Back when the Princess of Wales was the Duchess of Cambridge, they spent real money trying to fluff up her busy work and Early Years keenery. I remember the slick, stupid “commercial” which used archive footage of Martin Luther King Jr, Malala and JFK… all to promote Early Years. I remember the pie charts and the haphazard data grab for her Five Big Questions. Real money is being spent to embiggen Kate. It’s like a collective delusion when KP staffers are allowing her to pretend, in full view of the public, that she’s a credible expert in the field of childhood development.
Well, it’s getting even worse now that Kate has Duchy of Cornwall money to burn. Once again, these are resources which should go to supporting existing children’s programs, ensuring that under-5s can have access to nursery schools and early development classes and such. This is money which should be spent on literally studying “baby brains.” Instead, Kate is blowing through money on creepy claymation videos and celeb endorsements for her fakakta Shaping Us campaign.
Our early childhood shapes everything from the way we form relationships to the way we cope with stress. Huge thanks to our Champions for spreading the message! @MrsGiFletcher @Fearnecotton @professorgreen @ugomonye @JaxJones @leahcwilliamson Zara McDermott #ShapingUs pic.twitter.com/uBzBP4eSbI
— The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood (@Earlychildhood) February 1, 2023
Captain Obvious ropes in celebrities to say that the first five years are important. And that’s it. Additionally, the galaxy-brains at Kensington Palace have now started a new Instagram account for “The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.” It’s full of all kinds of glamour shots of Kate, her eyebrow and her jazz hands.
Screencaps courtesy of KP video. Additional photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales in Kirkgate Market in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she is meeting vendors and members of the public for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign which is raising awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales in Kirkgate Market in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she is meeting vendors and members of the public for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign which is raising awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales in Kirkgate Market in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she is meeting vendors and members of the public for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign which is raising awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at the University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she will join students on the Childhood Studies programme which focuses on a broad approach to early childhood development, during her visit to the city for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign to raise awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales in Kirkgate Market in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she is meeting vendors and members of the public for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign which is raising awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at the University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she will join students on the Childhood Studies programme which focuses on a broad approach to early childhood development, during her visit to the city for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign to raise awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at the University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she will join students on the Childhood Studies programme which focuses on a broad approach to early childhood development, during her visit to the city for the launch of the Shaping Us campaign to raise awareness of the unique importance of early childhood. Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Leeds, England, United Kingdom When: 31 Jan 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
No David Beckham!? I’m shocked he would agree to anything the RF ask of him. Seeing how those ‘celebs’ are hardly household names.
He has already participated in William’s earth shot.. remember, he flew from Qatar to Boston just for the presentation of the awards and he was rightly criticized…it would be too much if he also appeared in this..
I’m not familiar with ANY of these “celebrities” and I am surprised they didn’t get Ed Sheeran or Ellie Goulding .
Yeah, no offense to them, but I don’t recognize any of their faces. Were they chosen for a reason? Will they be asked to share about how their early years impacted their adult lives? Maybe everything in this video needs to come with intros and captions.
And no, I’m not sure we have learned in the first five years to “protect our mental health.” The others I agree with, but that one struck me as oddly mature yet vague. How is it not an extension of learning how to regulate emotions and cope with stress? What do two-year-olds do to protect their own mental health? If they said “nurture” your mental health, it would make a lot more sense.
If I were him, I would just say forget it. He’s been trying to be Sir Beckham for a hot minute. He did all of that arse-kissing and STILL couldn’t get on the dreadful OBE list this year.
For shame.
Like I said yesterday, K and W are obviously running the Duchy of Cornwall into the ground and they haven’t even had it for a year! Fugly clothes, creepy videos, sham awards etc etc…I wonder what Charles thinks of this…
CHarles needs to stop being intimidated by his incandescent son Bill and put limits on their spending.
But can he do so, as Bill now controls it? It must hurt though…all those decades to build something highly profitable and his moronic first son and wife just squander the whole thing!
I agree, but have long believed that W must have something on Charles that C allows W to behave as he does
Waiting to see if the economic exploitation and rampant mismanagement cause Cornwall to rebel against these leeches.
It is all smoke and mirrors with Kate. I hope there are a lot of complaints about this.
There are on their IG account but it won’t load the more scathing comments nor all of the other comments. They can’t even operate IG for damn. What makes anyone think that Keen Mumbles A Lot will make an impact?
Whoever said this was an Archetypes rip off was dead on. Kate has a billboard because Meg had one. The color scheme is the same. Kate also has celebrities. She’s even trying to create the same type of hype as Archetypes.
Only archetypes actually opened up conversations. While this is empty. I don’t even have to click on the video to know what she’s going to say.
Archetypes had me thinking about my own life experiences. The episode with Mindy Kaling made me feel seen. The episode with Paris Hilton made me think about my own biases.
Eww, you’re right! Kate wishes!
If Mumbles envisions the same huge international success of Archetypes, she’s dumber than she looks, not to mention full-blown delusional.
