How long have we been talking about this Early Years initiative? The discussion began in earnest in autumn 2018, because that’s when Camp Cambridge claimed that the Duchess of Sussex was hijacking all of the attention away from what would have been THE moment for Kate to “launch” her big, epic project. The launch never came. There was a lot of keenness and a lot of hype for the eventual launch. Kate even threw a fancy big-girl party at Buckingham Palace for the mysterious initiative back in February 2019. When the Cambridges and Sussexes separated their offices & charities last year, the newly-revamped Royal Foundation website even said that Kate would launch Early Years by the end of 2019. It didn’t happen, nor did they really describe what was actually being “launched.” But it’s happening now, against all odds. So what is being launched and how does it involve trousers & pussybows? From the KensingtonRoyal IG:
Today The Duchess of Cambridge launches #5BigQuestions 📋 on the Under 5s, a landmark survey which gives people across the UK an opportunity to provide their view on raising the next generation. The survey is designed to bring together the thoughts of as many people across the UK as possible – recognising that everyone has a role in ensuring strong, healthy foundations for the youngest in our society that will positively affect their lifelong outcomes.
5 Big Questions on the Under 5s aims to spark the biggest ever conversation on early childhood that will ultimately help bring about positive, lasting change for generations to come.
Earlier today The Duchess kickstarted the launch of the survey during a visit to MiniBrum at @thinktankmuseum, where she was shown around the interactive, child-sized mini-city by children who helped design the space and spoke to parents and carers about the survey.
On the 5 Big Questions on the Under 5s Survey, The Duchess said: “Parents, carers and families are at the heart of caring for children in the formative years, so that is why I want to listen to them. As a parent I know how much we cherish the future health and happiness of our children. I want to hear the key issues affecting our families and communities so I can focus my work on where it is needed most. My ambition is to provide a lasting change for generations to come.”
[From KensingtonRoyal Instagram]
From what I understand, the 5 Big Questions is just the first phase of Early Years, and the results “will be revealed in March and will determine the Duchess’s next steps,” according to the Daily Mirror. The Mirror also emphasized that THIS is what she’s been doing for “eight years,” which… she spent eight years coming up with a five-question quiz, and when she sees the results, only then will she know how to proceed? As for the questionnaire, it’s very… uh, simple. From the BBC:
1. What do you believe is most important for children growing up in the UK today to live a happy adult life? Rank from most important to least important:
Good physical and mental health
Good friendships and relationships
Access to opportunities
Access to a good education2. Which of these statements is closest to your opinion?
It is primarily the responsibility of parents to give children aged 0-5 the best chance of health and happiness
It is primarily the responsibility of others in society to give children aged 0-5 the best chance of health and happiness
It is the shared responsibility of parents and others in society to give children aged 0-5 the best chance of health and happiness
Don’t know3. How much do you agree or disagree with this statement? The mental health and wellbeing of parents and carers has a great impact on the development of their child(ren)
Strongly agree
Tend to agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Tend to disagree
Strongly disagree4. Which of the following is closest to your opinion of what influences how children develop from the start of pregnancy to age five?
Mostly the traits a child is born with (i.e. nature)
Mostly the experiences of a child in the early years (i.e. nurture)
Both nature and nurture equally
Don’t know5. Which period of a child and young person’s life do you think is the most important for health and happiness in adulthood?
Start of pregnancy to five years
5-11 years (primary school)
11-16 years (secondary school)
16-18 years (further education)
18-24 years (young adulthood)
Don’t know
All equally important
I… don’t understand why Kate is crowdsourcing this information and will only know how to proceed once the results are in? I mean, she’s supposedly been meeting with child-development experts for the better part of two years. And this is what they came up with? I have a questionnaire of my own for Kate.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid/Kensington Palace.
The survey is… not good.
They’ve not asked any demographic questions. People’s experiences and answers will change based on where they live, whether they have children and how many, their socioeconomic status, their age… They can’t draw any meaningful conclusions from the data they’ve collected!
What plans do they have to implement beneficial schemes for parents and children? And how are they going to decide that from the answer they get?
“Ok guys, 70% of respondents think nature and nurture are equally important to a child’s development, so therefore we’re going to…” Can anyone complete the sentence?
So disappointing for all those years (apparently) spent preparing this.
“Ok guys, 70% of respondents think nature and nurture are equally important to a child’s development, so therefore we’re going to…”
Well the obvious answer is to “wear a pussy-bow blouse”. Failing that maybe try a nice coat dress?
This entire thing seems like little thought went in to it.
The purpose of any non-scientific survey is to engage the audience, get their buy-in, and build anticipation for the next step. It’s a very common and effective marketing technique.
To Mac: yes! I was scared to say this for fear of getting jumped on. This is not a survey like the NCI surveys, they are stakeholder engagement questions. We put these out before stakeholder meetings when we are starting initiatives (I work in programmatic policy for government).
Except none of these questions are engaging or useful.
And calling it a “landmark” survey that will spark a huge conversation when its basically like “what are your thoughts on nature vs nurture guys?” Is hilarious.
I’m a professional marketing researcher and design studies/write questionnaires for a living. I agree with MAC that this must be for marketing/promotion, because what I’m seeing is devoid of any methodology or actionable results. I’m struggling to even see the research objective, what do people think is important? What people? There’s no population because anyone can take the survey and there are no demographics.
An example of a real approach would be 1) writing a 10-15 min survey with a screener and demographics questions so you actually know who your respondents are and 2) fielding the survey to a panel so that the respondents are actually who they say they are and you can target based on the demographics of England or whatever the population is you want to study.
Don’t even get me started on the question writing… it’s bad.
Doesn’t look like this is a lead-in for another initiative – this IS the initiative. Her aims with it appear to be “inspiring conversation”. And she hopes the results will “guide her future work”.
5 questions on topics already extensively researched and discussed is the initiative itself.
@Xtina, thank you for your response! I have a market research background. If I submitted this to my boss she would have asked me where my head was at.
The purpose of a marketing survey is to make sure the person answering the survey knows the answers and/or can answer in the affirmative. The questions are deliberately easy and noncontroversial. If you want to peak someone’s interest, soliciting their opinion is highly effective if it affirms what they already believe.
What’s the point of piquing their interest with a survey? I’m only saying this because these aren’t stakeholders per se, it’s the general public. Most of the time the Palace just needs to put out a release about it to drum up attention. And it looks like the survey is the initiative itself. It doesn’t really accomplish much to ask people about their babies and children affirming their already-held beliefs.
@Xtina How long would it take, from start to finish, to come up with 5 questions of this caliber? It almost seems like they didn’t have anything to produce at the end of 2019, so they threw together these questions to make her seem busy. I await your insight (not being snarky, I’m genuinely curious).
Kate gets praise simply for having her picture taken with kids. That is the whole point of her initiative — to have her photo taken with children on a regular basis to earn praise for being the epitome of womanhood and justify the existence of the monarchy. Yeah, it’s dumb, but that’s part of thw price of having a monarchy: watching them do useless photo ops to justify their existence.
As someone else who works in design and UX – this is absolutely just to provide the patina of stakeholder engagement. I am certain they already know 99.9% of how they plan to proceed, and this is just a way to make people people to feel like they were involved – “you told us X was important, so here is X!” (which we were going to do anyway). It’s campaign “research” (not actual research).
@MAC that makes a ton of sense. I’m sure they already know how they’re going to proceed. the framing is awful tho, bc it’s presented as if the survey is the groundbreaking initiative, rather than whatever they hope to do after.
