This whole Shaping Us thing seems so.... hollow? Seems very weird to say "guys the first five years are actually very important for children" and then proceed to "raise awareness" at an absolute snails pace with no signpost as to what practical support they'll offer or recommend? How many kids are going to have gone through that golden window before there is any more substance to it?
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there was a quote in one of the DM articles to the effect that Kate makes sure her 3 have time outside to play and this is extremely important in young children … which, yes it absolutely is … but unfortunately for a lot of people, it’s also extremely difficult to find places and ways to do that … even more so since the Great Playing Field Sell Off. Unfortunately, most kids don’t have the likes of Windsor Great Park to let off steam in.
The public is tiring of the Royal Family's performative philanthropy
William and Kate’s ill-fated food bank visit shows we’re losing our appetite for royal posturing
inews.co.uk
'' The problem with this “major new awareness-raising campaign” though, is that she can’t say anything about what Britain is currently doing wrong. It would open her up to accusations of hypocrisy and undue political interference. ''
The primary cause of the cost of living crisis and rising inflation isn't really anything to do with Britain but Putin's invasion of Ukraine, restricting energy and food supplies and the sanctions imposed on his regime. Even the Tsars never caused us the problems President Putin has!The public is tiring of the Royal Family's performative philanthropy
William and Kate’s ill-fated food bank visit shows we’re losing our appetite for royal posturing
'' The problem with this “major new awareness-raising campaign” though, is that she can’t say anything about what Britain is currently doing wrong. It would open her up to accusations of hypocrisy and undue political interference. ''
They really need to follow it up with some practical support or even some tips on easy ways to have a positive impact on a child in their first 5 years. I don't think there's any harm in raising awareness though. I know we all know the information already in the same way that we all know what we should be eating and how we should be exercising but we're not all doing it. The messaging in the media might just catch someone at a time that they're receptive to it and lead to them making a few small changes. She definitely needs to add something concrete and practical onto this campaign though. Fund some playgrounds or community gardens or something.
I would hope that they're targeting the awareness campaign - if they seek to enable more outdoors play then they need to target more than parents. They need to target local councils to protect green spaces, corporations to commit to PR campaigns around donating to playgrounds, etc.
I do wonder if part of focusing on an awareness campaign is due to rules around royals providing opinions on politics and certain corporate matters - if you can't target the councils and companies directly, target their local voters and consumers and have them push for informed change.
As has been said, I'd like to see more practical support, but as the net has been cast wide I can see it would be difficult at this stage to have a clear practical element. They likely presently have no clear charity to grant patronage, and can't fund "get outside more, and focus on secure attachment followed by avoidance of childhood adversity" as a concept.
Hopefully there's further elements to come that will draw a clear line with the intent - focusing on charities aiding parents of young children to access support would be the logical option, I would think.
I do wonder if part of focusing on an awareness campaign is due to rules around royals providing opinions on politics and certain corporate matters - if you can't target the councils and companies directly, target their local voters and consumers and have them push for informed change.
As has been said, I'd like to see more practical support, but as the net has been cast wide I can see it would be difficult at this stage to have a clear practical element. They likely presently have no clear charity to grant patronage, and can't fund "get outside more, and focus on secure attachment followed by avoidance of childhood adversity" as a concept.
Hopefully there's further elements to come that will draw a clear line with the intent - focusing on charities aiding parents of young children to access support would be the logical option, I would think.
I wouldn't mind if the awareness that was being raised was amplifying the voices of the people that have done the research, know the psychology and could convey the message. The main output I've seen so far is a load of Instagram C listers telling us that Catherine is doing a great job. But at what exactly??
It's so sad that something that should be universally supported (funding the lives and development of children) is deemed too political to have some weight behind it.
Hopefully it all picks up and becomes more impactful
It's so sad that something that should be universally supported (funding the lives and development of children) is deemed too political to have some weight behind it.
Hopefully it all picks up and becomes more impactful
It’s difficult isn’t it … and in a way everything that is said just highlights the differences between them and some the people being targeted.
yes, it’s lovely that their kids play outside, do arts and crafts, have time away from screens and are having a generally Enid Blyton childhood. However, a lot of the people they are targeting have no safe green spaces for play and while they know full well screens aren’t an ideal babysitter at least watching TV keeps them quiet while mum is cooking the pasta for tea rather than sticking it on a piece of paper … because choices.
