Kate Middleton Needs to Take a Different Approach to Her Childhood Work, Commentators Say
TL;DR:
- Kate Middleton launched Shaping Us, a public awareness campaign about childhood development, in January 2023.
- Commentators say Kate Middleton needs to take “measured risks” to make lasting change.
- Specifically, getting “political,” which working British royals don’t do.
Kate Middleton’s Shaping Us awareness campaign is here, but some commentators believe it may not result in lasting change. That is if the Princess of Wales doesn’t take “measured risks.” Ahead, more on the campaign and why commentators say Kate needs a different approach to her early childhood development work.
Kate Middleton ‘determined’ early childhood work will shift society’s focus
Kate announced Shaping Us, a public awareness campaign through her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood with an open letter.
“As a society, we currently spend much more of our time and energy on later life,” Kate wrote (via Harper’s Bazaar). “I am absolutely determined that this long-term campaign is going to change that.”
Kate’s since appeared in a video discussing childhood, unveiled a new Instagram account, and visited a university to chat with students.
A commentator says Kate Middleton may need to ‘get political’ and ‘take the criticism’ to make real change
“Is it maybe time for Kate to possibly just start taking a few measured risks?” Jack Royston said in the Jan. 31 episode of The Royal Report podcast.
“So, what can she actually do?” he asked. “I thought about it and in the end I just kind of thought: ‘You know what, maybe she does actually just need to get political.'”
“We always say royals shouldn’t be political, where Harry and Meghan have done it and been criticized for it, Royston added. “Other royals have tried to do it, they’ve been criticized in the past.”
“And maybe she would be criticized but maybe, just maybe, if this is—as Kensington Palace leads us to believe—truly her life’s work where she wants to make a difference, maybe she just needs to do it and take the criticism,” Royston said.
Kate Middleton ‘stuck’ without getting political, commentator explains
Omid Scobie, the co-author of Finding Freedom, believes Kate’s campaign highlights a problem with the royal family’s charity work.
Kate “will no doubt find herself stuck,” Scobie wrote for Yahoo News UK of which he’s Royal Executive Editor. The reason, he explained, is Kate has “few options” to help address funding.
“If anything, Shaping Us exposes the ineffectiveness that the royal family’s charity work can have,” he later added. “Because it is almost impossible to make an impact in this field, or even usher in the smallest of change, without considering all the social factors that have an impact on early development.”
All of which, Scobie pointed out, can’t happen without “stepping into policy or politics.” Or “the one thing Kate can’t do as a working member of the royal family.”