“Ok guys, 70% of respondents think nature and nurture are equally important to a child’s development, so therefore we’re going to…”
…have another baby and hope people forget about the whole thing?
@ OZJENNIFER~~As I read the 5 questions that Kate worked so very hard on, I laughed deliriously as I sat alone in my car.
BUT…but your comment, in its snarky context left me DEAD 💀💀 Thanks for giving me the deep laugh I sorely needed today 🤪💕🤗
It also overlooks the relationship between many of those factors. Looking at the first question – my guess is that KP clearly wants people to say “good physical and mental health” are the most important (or they want to educate people to understand that), but for so many, good physical and mental health are tied to things like access to opportunities and a good education, or good friendships and relationships.
Exactly! I
Also, if people outside the UK can complete this survey, without demographics questions the results will be heavily skewed and will falsely represent the UK’s needs.
They can. It worked for me and I I’m not in the UK -_-
I can’t believe nobody in their team thought of this.
It also ignores the standards of local education, local funding and availability of child MH facilities, support for families/schools/teacher in dealing with children who have MH issues relating to medical conditions such as ADHD etc..
This is nothing but a vague as fk questionnaire that looks like it was put together in 5 mins by Katie Keens PA. it’s like her, all fluff and no substance.f
There is going to be a 24 hr tour which explains the new do and face refresh. She clearly spent more time on that than this survey.
And that’s a key problem. Talking about local education and MH facilities and public support available is going to get very political very quickly.
Belli, I know but u can’t talk about early childhood initiatives in any meaningful way without talking about the other ‘political’ stuff. To me it goes hand in hand.
@Digital Unicorn you’re exactly right. While there’s plenty she could do with initiatives to support parents and children, they would be more effective as small local projects and she seems to want to be seen to be going right to the core and solving all the problems for the entire country… which is incredibly political.
The grade 11 sociology students I used to teach could design a more robust survey than this in one period. Good grief.
Well exactly. My daughter (in her own time) did a survey about school extracurriculars a couple of years ago and about a week after she first had the idea she had presented some suggestions based on the answers to the headteacher. Writing the 20 question survey itself took her an evening. 2+ years to come up with 5 vague questions is poor.
It’s not just that’s the survey isn’t good but that it’s unnecessary. The answers to these basic ass questions have long been the studies of psychologists and researchers. Kate asking the average person their opinion isn’t going to change science.
Also, the average person doesn’t have a thorough understanding of the nature/nurture debate nor do they know the complexities involved, they know little about genetics, sensitive periods, systematic barriers, etc. You can’t throw these questions on common people – this research is already decades in the works (again – done by scientists). Who does she think she is and what does she think she’s doing? What can she possibly do with the responses received? Overrun science? I’m so embarrassed this woman would think this was an intelligent starting point and further that this is somehow being funded; just donate the funds to a legitimate research team.
Thank you Digital Unicorn, Belli, Sarah, and M for your very knowledgeable and articulate comments. Especially M, whose response indicates a level of professional knowledge in this field that Kate has failed to either consult or heed advice from. Nothing in these questions will change or amplify what is already accepted knowledge in the field. I have worked in university and children’s hospital settings on legislative policies focused on various mental, physical, and educational initiatives with child psychologists, child psychiatrists, specialized pediatricians, social workers, community educators, and government officials (state and local). These 5 questions are a joke: too broad, too unfocused. Nothing of any meaning will come from the compilation of the responses. I can’t believe that it took at least 2 years of Kate meeting with professionals in this field to come up with this pap. Those professionals should be ashamed of themselves for playing this game with her.
M, exactly, such a waste of money ,energy and of course time.
They are just buying time and stalling here and it looks very unprofessional.
Also… most of these things have already been studied to determine *facts* rather than just people’s *opinions.* If I were a researcher who had been conducting actual research on childhood happiness or wellbeing, I would be seriously annoyed if Duchess Kate came along and was like, “I dunno, what do you think rando citizens, which formative years are the most important?”
And oh my god, nature vs. nuture? This is not a high school writing course! Good lord.
So I wonder if she is trying to determine the gap between research/facts and what people actually think so that she can focus her work on bridging that gap.
but again, that is something that should have been done a few years ago, not at this point.
This. So interesting that there are zero researchers/academic institutions linked to this survey, despite her repeated (?) meetings. Only a market research firm is linked to this. Which leads to the next question, who owns these data? Who is collecting this information, a private firm or the royal family? So many ethical questions here…
I actually found the link, not on the RF website but via an article provided by the BBC. Early Years on the RF site has not been updated SINCE 2018 and it’s very weak. Literally a short blurb and a couple of photos. And as PP were theorizing, ANYONE can take the quiz. It doesn’t ask for personal information of any kind, not even an email address to access it, you just click the link and the first question pops up. (I did not take the survey as that would be unethical, I live stateside.)
This is not good.
For those interested: https://survey.5bigquestions.org.uk/uc/live/
Oh dear, you are right, it let me start answering the questions as well… I did two and then backed out so as not to skew the results.
You can also take the survey as many times as you like. Oh dear egg on her face.
I’m so confused – I work at a Child Advocacy Center and these “questions” have been researched to the moon and back – we know that experiences from birth to 8 years old are by far the most formative (because brain development) and that the mental health of parents is HUGE in the development of the well being of children and that lack of opportunities for healthcare, good nutrition, stable housing, etc potentially leads to much higher rates of victimization in early childhood and therefore much greater risk across a lifetime – I’m just…why doesn’t anyone call this out? It’s not an opinion – if your household is stable financially and the parents are together and life is relatively normal, you’re going to pat yourself on the back for your nurturing – but someone under different dynamics doesn’t have the same privilege. Shaking my head so hard…and yes, I can access the survey from Virginia.
Right, these are not unknowns. It’s such a peculiar move on her part (or her people’s part). It also reads as a way to even more years of inaction. She’s going to wait until the poll results are in before she focuses on ONE thing, then she’ll really get to work!
I think they announced the project was coming when they did because of Meghan’s cookbook, and then they’ve delayed it so much they were like “Well, we need to do something. It would be good if we can launch something so flattering pictures are taken” so they spent 5 minutes doing a survey.
@AL @Poppy Yes to all of this, I run a therapeutic playgroup for children with developmental challenges. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t just partner with already established early childhood researchers (some of the best in the world live in the UK) and promote their findings. Also, as well meaning, loving and eager as parents are most of the time they really know sh*t about development as a science. I would actually love it if more people of influence dispelled some myths and helped parents to learn more functional, non-anecdotal info.
And I’m sure that only certain demographics will be able to or will want to complete the survey, which will leave out the opinions of many people who may benefit from having their voices heard. I still know people who do not have ready access to the internet, or don’t want to waste the access they do have on a survey that they may not believe has anything to do with them. Where does that leave the information? Sorely lacking.
And the fact that anyone in the world can take the survey? This was launched by people who clearly live in their own bubble.
I just put a lil message on Kate’s insta pointing just that 🙂 Only 5 comments in there so they shouldn’t miss it lol
I think people are missing the obvious… it’s just a PR survey masked as something more substantial. Kate and her team only want to know only what people WANT Kate to focus on, not which areas actually NEED focus. Kate simply wants to figure out what will give her the “biggest bang for the buck” with the public. That’s really the only information this survey will actually gather.