As it stands now, this imbecile must devote her limited brain power to regulate her fake “posh” accent every time she speaks. She will NEVER be Meghan’s equal, no matter how desperately she tries to copy.
#abolishthemonarchy
It’s definitely no Archetypes but I definitely believe that’s what Keen is trying to evoke. The green background, the fake hype, “celebrities”. She’s trying to create a national conversation like Meg did but it’s failing because Meg is Meg and Kate is Keen.
The copykeening of the font has been driving me crazy. I don’t know why but it really ticks me off. But yeah even the green color scheme of the frame around the vid and the Shaping Us font at the bottom. Archetypes was rich with discussions and their team thoughtfully put together the colors and the fonts and they way they wanted to advertise and present the podcast. And here comes keen and her team with this bootleg empty campaign that jacks their visuals. It’s like stealing someone’s homework. They have nothing original. Nothing. They wait for others to do something and then copy.
@jt @jais I think it was pretty obvious at this point that as soon as archetypes was being promoted, we’d be seeing something similar from Keeny Antoinette. The whole claymation is keen’s copykeen version of and response to ‘Pearl’.
Also, when has K EVER worn Chunky hoops. Ffs Meghan really lit a fire under K’s ass didn’t she?
Also she has all that money to burn and the BEST promotion they could compe up with was a discount version of Archetypes. F*ck off K, go buy a personality
@Jais- are you sure the font is the same? I just looked at the promo pic of Meghan with the green border for Archetypes, and the font doesn’t seem to be the same. The green border is definitely a rip off, though.
Am I looking at the right thing?
Also, probably everyone else has already realized this, but it truly looks like WHATEVER Meghan does, Kate will copy. Kate doesn’t have to try to come up with initiatives, or even outfits, on her own. She will merely wait for Meghan to do something original, and proceed to copy.
Legit don’t know if they’re the exact same. But idk, to me, they’re super similar however I’m not a font expert. Apologies if I’m spreading misinformation.
Seriously, she needs a second act.
Stat!
Brassy rebel, Khate hasn’t even got a first one OF HER OWN so she has no chance of thinking about a second one 😂
Exactly Mary P, Kate first needs to show up and complete her 1st Act before moving on to the 2nd one.
Ok, early years “important”. Check.
And?
Good God it’s been a year. Please tell us you have more in you than this.
I hope other c’bers have seen the whole series of Packham dress photos on the DM for this post to make sense.
I’m going to caveat my comment by saying there are loads of naturally slender women, who have always been slender and whose bodies are built that way. We know however that Kate has had to work herself into this slenderness, and has possibly done untold damage to her body in the long run. I speak from experience.
To have her, obviously not eating by choice, around parents who are struggling to feed their children and not eating to make sure their kids have enough is bad in and of itself. But the worst of it is this – I am so glad this woman has chosen to “work” with kids 0 to 5. I would hate her to be around teenagers, who could end up thinking this level of ED is what makes you popular, gets people taking pictures of you, gets TV cameras following you around. She is a walking dangerous message.
On a kinder side – her family obviously knows she is ill. What are they doing, sending her out as their one great hope? She needs help.
As an undergrad, I organized educational day camps for kids on Native American/First Nations reservations, and went on to teach 1st and 2nd grade, so I have a decent amount of experience working with kids who were just a year or 2 older than the age range that Kate pretends to be interested in helping. Unfortunately, I think your concerns about what would happen if she were focused on teens instead would be well-founded for younger kids, particularly girls, as well. Turning down healthy snacks or just nibbling on a single piece of fruit or picking at a salad at lunch, with the excuse that they wanted to watch their weight, was depressingly common. Some girls would spend their recess running laps around the playground, and I’d overhear others discussing how to pose for photos to appear skinnier. With that in mind, and also considering that Kate is also a known bully and not a terribly warm person in general, I’d question her suitability to work with kids of any age.
That is a very good point, thank you. Looking at what went on at my daughter’s prep school, I can see it starts younger. I kind of rushed my comment, perhaps because I was thinking more of my young teenage self, when these messages started to filter into my mind and then explode in my adult life. I don’t like the woman, but I can share a feeling of sadness at what has happened to her. Thinking of what you’ve said, I wonder what kind of message this sends Charlotte (and her brothers)? It must be difficult at home and heaven knows how this will play out.
@sparrow and @miranda I agree. When I was working in inpatient mental health I couldn’t work on the eating disorder unit because patients were triggered by me (and I was indeed anorexic).
This bitch “working” with hungry people (kids and adults) sends a pretty fu*ked up message
@sparrow – I definitely worry about the message she’s sending to Charlotte. In fact, when we learned about the pre-wedding drama with Charlotte supposedly crying over the fit of her dress, I almost immediately wondered if her tears were in fact the result of Kate making an insensitive comment about her appearance. Most 4 or 5-year-olds aren’t particularly fashion-conscious, after all (just look at the bizarre, combination of “Sunday best”, pajamas, and Halloween costume that they inevitably come up with when you let them choose their own outfits!).