Super old from 2008 haha but interesting how the Queen wanted Kate to have a proper career? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-job-Prince-William-announces-engagement.html
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Another one haha the mail really hated her https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...leton-charity-job-counter-claims-workshy.html
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Another one haha the mail really hated her https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...leton-charity-job-counter-claims-workshy.html
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This is it and why it seems such a badly thought out idea to me. If I sit down this weekend and talk about early childhood then I will end up being furious about how little money is invested in it (in nurseries, in help for new parents like health visitors). Then I will get cross about the fact the person who wants me to do this has five houses, a nanny and a job that she and her husband can both basically make suit their family for the majority of the time. I am quite amazed that her advisors can’t see that this exposes the massive gulf between her lifestyle and the lifestyle of most other people in the uk (even the middle classes). I can see that she is now so encased in her world that it’s difficult for her to step outside it and understand reality for others. But isn’t this where she should be getting expert help?
And I still don’t understand what any of this is actually going to do long-term. How it’s going to improve the situation and nothing that is being said is making it any clearer. It just feels like so much hot air to me.
Having a bunch of D list celebrities posting photos of their childhood on instagram is performative activism at its best. Who’s going to see a photo of Roman Kemp as a child and go ‘yes, early years is important! Let me go and spend more time with my child outside?’
I think there are several problems with Kate and the Early Years which add up.
(1) the Walses didn’t have to face the heat for a long time because the Sussexes managed one duck up after another and before the tabloids loved to play them against each other and the Walses got the Golden Couple role this round.
(2) people were willing to cut them some slack. Let Kate find her footing, raise children… but now they are first in line with a prestigious title and the children are out of the house 5 days a week for most of the day.
(3) KP sells her approach with such high praise it creates a certain expectation. It’s always her DOING something which she doesn’t deliver on really. If the narrative would be her SUPPORTING others in doing something, a simple awareness campaign wouldn’t look so weak.
(4) Kate and her team need to up their game in terms of fact and name dropping. Allegedly, she is very knowledgeable. Too bad you can’t tell.
(5) the general timeline is just bad. They are both 40 and their two big topics are just starting to get going. It’s rushed to appear as more than it is. But you really can’t skip a good decade of grunt work. They might have missed the right window.
(6) I think a big awareness campaign could work if she consistently pushes this now. Like every week for 5 years. Yeahhhh, don’t think so. How about support the strikers AND programs that will support the parents that have a childcare problem through the strike. Show up for every initiative that helps and give them publicity so parents know about them and reach out. If the pressure gets too high politics will come up with some bandaid programs and at least pay serious lip service (hello NHS and environment).
People are rightfully disappointed and the criticism looks even more severe because there wasn’t much in the last three years.
(1) the Walses didn’t have to face the heat for a long time because the Sussexes managed one duck up after another and before the tabloids loved to play them against each other and the Walses got the Golden Couple role this round.
(2) people were willing to cut them some slack. Let Kate find her footing, raise children… but now they are first in line with a prestigious title and the children are out of the house 5 days a week for most of the day.
(3) KP sells her approach with such high praise it creates a certain expectation. It’s always her DOING something which she doesn’t deliver on really. If the narrative would be her SUPPORTING others in doing something, a simple awareness campaign wouldn’t look so weak.
(4) Kate and her team need to up their game in terms of fact and name dropping. Allegedly, she is very knowledgeable. Too bad you can’t tell.
(5) the general timeline is just bad. They are both 40 and their two big topics are just starting to get going. It’s rushed to appear as more than it is. But you really can’t skip a good decade of grunt work. They might have missed the right window.
(6) I think a big awareness campaign could work if she consistently pushes this now. Like every week for 5 years. Yeahhhh, don’t think so. How about support the strikers AND programs that will support the parents that have a childcare problem through the strike. Show up for every initiative that helps and give them publicity so parents know about them and reach out. If the pressure gets too high politics will come up with some bandaid programs and at least pay serious lip service (hello NHS and environment).
People are rightfully disappointed and the criticism looks even more severe because there wasn’t much in the last three years.
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Absolute balls.