Realistically, who will make up the vast majority of respondents? Her fans or Royalty fans in general. She might even ensnare a few others who wouldn’t normally care what she does. If she actually cared solely about the British’s opinions, as opposed to Royal watchers and traditional/social media users,etc then they’d have limited access to it. It’s not poorly organized or stupid… it’s a PR survey.
As many others have said, actual experts already know what’s important in early childhood development. This is about aggregating the public’s opinion so she can choose the most popular area. Then again, I’m often cynical.
I think you’re right. Hadn’t thought of it that way.
If this survey is just PR or to see what people want her to work on (which I agree is plausible) then why did it take so long to launch this and what have they been doing and talking about for the past 2-3years since she gathered her “team of experts” and started having meetings with them? Why would they need to keep pushing the launch back by like 18 months? How long does it take to come up with 5 super vague questions? It’s not like they spent a long time making sure that only people in the U.K. could access it or making sure that you couldn’t take the survey over and over again? WTF has she been doing all this time? Seriously, what were they doing and talking about during their meetings if all we have to show for it is a weird ass survey that will not provide any helpful information. This seems like something that should’ve come out BEFORE or right at the beginning of her working on the Early Years initiative if she meant for the survey to help guide what she should focus on and what solutions people most want/need.
I’d honestly prefer that the survey is just amateurish but well-meaning rather than a completely self-serving project designed to make Kate look good. Because if it is the latter, that probably means that Kate has no meaningful interest in something this important but is simply using a good cause to make herself look good with no plans for actually helping.
I’d rather she is well-meaning but clueless but that she can be steered in the right direction by professionals.
@Amy too If I had to guess… Kate has spent years being presented with options, but she just hasn’t ever “known” which way to go. Whether out of genuine well-meaning uncertainty or a desire to push off the inevitable is unclear.
But is it really unthinkable she spent years being wishy-washy on this? Always wanting to choose the best option and not put a foot wrong, meanwhile shopping and playing the yummy-mummy Turnip Toff while making her monumental decision…
Again, I’m a cynical bish, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she only finally rolled this out because with the Sussex split even sympathetic media were going to being watching her work even more closely. They can only spin it well for so long.
@Art Historian I’d rather she inept than uncaring it too. But I think you also have to take into account how much she’s ever really truly cared about. Consider the waity-ing years… maybe this IS her caring.
I think the survey is PR the way most things the royals do are about PR. Kate needs to look like she’s doing something, so this is what was decided.
It’s clearly meant to draw focus to Kate and her “work” etc and KP says its meant to help Kate decide where to focus her work in the coming year.
But then we’re back to the question of why did it take 8 years to put out a marketing survey?
She spent more time working on her fake posh accent than she spent on this survey. And marketing technique or not, this is not good. It’s not engaging, it won’t effect ANY change and it’s not going to result in any benefit for any children anywhere.
This is why I said (and I maintain) that Meghan was such a threat to the Cambridges. Her initiatives were sharp, concise, fully realized and, most importantly- high impact. Kate looks ridiculous and inept by comparison. But at least she showed up to take pictures and her hair was done, right?
So much this. As a political researcher by trade, this just makes my head hurt.
Be Best, Kate.
Really good point about the lack of demographic data. I replied down thread that the survey may seem simple but helpful in driving the initiative but now I’m thinking it’s not that good.
The fact that they’re not collecting any socioeconomic information about the parents and families is sort of deeply alarming. One of the biggest reasons children tend to under perform and fall behind during their early years is because of poverty. Child poverty has an enormous impact on outcomes. It affects everything from access to resources, to diet, to healthcare, education, the extent of stability in a child’s life, and all of these things impacts the mental health of children.
One of the deepest and most troubling things about William and Kate’s work in the field of child mental health is the idea that attitude of the parents is what matters the most out of everything, and that the reason people don’t focus on children’s mental well-being is because of a lack of awareness. I feel like this is not only hugely ignorant, it also stinks of the whole “pull yourselves up from the bootstraps” mentality that the Tories use to justify their cuts under austerity to public services. It’s not very helpful to anyone to bring awareness to children’s mental health issues if parents can’t afford therapy for their children in the first place, can’t afford to pull themselves out of the circumstances that are likely causing the mental health issues for their children, and are facing ever increasing cuts to crucial social security programs that aim to provide the help they desperately need.
She really is so lazy. Like can you imagine if Meghan had been one millionth as bone-ass-idle? At least it is finally launching, I guess?
This! Meg and Harry were skewered for actually working. It took her 2 years, meetings with experts and maximum keenness to come up with 5 questions?? 🧐
5 questions that anyone in the world can answer, as many times as they want. this is so dumb.
“You have to be twice as good to get half as much” is a saying all black kids growing up in the US have heard from their parents while growing up. (And if you are a black woman, it’s a two-fer). I’m pretty sure it’s something Doria instilled in Meghan from a young age.
In the case of the RF, Meghan couldn’t even get half a much being twice as good.
I just about died when I saw this last night. She’s launching it with a survey? What the hell has she been doing for the past two years? Don’t even get me started on the 8 years thing.
She’s doing this survey so she can know where to focus her work??
Lordy. No wonder they wanted Meghan out of there.
These are utterly meaningless questions that don’t quantify anything to actually do something to help kids in the early years. And the questions aren’t properly drafted and neutral.
The worst part is pretending she worked on this for eight years. It’s a sloppy survey and she’s better off saying it was drafted on January 8, 2020.
A more meaningful survey could have been drafted in very short time. Such as limiting responses to England. Asking demographic questions. Questions like “What is your biggest challenge in parenting – knowledge, time, balancing, etc.”
Sounds to me like they might have scrapped something else. While I can be a Kate apologist on some fronts (some of her clothes, not trying to take TOO much meaning out of a single photo with no context … that sort of thing) this looks HORRIBLE.
Honestly, I kind of hope that they DID scrap whatever they had been doing originally because otherwise this is embarrassing unless they have something already coming down the pipeline for stage 2. And even then, it’s still only ‘okay’ at best.
Here’s the other thing. Can you imagine working on these projects? Like as the people handling day to day things? Either they’re crooks, or they must be taking a long hard look at their career choices.
@Erinn I just said below that this isn’t designed to get any meaningful results, and I wonder if its part of what you are saying. Like, if they had these visits planned and “something” was going to be announced/launched/whatever. and that “something” wasn’t ready etc so they came up with this.
I certainly hope that’s the case, otherwise it’s an astronomical level of embarrassing for anyone attached to this haha. I don’t have a lot of faith in them, though, so it very well could be exactly that embarrassing.
Could be why Catherine Quinn quit. She’s too embarrassed to attached herself to this project.
Lame. They should be embarrassed.
8 years of work and she ended up with a 5 question survey?!?
What?
It’ll probably take another 8 to announce the answers.
I’m doing a campaign right now and the survey is the very first part to gather information for insights and possible strategies. It’s not the launch itself….this should be behind the scenes work.The questions are so also not good as stated above. What real insight is she hoping to gain from these 5 questions? My research professor would throw these questions out.
yes but, and I’m no parent, the questions seem basic and a no-brainer? These are just lazy questions.
And agree that this should be behind the scenes work. This is not something to launch imo.
My sociology prof in undergrad would have chucked them as well. They don’t actually measure anything of value.
can you imagine if we present these question on our research thesis to bring solution to the problem? our professor will give us hell of time for bringing these crappy question and how will these solve the problem? also why there is no including of race in those questions. because race plays major role in uk , many miniorites community have had time bring up the kids becaue of low income.
