American audience where ambition is not quite the sin it is to UK upper classes. She’s not going to appeal to anyone under 40, maybe even 50 with this approach, outside of the sister wife segment, but I doubt they buy people magazine.
Exactly @nic919. It’s gross. And it’s such a double standard because the same people are always demeaning Meghan’s acting as “just” a being an actress.
All i can say is that this is some bullshit🤦🏽♀️. Going by how kate was pre marriage I honestly doubt she is a country gal. Then again kids do tend to change things. Also i sometimes believe she would prefer being married to a banker. At least then she can be the housewife/socialite she always wanted to be
I think that the editor at People decided it’s been a tough year and it’s fine to throw a cover story together from old quotes lying around.
Why not: even if she were a banker? Or: if she were a cook, cleaner, politician, scientist, seamstress, construction worker?
Or is it so hard to define her by her own work, even hypothetically?
I think she married one of the few men in the world who want a lazy wife. Most men don’t no matter wealthy or not.
Princess Anne was a great mother and worked hard and lived in the country. Kate has no excuses.
LOL. It’s like, if she wasn’t married to William of course she would have married a banker. That’s the sad thing about this world she inhabits, they’re not even ashamed of their greed. Or worse, their lack of imagination.
The -content to be a housewife- usually are KP based rather than Middleton based. The Middletons like painting William as dependent on Top CEO and future (future) queen Kate. Watching makeup tutorials and supervising the kids and filling William in on the details because apparently he doesn’t already know what’s going on with his own children seems very KP Tory traditional.
She wouldn’t get a job too?
This is so out of touch. As an american, if and when I have kids, I’m not going to be a stay at home country mom. I’ll be working my fanny off, just like my hubs, and if we’re lucky, we may have a nanny. But no, this will not be a country, everyday mom that does nothing, situation for myseld, and probably a majority of women in the US and Britain. It’s not feasible anymore.
Do you think the Cambridge children will go to boarding school like generations before them? I doubt it bc then neither W or K could use parenting to excuse their laziness.
The boys will definitely attend Eton.
I think Eton was a Diana thing, not a royal family thing. Charles went to Gordonstoun. So it will be interesting to see if she follows Diana there.
Some have speculated that she would send the kids to Marlborough, because then they could all attend together (which honestly, would probably make more sense from a security perspective) but I guess time will tell.
I think gordonstoun was very traumatic for Charles hence why he didn’t send his sons there, plus it’s quite far away. I think kate will have no problem sending all her kids away to boarding school, it will mean even more time for tennis, Pilates and shopping. But I think the working and middle classes tend to judge parents who pack their kids off to boarding school, so I wonder how “middle class Middleton” is going to handle those optics, and what excuse she will use to get out of work when she has an empty house.
I see it totally differently — if she sends the kids off to boarding school, she automatically loses her excuse to never work because she’s a “hands-on mom.” I think she’ll want to keep them at home as long as possible for that reason alone.
Carole and Kate are all about status and sending the boys to Eton would be the class privilege that Carole was not able to do for James. I will be surprised they don’t attend Eton because I believe they are around 13 when they attend so that would not be quite as young. Also their father attended and future king George should probably be part of the elite as well. Unless William actually steps in and says otherwise I think Eton is where the boys will attend. William and Harry were sent to boarding school much earlier than that and so that segment of the UK would not be critical of a teen boy attending Eton.
Lorelei…
I think Louis may end up not going to boarding school because it’s really his care that dictates how long she can drag out not working.
I honestly don’t think the kids are going to single sex schools. I suspect they’ll board at Marlborough or go to a London day school so that they can all be together.
I don’t think William was particularly happy at Eton anyways.
At first glance I thought the article said “if she were married to a wanker” and thought to myself “but she IS married to a wanker”. Going to make coffee now…….
😂 Both are correct!
I misread this headline as “baker”— fun for a short moment to picture Kate in a white apron and one of those giant poofy hats up to her elbows in bread dough.
LOL my husband is a banker and I’ve had this misunderstanding a few times when I tell people what he does. They always get a funny look on their face, probably imagining just what you said.
I wonder if Pippa ever sits back with a martini and laughs at how she got the better end of the deal. She is living the life that Kate wants essentially. Rich husband, luxury, and a life of leisure with no expectations to work ever.
@Amelie: She didn’t get a title, though, and she was hustling pretty hard for a while there to get a guy who was heir to a peerage. I also get the sense that, had Pippa been the one to land a royal, she would have been less averse to getting out there and working (provided a photographer was on hand to capture it).
I agree. Pippa would have faked it much better than Kate.