I know it was a few months ago but have you already forgotten the complete shambles of the Truss/Kwarteng budget? Are you so silly that you’re going to blame skyrocketing mortgages, plummeting pensions and a cost to this country of £30 BILLION on someone other than the current appalling government?
I suppose you think Brexit (current cost to the economy of 4% lower GDP - £100billion in output per year ) was a jolly good idea and hasn’t tanked this country’s economy and reputation at all.
I'm surprised the Mail haven't deleted articles like that. Though I guess they'd have been copied in thousands of other places so not much point
Is the early years project (or whatever it is) going down that badly? I know I don’t like it but I am not seeing lots of criticism of it, more indifference
Which is probably even worse. At least criticism means people are talking. I suppose that’s it’s because regardless of intentions it does have a tinge of Lady of the Manor Vanity Project about it.
I remember when they were writing about W&K wedding and they made all these digs at Chelsy saying compared the the Middleton girls she was trashy because she dyed her hair blonde and wasn’t ‘au naturel’ like K and P.
Because the shade Pippa was that day was so natural, right
Inflation was just 4.8% in the UK in December 2021 before Putin invaded Ukraine. By August 2022 inflation was 10% after Putin's invasion, well before the Truss budget in the autumn.Absolute balls.
I know it was a few months ago but have you already forgotten the complete shambles of the Truss/Kwarteng budget? Are you so silly that you’re going to blame skyrocketing mortgages, plummeting pensions and a cost to this country of £30 BILLION on someone other than the current appalling government?
I suppose you think Brexit (current cost to the economy of 4% lower GDP - £100billion in output per year ) was a jolly good idea and hasn’t tanked this country’s economy and reputation at all.
Yes the Truss budget pushed up mortgage rates but again that was nothing to do with the royals, indeed Truss in her younger days was a republican as well as a LD.
I voted Remain but the low earners who voted for Brexit with pensioners have seen their wages rise faster than average
UK sees fastest wage rises in sectors most reliant on EU workers - Indeed
British wages are rising fastest in low-paid sectors where employers previously relied on workers from the European Union, new analysis from recruitment agency Indeed showed on Friday.
I think she can get political though because it is something everyone universally agrees on. She’s not putting herself into contentious topics like Brexit or unions striking, even in her chat with Roman he was taking it down the route of struggling parents economically and she steered it away. The current government have invested money into the Early Years in recent years and ring fenced hundreds of millions for youth centres (whether they ever opened is another question). But she’s held round tables with politicians, she could continue those and put pressure on them to stick to their promises, even fund some centres herself through private corporate donations like Williams done with Earthshot.
Her Hold Still book was a big success, it was a number 1 Times bestseller and non fiction books on self improvement are huge right now, there’s even one I’ve seen that’s popular on not repeating your parents mistakes. She could use her contacts from that book to put together an easily readable book with tips on the early years with all these experts and she write the foreword. Make a tv series talking about this instead of just a 3 minute chat with a radio celebrity that’s put on YouTube. There’s a lot of things she can do and has the contacts for and that we’ve seen William doing that go beyond awareness on instagram.
What on earth are you talking about? I was replying to your ridiculous post about Putin. I didn’t mention the Royals. And neither did you.Inflation was just 4.8% in the UK in December 2021 before Putin invaded Ukraine. By August 2022 inflation was 10% after Putin's invasion, well before the Truss budget in the autumn.
Yes the Truss budget pushed up mortgage rates but again that was nothing to do with the royals, indeed Truss in her younger days was a republican as well as a LD.
I voted Remain but the low earners who voted for Brexit with pensioners have seen their wages rise faster than average
UK sees fastest wage rises in sectors most reliant on EU workers - Indeed
British wages are rising fastest in low-paid sectors where employers previously relied on workers from the European Union, new analysis from recruitment agency Indeed showed on Friday.www.reuters.com
And as for the article you quoted - most of the rises in wages have been in industries that used to be reliant on workers from the EU - which were notoriously badly paid. ( Hence having to bring in foreign workers to do those jobs )
“Importing workers from the EU is no longer the safety valve for businesses that it was before Brexit. Employers now have little option but to hike pay to try to entice workers," Indeed economist Jack Kennedy said.”
I’m not sure that article is the win you think it is.
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