I was our former school’s PTA advocacy liaison for three years and when we received Title I status I went into overdrive on trying to better understand our school culture. We implemented official PTA school culture surveys that were better thought out and made so people could only access them once on a server and once an email was used it could not be used again etc. and only the white PTA moms took it so the results were skewed anyway. The principal of course was like “well 90% of respondents are happy!” And when I pointed out only ten people took the survey INCLUDING ME (I was the one person who was “not happy”) he dismissed my concerns. The surveys stopped…until they decided to push ahead without me and did a better job than I was able to because they had access to things they didn’t allow me to use etc. AND STILL THE SAME PEOPLE FILLED THEM OUT. So nothing changed for the better for the students and families in need. The politics of the PTA are nasty. I really wanted to do more but they would not allow me to and even then they set me up for failure. I helped get the school a new playground (and other people got recognition for that), a community garden (again other people got recognition), and brought the talent show back (but that was never valued). Tried to start a multicultural night, got shot down by the principal in front of the whole PTA and three weeks later someone else is looking for volunteers to run one – he liked my idea and gave it to someone else to run because he didn’t like me. Another mom started a food pantry and some other whiter, skinnier, richer mom got credit for that – she even received an award from the mayor for it.
Anyway surveys are only good when correctly implemented. This one is not. Lol yikes
Damn, it’s seriously unhealthy how enraged I am after reading about your experience with your PTA. I doubt it counts for much but I’m genuinely sorry you were treated that way. From someone with lots of school-aged family members, thank you for trying.
@Vava thanks. It really was upsetting. People can’t see past their own personal problems to help others and it’s gross to me. Our kids are at a new school now and I no longer have time to do any volunteer work so. That’s that.
This is so much more common among a lot of different types of organizations than most people think. People who try to do genuinely good work are run out because of the specific institutional issues they were brought in to address.
Hahahhahhahahahha
This literally is what I used to produce at my old job. My boss was an obsessive micromanager who also overthought everything, and the result would be useless crap like this that anyone else could put together in 10 minutes. That’s government bureaucracy for you.
This actually makes me worried for the Cambridges. Now that they don’t have H&M to fall back on, its going to be very obvious that the work aspect of the firm is definitely not their forte. Its a shame really, if they weren’t so awful and toxic they could have let Harry and Meghan do a lot of the work (what they do best) and they might have made a good complement to one another as a team.
This has always been my long held opinion of this cambridge-sussex drama. If only William had any bl–dy sense, he would have played the long game. He could have made peace with the fact the Suxesses get a lot of good press, and just continued with his work. Like Charles and the one big foundation (for the youth i believe). At some point the press would have calmed down and would not write so many glowing articles, as it naturally happened, and then he could have stood up for his brother and sister-in-law, and be seen as the good guy. (this is practically the British presses MO, for heavens sake). By not protecting Meghan from the viciousness of the British press when she needed it the most, they’ve effectively put a more closer spotlight on themselves. They should know by now how poorly they show for themselves compared to the others in the family. The two houses could have actually worked very well. William, you asked for this. Now you can just see how terrible Kate is at actually doing anything meaningful.
I think the other thing with William’s behaviour was that not only did he fail to protect Meghan from the press, he also tacitly worked with them to undercut her and Harry. It’s so baffling to me that he saw this as a competition at all. I’m not saying that jealousy isn’t real or anything, of course it is. I empathize with that emotion. But he acted on that jealousy. If he had had some sort of awareness or forethought or maturity (like the majority of the siblings on the planet) he would have known that while such jealousy is common, it goes away when you become more confident in your own self and your own work and capabilities. But for William, he really did see anyone else’s success as something that comes at his expense. Which is an awful way to look at it.
People are upset that Sussex royal posted about Meghan visiting her patronage.
One Instagram post overshadowed kate
ALI if Meghan with a dog can overshadow a full 8 year project and Prince Charles at Davos, then the Royal Family has a huge problem.
That’s pretty much exactly what I said on Twitter. If Meghan’s visit can overshadow Kate’s “whirlwind tour” – the problem isn’t with Meghan.
Amen to that statement, Sunshine. The senior royals and the press must think Meghan is the devil incarnate. Nothing they do eradicates her. They all seem to have drunk the same kool-aid laced with paranoia, jealousy, and out-and-out hatred. The world has latched onto Meghan, in many ways like they did Diana. The senior royals continued reaction to and treatment of Meghan shows they learned nothing from Diana. They should have done everything they could to let her be who she is, it would have only upped their popularity and relevancy. As many commenters here have said, it would have been a win-win for everyone. Who can explain the phenomenon of this kind of unbelievable interest in one person. I’m sure there are dissertations and books that will be written about this kind of worldwide popularity for years and years to come. The stars simply align and sometimes someone just sparkles. For all their flaws as we are all human — they sparkle.
@JA, I don’t think they think she’s the devil incarnate in reality. I think it suits them to think that because it justifies their abuse. The motivations of the press and everyone else becomes much clearer when you realize that this isn’t about anything in particular, it’s just about abusing Meghan with no recourse. Abusers don’t care what you do or how you change to acquiesce to their demands. Their point is not that their demands should be fulfilled. Their purpose is to make you miserable and to inflict harm and pain upon their victim. They want to see you unhappy, because it makes them feel more powerful.
Well. That’s…lame.
So this survey proves she hasn’t really started with her early years project. A survey is one of the first things you do when working on a project. Plus, this survey isn’t good and I don’t see how it is going to help her “research”. It’s laughable.
This ‘launch’ happens every year. So I’ll believe it when I see it.
She’s like the girl who cried launch lol.
Jokes on you, Scal. One day, in ten years’ time, she’s going to cry “launch” and it will turn out that she’s launched something and then won’t you have egg on your face that it only took her eighteen years to do something! 😀
The Duchess who cried Keen
I am embarrassed for her.
And this is so, so obviously an attention grab. Oof!
Not working though…
Kate: 933 likes in 16 hours
Meghan: 372,290 likes in 6 hours
(from Insta)
Mwaaahahahahaha (my karma’s-a-bitch-laugh)
I’m equally embarrassed and pissed off. This is just to make it look like she’s doing something, but even then, the onus is on the public to provide the answers and data for her “survey.” The actual work part, the answering the questions, is being done by other people. It’s like the U.K. are a bunch of students that she’s given some random busywork to so that they’ll be quiet and distracted while their FFQC tends to her hangover, and somehow she’s still claiming that SHE is the one working.
This is a joke right? A questionnaire after two years then initiate the plan in two months? Meghan came up with a cookbook that made money for Grenfell (sp). UNDER A YEAR. The irony is Kate’s projects will not get any play outside the UK; everyone is waiting to see what Harry and Meghan will do.
The karma bus is now rolling to pick up its first passenger.
Hey Aquarius64. —- thanks for Tharp last sentence. The visual image of the karma bus gave me my first laugh of the day.
Dying to know what Tharp means, JA. I’m thinking it’s a typo, but you never know…
Typo. Should be “that”. Har har.
“The karma bus is now rolling to pick up its first passenger.” HAHAHAHAHA!
This pre-launch of the launch of the initiative, well, Bembridge scholars never said anything about that.
Ok
Q1 I’ll give her a pass. Good to know priorities and all.
Q2 – throwaway! First of all, of course it’s both! Second, what would the answer change?
Q3 – even more of a throwaway! What kind of parent thinks “it’s ok if I’m batsh*t crazy, it won’t impact my kids”. Dumb!
Q4 – throwaway – how would this impact any action?