I find these covers utterly bizarre. Do these issues really sell? Also I can’t think of any other celebrity woman constantly being coddled and assuring the public she’s “confident as a mom” and not a pushover to her kids. I guess she deserves a medal for reaching the bar that is in hell.
MRS was Keens only ambition in life.
I have to say puff pieces like this work. Before Meghan joined the Royal Family I always thought Kate was a stay at home with no exceptions for her or her role than what has been outlined in this article. What I find interesting is this weird pivot from overworked CEO to humble stay at home mom. I just don’t understand the constant propping up of this women with lies that don’t match her reality as if people will not recognize her privilege especially now. I honestly think they should try the truth for her sake more than anything else. I can’t imagine what it must be like to constantly have to live out this lie.
Everything about her is based on lies, even really small basic things. For example they said ‘she does the school run” yet the kids are always dropped off in 3 blacked out SUVs. I wouldn’t expect Kate to do it anyway because of security issues, but why lie? Even the times she’s seen at a supermarket, it’s always a camera phone pic, when it was probably taken by her assistant and leaked. I remember one comment how when Kate really did go to a supermarket the store was emptied of customers whilst she was in there. They use these small everyday tasks to try and make her ‘normal’ yet she doesn’t even do them. What the hell does this woman do all day?
Kate should try to actually be the woman she pretends to be instead of faking it for the press.
Kate must seriously envy pippa, she has everything she wants without having to pretend to work for it . I love the part about Willy being sick with Covid at home and the rest of the family being Covid free. Wellllll of course they were ,Willy lives and sleeps elsewhere.
I’m scrolling through the comments and this is a case of mommy wars. Sigh. Whatever. I stayed home and raised children and loved it and don’t consider myself lazy. But yeah if I married into royalty and had nannies and staff and wealth because my husband was anointed by God then yeah, I guess I would feel that I should leave the house and DO something other than plan carpools, dinner, and tomorrow’s lunches.
Your second half is exactly the point. very few (no one?) of us are bashing SAHMs in general. We’re bashing Kate’s general laziness and the continual push by the palace to make it seem like Kate’s not lazy, she’s a SAHM, she’s busy doing that! When we all know she’s not, because she has more help than most of us can even imagine. And that’s okay in itself – but it does beg the question of what exactly does she do all day.
SAHMs aren’t lazy, but Kate is. (but she’s not a SAHM.)
@Ann I totally agree with Becks. I’m also a SAHM and the “mommy wars” are so tiresome and ridiculous, but Kate is not a typical SAHM. Becks is right that the second part of your comment is exactly the point.
1) nobody is doing “mommy wars”
2) Being a SAHM is totally valid and I don’t knock anyone who is. But when you’re married to the future King and are paid millions a year in exchange for putting on a pretty dress and waving to the peasants a few times a week, you’re expected to work and not stay at home with the kids all day.
Since you can’t identify one comment that criticizes SAHM I will chalk up your comment to gaslighting. And it’s not the first time a rando shows up accusing people of attacking SAHM all in the name of pretending that’s what Kate is. She isn’t. She a lazy rich girl who’s barely worked in her life and doesn’t do a fraction of what real SAHMs do. So the only mommy wars are in your mind, not what’s actually been said here.
Who is writing this drivel?? Why is it necessary to pretend she didn’t want “the job”? She spent her youth chasing it, c’mon now.
I guess because if there weren’t puff pieces like this, she wouldn’t be in the news at all since she does nothing. And that’s unacceptable, so they’ll throw anything out there just to remind people that there’s more than one Duchess.
I think the way these tabloids play up English country life like a personality trait or virtue, is very similar to how politicians here trot out that whole American heartland trope. It speaks to a very, specific demographic , those against multiculturalism, urbanism, etc. Just a country girl at heart. This has been done forever as a wedge issue.
This is such a spot-on comment.
It reminds me of Willy’s engagement speech and how he adamantly,almost anglry stated that kate was not in any way like his mother nor should anyone expect her to be.
I can’t stop laughing at your headline even before I read the article. It basically says if she weren’t the future future she’d be PIPPA! Or even CAROLE!
So many maneuvers for so little….keenness.
Final thoughts about Rose Hanbury vs this article (I’m sure no one is reading these comments anymore lol). So Rose is also a housewife but if you follow her at all, the contrast with Kate is…interesting. She’s much more of a sophisticate, and her husband’s home allows her to host amazing art exhibits and festivals, lavish, arty dinners with arty luminaries, etc. It’s scattered across social media if you know where to look. Way way above the workaday, new money connotations of………Banker’s Wife…. which has a decidedly “middle class aspiration” feel to it. A little turnip toff-ish, that description of Keen.