Q5 – again, I bet most parents would answer all. So who cares?
Where are the questions on demographics? Income? Current parental needs? Kids needs? Special needs, good and pad points of school?
What about surveying teachers? Pediatricians?
This is such a media attention grab! Meg would have been crucified. Difference is, she is not lazy so she never would have pulled this sh*t.
Question 5, about which age is most important to development, Kate has already provided the answer to in her Instagram caption. She tells us that the survey/initiative is for helping the “under 5s” and the whole thing is literally called the Early Years initiative. So what is the point of that question? It’s like busy work. This survey is busy work being assigned to the nation.
I’m passionate about the early years and mental health and we know so much about how to address these issues with proven good outcomes. So why is this questionnaire still reading like an uneducated, child-free investigative essay process?
How much would it suck to be a world expert on this issue and invested your time and energy into briefing Kate and she ignores you and goes with this trite rubbish?
This. So much research has already been done. Not that surveys don’t have value as tools but you would expect with all this time they would have developed something better than this.
This is so embarrassing!
Listen, we all have seen how lazy Kate is, and she doesn’t seem particularly bright. No major projects should be launched under her umbrella because she cannot handle it. They probably should narrow the scope of the project significantly to make it more manageable. It would be easier for them to aim for outputs and not outcomes.
Also, get some competent staff and listen to those experts you consulted!
Kate is so mediocre, LMAO.
I’m dying to know what Catherine Quinn’s experience was behind the scenes! Seems like she got out just in time so that she doesn’t have to be associated with this!
Frankly, I don’t think that many people actually invested their time into this at all. I don’t think Kate actually consulted that many experts. If she did, it was likely for a meeting or two, and her assistant filed away the minutes and politely shuffled the e-mails into a folder and then just never followed up or looked at anything deeper.
Well Kate is an Art History Major, with no work experience whatsoever, but they at least should hire people that know how to do something like this project. That survey is useless.
P – they need to let Kate be Kate. Stop trying to hype her up to be something she is not. She clearly wants to be a SAH mother – not a researcher or academic.
I wish they would just let this woman stay at home, play tennis and mind her babies. She would be great at organising school fundraisers and charities. And with her connections, pull in great speakers to talk to the kids.
Agreed, but I also think Kate has choices. She is a financially secure, educated woman, who had a stable childhood who has been on the world stage and had access to very smart, successful professionals for years now. She is not a victim in how she is portrayed or in this sort of shoddy, embarrassing display. I’m not giving her a pass here; she owns this work and it speaks volumes about her if she truly believes this is in anyway relevant to truly helping children. I foresee a lot of money and time whirling down the drain and NOTHING will have been of any benefit to the children.
She doesn’t get to be a SAHM, not unless she and William walk away from everything and work to become financially independent. As long as they keep the 50 room palace apartment rent-free, the 10 bedroom country manor rent free? She is required to work.
All other working royals managed to raise happy children while doing their royal jobs. Do Kate stans recognize how much they constantly infantilise her?
I know everyone p!sses on the ribbon cutting, champagne smashing little events that are the royals bread and butter, but that’s what Kate should be doing. More than she currently does since it’s simple work, but that’s the extent to which I think she can work. And that’s fine. I think the small events mean a lot to people and give them some publicity, and they have their place among the big proposals and projects. They should have had Future Future Queen Consort doing multiple drop ins a week while Meg/Harry worked on the big Foundation stuff. Use your talents and all that. Now everyone is waiting for her to do something massive and I just don’t think it’s in her wheelhouse.
I agree, just because she is a mom, doesnt mean she has to work with children. She is not qualified for this line of a job.
She needs to stick to basic things like the garden. While they totally overhyped it, the idea wasn’t bad. Complex issues like early childhood initiatives aren’t credible from someone like Kate who has done nothing of substance in this area and doesn’t have the educational background either. She clearly didn’t have a team to guide her either. Or this could be why Catherine Quinn left?
Yes. She would be the perfect type of person to do the small events that don’t change the world. “Hosting” a garden party (having it at her place but her servants do all the work) where the plebs get to come and see her (build goodwill), “hosting” some kind of charitable tea where people pay to come sit at her table, “organizing” a charitable auction to raise money for a cause, handing out the prizes for the pie eating contest, judging who makes the best jam in some small village, starting a knitting club that makes hats for newborns, “organizing” a clothing drive for the family who lost everything in a fire. Things where she’s basically just playing the role of stay at home mom and lady of the manor.
If they hadn’t run off Meghan and Harry, then M and H could’ve been doing the big, intellectual, heavy projects, and Kate could’ve flitted around in 1950s cosplay doing events where she doesn’t have to think or talk or launch huge initiatives. I get the sense that she’s easily overwhelmed and has no idea how to go about doing a big project, yet for some reason that’s all she does: huge initiatives about social problems that are super broad and will take decades to complete or fix.
Then she shouldn’t have married the heir to the throne! She signed up for this job!
@P: you are spot on and I simply don’t get. Why don’t they hire a team of professionals to do the actual work – with her as the face of the project / campaign?
I don’t like to pick on Kate because I’m a contrarian and it’s over done. But this is just stupid. Child development experts know the real answers to these questions already. What a waste of time. Can’t she just hire a non profit specialist, tell them her vague idea, let them design the project, then show up at the end and take the credit? I still enjoy a good pussy bow though. 80’s cosplay works for her.
Can’t she just hire a non profit specialist, tell them her vague idea, let them design the project, then show up at the end and take the credit?
—————————————————————————————————————-
But that’s what she does. Do you serioiusly think she does any of the actual thinking or work related to her projects? She takes more time and effort to figure out the right outfit for when she shows up to “launch” things like this.
no, I don’t think she does because otherwise this project would have more substance by now.
She doesn’t though. Think about the world of difference there is between this project and the Chelsea Flower Show garden. She didn’t do much for that except defer to a panel of experts and offer her input when she was asked but the implemented the actual task at hand and it worked out quite well for everyone involved. As Elisa said, if she had followed this MO for the early years project, she’d be doing something with it by now that was much more substantial.
My god, she’s so underwhelming. So this is the result of all the “meetings” she’s been taking. I guess the plan was to initiate the results of this survey when she finally becomes consort. You can sure tell she’s never actually worked in a real job. Pathetic!
I’ve seen Buzzfeed quizzes that are more informed and effective. This is a sad waste of money. It’s insulting that this is being held up as legit work.
2 years of work (and what we’re told is her passion and life’s work) and a 5 question survey is the best they’ve got?
That survey should have happened a year and a half ago or so and Kate should be launching an initiative based on those answers
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
I thought she was working with academics and practitioners who were leaders in their field? They would know how to properly conduct quantitative research, not this nonsense. This reads like a freshman’s first survey attempt in a research methods course… yiiiiiikes.
Yes I have to wonder about who was on that task force and what exactly happened. If they are professionals in this field, there is no way they would be fine with this survey.
This feels like a college psych assignment for early childhood psych 101. Make a five question questionnaire, etc etc. like an overnight assignment… not a two year project.
My guess is this is part of the reason Catherine Quinn left. Besides her contract being up, she saw this train wreck of an “initiative” and probably decided she didn’t want her name attached to it. If Quinn wanted to go anywhere else and be taken seriously after her babysitting job she had to peace out before the launch. It sucks though because I think if given more leeway Quinn could have really helped. Sad Kate and/or William was resistant to her help.
Ah yes, Catherie Quinn. I almost forgot about her. She was right. She’s probably happy she doesn’t have this on her resume.
Quinn is probably the one who came up with this idea, thinking a generic ‘early childhood anything’ might be something she could try to sell as Kate’s Thing. Trouble is, she could only work with what she had. Kate. Which is why this whole thing is meandering, useless, underwhelming. And why Quinn left, because she wanted to accomplish something in the charity world.
I know many ECEs and day care supervisors, so all I can say is, there is current research that can answer every one of those questions. (People’s opinions aside because who cares what people think, we need to know what the research says) What she needs to do now is do something with that information. Which means she has no idea that the answers to her questions already exist, which means, this is a clusterf-k.
There’s no need for Kate to re-invent the wheel. Like you say, the research is already there.
Kate really ought to phone up CP Mary and pick her brain. It took Mary a couple of years to get her foundation up and running, securing funding, etc. But the prelim work really paid off. She has a foundation that focus on three areas: bullying, loneliness and domestic violence. It funds concrete projects, often in collaboration with other foundations, etc. While Mary is involved with the behind the scenes work, she lets the experts lead and then her foundation awards money and she herself help raise awareness because the national press is interested in her.
Kate doesn’t need to start from scratch, she needs to be much more focused – let the experts she presumably has hired either formulate concrete initiatives in collaboration with already existing institutions/projects, or award money to already existing projects – and then let Kate show up with the press to put the initiatives on the map.
This is embarrassing. My first research assignment at the psychology university was much more elaborated than this. And I was a freshman then with six months of university experience behind me and doing the work all alone.
It looks like KP does their most to not let the public feel the vacuum Sussexit left in the RF company, so they threw together this basic “opinion survey” (I apologise to all opinion survey professionals here) thing for Kate to make it look like something meaningful is happening behind those gates.
The sad thing is that probably a real survey on this topic merged with this kind of reaching potential would be very very interesting for everybody.
Welp, this is what royal work looks like, folks! This is what the British media and Royal Family wanted. Two years of planning and leadup and the results are…this? Where on earth would this be acceptable, outside of the royal family? The message they’ve sent the world is that all that matters is the RF be white. Not the work (clearly, if this is the example of a 2 year initiative). Whiteness trumps work ethic, quality of work, quantity of work, and substance of work.
The world’s got the message loud and clear.
To be fair, the royal family doesn’t HAVE to do any real work, if they don’t want to. There is no minimum amount of work required, or minimum intelligence, or minimum education, minimum work ethic, etc. ALL that is needed is proper birth order. That’s the price of having a monarchy. Which is why most modern countries have done away with the institution. But as long as the British want to keep theirs, that’s the price you pay.
I also suspect that’s why some people frantically look for any reason to praise them (Kate looks thin and pretty! She likes children! ). Because deep down inside, they must know the public are being taken for a ride. They need to “justify” the institution in order to stay sane.
They don’t even know enough to be embarrassed by this, do they?
^This. She’s spent 8 years keenly preparing for this and it’s cringeworthy. And she doesn’t even know how embarrassingly bad this is.
This is white mediocrity at work. Reporters are hyping this survey launch as a result of all her years of work of in this area- imagine praising the launch of a survey which anyone could do using survey monkey etc. Shouldn’t her team have already collated the info (there are loads or studies on this area already) and be at some type of soft solutions stage rather than waiting until March& survey results for the next steps?
To be fair most solutions around child development are probably tied to funding which veers into the political so this is a tricky area for her focus to be anyway.
Yea 1 more excuse for her, she can’t be too political. She can’t work more than Will, she can’t work more because of her kids and working parents threaten kids wellbeing doncha know, she can’t be expected to visit the Irish Guards every year because she is the only one with kids, she can’t deliver a speech because she is an introvert, she can’t wear black to one event because #MeToo is too political, she just can’t.
1000 excuses…why can’t she just stick to ribbon cutting or copy whatever Anne is doing.
@Guestone – your last point is something we have discussed here before. There are experts who KNOW the problems/issues/importance of early childhood development, who understand the relationship between parental addiction and a child’s mental health, etc – all the things Kate keeps mentioning. But the solutions require funding and in some cases, significant societal support.
Kate would have been better to have spent the past 8 years fundraising for programs that are already working on these problems. Maybe that is her long term goal, but I doubt it.
Yes, fundraising would be great, but sadly too much time and effort in Kate’s case.
No questions if it’s a 1 or 2 parent home…
No questions on which parent bares the brunt of the parenting responsibilities
No questions about the amount of children in the home…adults….
Wow.
No questions about cultural traditions and understanding around raising kids. No questions on whether parent(s) work. No questions on ACES. This is just putting a middle-schooler’s project out to show that they’re doing something.
Or income levels? Intergenerational support? No demographics at all. So ridiculous.
I have a nine month old baby. Let me take a look at the questions and see what it’s about.
I don’t like to bash her. But this is the dumbest “survey” I’ve seen in a long time. Any customer feedback survey I’ve ever taken was longer, more detailed and more thought out than this bs. I’m sorry but there were no professionals involved here.
I am so embarrassed for her. Are they tossing her to the wolves to get savaged now? Because that is just shameful. I feel if she handed those in for homework she would have gotten a grade C. the royals need to stop trying so hard. They can’t become Meghan. go back to not being seen or heard and only release a photo now and then.
This is the last burst of work from Kate before she settles in to her pre-Meghan life.
My college freshmen could come up with better questions during a 20-minute impromptu brainstorming session. Princess Pussybow should be so embarrassed, but I guess it isn’t easy to top her other accomplishment—that garden bench was a triumph for the ages.
“The Biggest Ever Survey”. This sounds like Trump wrote the marketing materials. “It’s great. Just great. The greatest. You know, it’s big. Could be the biggest ever. But it’s really big.”
I am a professor and dabble in educational research. This whole “thing”, from the survey questions, the methodology, the lack of quantifiability, down to the language to the roll out and the (implied) data analysis, is terrible. TERRIBLE.
i did a survey for blue cross of india and i have way more detailed questions for having pets, their health, diseases, cost of living and their impact on society. i mean come on, this is most stupidest thing ever as survey. even in youtube ad there are better survey for customer satification. i think she doesnt understand the science behind of these work. thats why she is lacking. your trump impression is uncanny.
I think she partnered with a college Freshman in an “Introduction to Child Development” course to design and implement this survey. No reputable firm or researcher would have okayed this venture.
@Noodle, nah. College freshmen could do a way better job with a survey.
The survey contains all the best words!
A survey is something you might do during the initial planning stages of a project — not as a major rollout of the actual initiative. Kate’s team is inadvertently letting us know that she hasn’t been doing shit for 8 years.
Also, if the goal is to start a UK wide conversation how come I just completed the survey and I am not in the U.K. they can’t speak to the results and say most people in the UK say x or y because people in Macedonia could be completing the survey.
I’m embarrassed for her, this is soo bad.g it’s clearly been rush job to get as much positive PR given what’s happened with the Sussex’s.
Also given Meghans IG post, some at KP is going to be spitting nails. One SM post has knocked the precious future Kween off the front page. U reap what u sow.
I hope karma keeps Kate company for a long time.
Oh I hope so. Her looks are already fading, and her brain appears to be not far behind.
Well, as Meghan and Harry are still part of the Firm —and still “Royal” until early Spring, I’m sure someone in the Firm is going to “punish” her for “again” not coloring within the lines.
LMAO this woman is a joke
This is what she spent YEARS working on??? Trolololololololololololol
I come up with more complex and rigorous surveys in less than a day for my job.
This is embarrassing. I took a “parenting” class in highschool that was more comprehensive than this, where a “survey “ like this would be something our teacher would give us to make into a brochure for parents as an easy grade assignment 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ Loll.
You have got to be joking. That’s it? That’s her BIG thing – a crowd sourced questionnaire comprised of 5 questions. So she won’t be doing any *gasp* work, just posting a questionnaire for OTHER people to do. 🙄
Did anyone else notice the spelling error in the post “it take just five minutes”
Whoops! 😂
Lmao. A 5 question survey? And it’s not even out yet?
It’s out. https://survey.5bigquestions.org.uk/uc/live/
I actually found the link, not on the RF website but via an article provided by the BBC. Early Years on the RF site has not been updated SINCE 2018 and it’s very weak. Literally a short blurb and a couple of photos. And as PP were theorizing, ANYONE can take the quiz. It doesn’t ask for personal information of any kind, not even an email address to access it, you just click the link and the first question pops up. (I did not take the survey as that would be unethical, I live stateside.)
This is not good.
For those interested: https://survey.5bigquestions.org.uk/uc/live/
anyone can take the quiz and…you can take it multiple times. It’s clearly not designed to get any sort of meaningful results.
It was clearly set up by people who understand nothing about surveys, market research and project development.
I have come to the conclusion Kate really is incompetent.
Now I am really wondering what happened to make Catherine Quinn leave. She would have the background to know this was a mess so did she leave before the launch, as suggested by nota, just not to get pinned with the blame?
Or she left because she couldn’t take the uselessness of Kate anymore. This survey, cobbled together by the leftover staff, may have been written after Quinn’s departure. Staff looking at each other, seeing nothing had been done, the head of the office staff fired recently, nothing to show for the last 16 months. Quick, distract with a survey!
I posted a comment about it on their Instagram. Cue the angry royalists…
Dear god what have I done?
I’m in Singapore and I could take the survey hahah.
What’s with naming them the 5 Big questions? It sounds very Bigly.
“the biggest ever conversation on early childhood that will ultimately help bring about positive, lasting change for generations to come.”
Which amateur came up with this line? “The biggest ever?” Seriously?
Narcissism. Nobel of environmental prizes. Most important child development work. it’s about embiggening the doer, not the person it’s intended to help.
The same person who wrote Bill’s speech when he launched his eco project and football mental wellness program. He uses lots of ‘the biggest’ in his launches in the firm’s attempt to embiggen him.
The “ lasting change for generations to come” is such hyperbole. How arrogant to think that this embarrassing survey could achieve such a generational change.
WOW!
And how long did it take Meghan to come up with a cookbook? Or an issue of Vogue?
No wonder the Cambridges were so hot to get rid of the Sussexes. ARCHIE could do better.
WORD.
And don’t forget Smartworks. AND she had a baby and was on maternity leave.
A survey is what we do at work when we have to make progress on something but don’t have the time or desire to do actual substantive work. “look! We are working hard on this! We came up with a survey and obviously can’t do anything else until we have sufficient time to receive and consider the results.”
What an absolute joke of an initiative. After years of hype and grandstanding, THIS is what she and her team are rolling out?
This is heartbreaking. In a country where child poverty has risen 40% in ten years, this is almost mockery.
Well that’s just it, isn’t it? Seems like the problem will get tossed back to the parents, especially mothers, who already know damn well that their kids will thrive if they have security and attention — in housing, food, health care, education and more. Poverty takes away all of that and no amount of garden swings will make up for it.
The remaining Royals appear to be irrelevant.
even her garden is stupid idea and it doesnt solve the mental health problem of the child who comes from abuse or broken home. i mean playing is nature is good for health but when the child return to the same abuse home, negelect parents wont be much impact. the garden was hype and pr. the play time is only enjoyable when the kids have happy home . otherwise , kids or children mind mostly on worry like will i eat after this playtime, will i sleep peaceful without getting beating? her guliiable stans prasie those and they are mostly stupid ones who thinks woman should not have voice or opion or wait for a guy to propose 9 years and follow hime around like stupid dog. turning blind eye to cheating and wearing good dress makeup her lack of work and they praise her for breathing air. look at those stans they care way more about her dress then her actual work.
This is a mess. The entire angle being taken is problematic because the scale at which she wants to have impact is only possible by partnering with government and the educational infrastructure in the country. Unfortunately, she and her advisors are too far in to back up and rethink this initiative. I predict that we’ll continue to see big splash events like this but that little to no impact will ever be achieved no metrics will ever be produced to assess results. In their effort to go big to gain back the spotlight, the Cambs are making a mistake because results are harder to achieve and are necessarily tied to campaigns and institutions that would be deemed “political.” Interesting that the Sussex model for smaller scale projects, that are self-contained, with clear objectives and measurable results seem much more in keeping with how royals could be impactful right now. Cambs would do well to copy this model rather than trying so hard to grab back the spotlight and to “outshine.”
As pointed out on Lainey site, it’s taken 8 years to launch something that focuses on the first 5 years. So already the first wave of children this would have been targeted at have aged out. The survey looks very SurveyMonkey, like something put together by a room parent ( not knocking room parents- been there).Great for general feedback but should be a way higher level than this. It is for marketing, but if it is, the survey should have kicked off the project way back when, not be the reveal at this stage.
Kate needs to do better. I think Megan set the bar too high for these very comfortable Royals.
It wasn’t Megan that set the bar too high — it was the 21st century and an economically and politically threatened Brexiting Britain.
I mean… I like Meghan but Charles has done some really stellar work. Harry was doing stellar work before Meghan. Diana did, too. I don’t know what Anne churns out, but I do know that she works dedicatedly, Camilla does her work, too.
It’s just William and Kate who can’t get off their duffs.
Eight years. Five questions.
FFS, I came up with a 57-question patient preference survey in TWO DAYS and presented results six weeks later at a regulatory and science meeting. And I did it working with only one other person. WITAF.
This is just a way to play into the “future queen” narrative and make it seems like she does more than she does, while also allowing her to make visits with kids because the pictures always turn out well. Yawn.
Yes, to me it’s stalling. Tossing a little something out there, and now she can sit back and wait for the responses, and then pull together another little announcement, and then sit back and wait, and then…rinse and repeat.
Especially now, Jen. Have you noticed how there is a black child now in almost every recent photo of her.
I have noticed this, JA. It is so obvious.
This whole thing should be embarrassing to Kate. It should be skewered by the press. But we all know that won’t happen, and why.
I’ve noticed that and I find it so offensive. PoC are not your props.
I wonder if she still has that offensive painting in Apt 1A.
@Hope, now I’m intrigued….what offensive painting????
It’s a painting of a young black child as a servant for wealthy Dutch merchants. That of all things is what they had hanging up on the wall when the Obamas visited. They had to hurriedly pull off the name plate at the last minute because of the title which I’m not sure I can say here.
@Hope Just…..wow. This is the first I’ve ever heard of that…but no wonder they’d sweep that under the rug. Crazy how far my opinion of W&K has fallen since then (funnily enough, I actually used to enjoy following them when they first got married and had George). The more you know…
As someone with a Master’s in Marketing I want to SCREAM.
This is outstandingly underwhelming. Can’t even be arsed to do a proper market research. And she’s been at this for 8 years!
This is pathetic. Everything she has been given for being a royal and this is the best she can do? 8 years for some stupid survey? Abolish the monarchy. Brit taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth out of these lazy leeches.
If the Duchess of Sussex had produced something THIS lame after so much time, she would have been forced out of the country. Oh wait…she WAS forced out of the country. It’s GOOD to be a White woman!
And yet, KP PR and the press are acting like Kate just invented fire! The world will be a better place because of the hard and exhausting years put into coming up with these 5 questions.
5-4-3-2-1.
Question #3 is a layup. I foresee this being what she ends up tackling.
Hahaha. FureverPuppy— I neither agree nor disagree with your prediction.
Pretty sure the survey is meant to prompt responders to reflect on how they think of the early years; less about answers than the thinking behind them. I saw up close here in the States bills die bc there’s such an anti gov’t sentiment toward invading young families. In fact that’s why many states have really old mandatory age for kindergarten that despite efforts by EC advocates, age remains at age 6 or 7. My impression here is that the EC folks want to head off political opposition. Of course at least in my state the EC folks are so politically inept (despite deeply believing that they ‘get it’) that I use my past work with them in every college policy course I teach. Curious if the U.K. is the same at all.
My guess is that, as others have said, this is more of a marketing/raising awareness for the average person thing for future work than anything else. I do think a big part of it may be that KP doesn’t want to be accused or telling people what to do with their children or make them feel like they’re parenting wrong, which is a sensitive subject, as well as them trying to see if the commissioned research actually matches public perception of the issues.
I also have another theory that might be a little more tin hat-y. There have been studies that being asked for a favor by someone unconsciously increases our like of the person asking for it (I think it’s called the Ben Franklin effect?). By setting up a survey and claiming the results—from the people!—are directly impacting what Kate is choosing to do, it gives people a feeling of participation, which engenders good feelings toward the project.
But the KP instagram says that this survey is to guide her future work and this is why so many people question it, because the research is already there and the the scope and methodology of the survey is superficial at best and downright amateurish at worst.
The KP insta does mentioning raising awareness and sparking conversation – and maybe that should have been the focus but if the survey is also to be the foundation for her future strategy then it isn’t good enough (and even unnecessary since the research already exists). It is just problematic that KP can’t even figure out what the primary function of this survey is to be. The whole thing looks like amateur hour, or a stalling tactic for a project that is not ready to be launched yet.
Yeah, there should not be any confusion as to the purpose of the survey. The fact that there is says so much about what is happening over at KP.
Agreed Becks1 and ArtHistorian. Not sure PR around survey use is KP’s strong suit. Their PR in general isn’t great either!
@Lexa. So your tin foil hat theory sounds like the purpose of this survey maybe to have the public develop more positive feelings towards Kate’s project. In effect, embiggening Kate even more with the public. Interesting.
Seriously, I could have come up with this nonsense in ten minutes!
Does Kate not have advisers or PR people who could’ve told her how stupid this survey idea is? With all her resources, she should’ve been able to come up with a better plan by now. I don’t know how much longer she’ll be able to fool the public that she’s getting all this important work done. Someday she’ll regret having helped run off the Sussexes
I’m a trained social scientist and this survey would’ve failed me out of my Methodology classes.
Pictures of Keen Katie and Kiddies always has at least one ‘strategically placed Black child’. This time she upped her game with one ‘strategically placed Black child’ and one ‘strategically placed BROWN child’. Who says she doesn’t work?
We could have made book on this happening.
Kerwood your observations are always spot on! So much effort!
I’m no expert on study methods and whatnot but these seems too loosey-goosey to do anything impactful.
KP must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with this lame survey. And Kate, with no work experience and background for this type of work doesn’t have a clue that this initiative makes her look so embarrassingly out of depth. All I see are puppet strings.
Ok, so here are some of the questions Kate really wanted surveyed:
-Buttons or pussypows? Which make me look more professional and accomplished?
-Ear to ear grinning- Manic or engaged?
-How many years of not working can I get away with between each child?
-Rose pruning how many more titles can I get out of it?
And finally
-Now that we drove my sister and brother in law out of the country will the press love or hate us?
Let’s be real here—she isn’t passionate about any of her causes, not really. It is a job she is forced to do. What is upsetting is that she could have married a rich lay person, been a SAHM, and not had to do THIS. Instead, she chose someone who is in the public eye, who is expected as well as she is to be to be the voice for charities, organizations, and causes. This is disgraceful. I am beginning to think the monarchy should end with Charles. He is the last one to understand the seriousness of the job.
Honestly, sometimes I feel a tiny bit sad for her that 8 years into this gig she hasn’t found anything that she can even pretend to be passionate about, but then I’m reminded that she doesn’t seem to WANT to find anything to care about and that feeling passes.
The survey is a joke and I am just disgusted that Kate wears trousers dragging on the floor and she is stylish but Meghan is lambasted in the press for what seemed like weeks for the same thing (trousers she wore at Wimbledon).
England loves mediocrity especially from the royals.
She is what they deserve.
I personally am deeply embarrassed for her
Those questions are idiotic. Especially question 1. You want to trade mental health for education or opportunity? You need ALL FOUR.
Anyone else take it and leave a choice comment at the end?
Haha I did
Mine stared out with this:
It would be nice if the RF and the media weren’t so racist and classist.Giving every child an equal chance at succeeding. Even brown ones
Wonder what are the reaction of professional academics and researchers in the field regarding this survey?
I’m not sure but I bet they are like, “In eight years i completed a Masters Degree, doctoral degree, and postdoctoral fellowship. Wtf is this?”
The cringy photoshoot with asian and african kids is so pathetic. They are not subtle at all with this PR
I mean even fans are questioning this survey as many none UK fans are taking it!! How unprofessional. They hyped this up for so long even they dont know how to deal with it!!🤦♀️
In her defence, the questions may seem simple, but it’s likely a lot of research informed them to drill them down to these specific issues. Surveys are great marketing tactics to lead into an initiative. As others have said above, the methodology isn’t great.
Experts may know the answers but they want public opinion. Often charities will do a survey and release results like “90% of people believe it’s the role of parents, caters and society …” to back up a fundraising or advocacy or political campaign OR to gage the public’s knowledge on a subject to inform key messaging (meet public where they are).
BUT THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN 8 YEARS. Kate is very inefficient. If the results don’t match her assumptions, are they going to start all over again?
Assuming Kate has assumptions which I seriously doubt. More like this “endeavor” was concocted by KP and Kate being told what to do and say.
I answered the fill in question with this:
It would be nice if the RF and the media weren’t so racist and classist, then every child would have an equal chance at succeeding.
Even the brown ones.
👏👏👏👏👏
Like everything with the Cambridges this is a stunt. This survey isn’t even substantive enough to count as first stage qualitative research. But that’s the thing, people don’t want them to be doing anything useful, they want to look like they are doing something while playing dress up for their entertainment. William & Kate give people exactly enough of what they want to make them feel okay about giving up their money to fund their lives. This entire family is a remarkable long con.
I’ve seen my students from high school doing better surveys under two hours in the classroom… Wow… 2 years?? Wow… Just wow…Can’t find words to describe this…
This reminds me of a college paper that I started in the middle of the night 4 hours before it was due.
😂🤣😂
As an Early Years teacher (and petty bitch) I find it super offensive that a) she’s made some sad questions that there is already tons of literature on, and b) that she seems to be under the impression that having babies makes her an education expert. And don’t get me started on the photo opportunity with that gorgeous little girl – most blatant attempt at ‘see, we’re not racist at all, we embrace diversity!”- Sorry, but no.