But I do agree about feeling some sadness for Kate. You just know that this attitude was instilled in her from a young age, as she was being groomed to catch her prince.
@ Miranda, I unfortunately do not think that Charlotte has a chance to grow into a woman with a healthy body appearance due to her mother and CarolE as well. I would be safe to assume that CarolE pressured Keen McMumbles to stay thin to get a man and stay thin afterwards. Hopefully the nanny will reinforce positive attitude with her body and food as she grows up.
Totally agree @sparrow and I hate the name of this campaign for this reason. Shaping Us.
Of course someone obsessed with her own physical shape would choose this language.
Hi QuiteContrary. We’ve posted about it before. Yes, everything she does is loaded because everything she does revolves around her looks, which are those of someone very ill and totally concerned with her body taking up space. minnieder makes a good point about how someone like this can create psychological problems for people in the same environment. I wouldn’t want to be around her if I still had problems.
All these posts on the new instagram and not even one idea of how to make early childhood better, like what are we actually learning? No projects, no links to existing programs, can we AT LEAST have actual tips of how to make it better for the children with your “expertise” and not just 45 posts about how important early childhood is? This is Top CEO feeding air by jazz hands to hungry people.
Abolish the Monarchy
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
That is very much on point!
Is it me or is she repeating the same sentence again and again in all those videos?
every day is ground hog day.
Yes and it’s the same sentence that of something that’s completely obvious. “Our early years shape who we become as adults.” She might as well be saying “The sky is blue” (…with unnecessary hand gestures, of course.) Her public speaking coach probably cringes when they see her videos. She’s better off just keeping her hands still in the Krotch Kup position.
After seeing that TedTalk by Molly Wright, all of Kate’s videos pale in comparison. Here’s a child doing what “Early Childhood Expert” in training can’t do: Deliver a coherent, data based, informative talk about the importance of the early years in development. It’s embarrassing to think this woman may have cribbed what this child did.
OMG – that top photo looks like a cheap catalogue ad for shapewear.
Are we surprised about the money – these 2 have ALWAYS burned through money like there is no tomorrow esp kHate who spends spends and spends on her appearance.
Apparently, this is a direct rip off of an existing program there that had actual results, but had its funding cut. Early years are important, but this just feels like a vanity project.
Are you referring to Sure Start? I’m not from England but I heard about the demise of Sure Start on other platforms (like most of us celebitchies, we do occasionally learn about the world from “serious” sources too lol). It was a vital and popular program that gave tons of support to families with young kids. The background of all this is that Will and Kate’s Tori’s buddies destroyed Sure Start.
It would literally be like Republicans demolishing Medicaid or Social security and a vapid celeb going around saying “you may not realize is but preventative health care/providing for our seniors is important.” I mean, we’re most of the way there on both of these but not quite.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sure_Start
Gruey, I think a better comparison would be Head Start which has been around in the US for decades, and still is.
SHAI, it was Durham University
Another launch, another slogan, same nothing burger. And the Archetypes rip-off is just not at all subtle. I still don’t know why Kate went to a busy market to ask random strangers about their childhoods.
Remember the Archetypes event Meg did for Spotify? Kate set up the exact same thing for her early years mess with the same back drop, color scheme, lighting. It’s insane.
I wish Meghan would call out Kate by saying “you don’t know me well enough to copy our (Archewell’s) homework” but Meghan’s too classy
I wish H&M can copyright some of their work, at least the graphics.
You know what makes the early years challenging? Having to work two jobs and be unable to afford daycare. Having to choose between paying the rent and the power bill. Being so tired from working the two jobs there’s no time for play or outings. Ragging on about the early years and not creating or pointing to pathways of help for families is peak selfishness. And peak nonsense.
100%
Those folks in that institution are trying desperately to make this woman happen and she will not happen because she has zero substance and is going into an area that already has tons of developed research over decades regarding how to optimize conditions for early learners. People whose life work is in this area and here comes this interloper with zero credential playing with this need. These folks are bottom feeders who have reached the end of relevance.
I finally figured out why Kate is squinting in all these videos. It’s to detract from the fact that one of her eyes is bugging out and the other is receding, like Bill the Cat of the Bloom County comic strip. She’s squinting so the two of them look proportional/relatively the same size. But in doing so, it makes her look high, unserious, and stupid. This is someone who cannot embrace her flaws–of which she has many. This is not in any way a role model.
#BillTheKate
I thnk you’re right. I think that’s why she looks so “off” in these videos. She’s trying so hard to even out her eyes and she can’t. (also, its harder to photoshop videos than it is still photos.)
I watched her claymation video yesterday and commented about the blinking. I mute her videos, just watch them, and was astounded by her continual blinking. It must be related to this eye issue – perhaps she is blinking all the time to distract from what is going on, perhaps it is hurting her.
And, good grief, Kate is still so uncomfortable speaking to people and cameras. She is tension personified.
There is also a lot of filler going on for this video. I am not sure why they didn’t wait a day or so to let it settle more.
But also her obsessions with botox and fillers really don’t help her position that a happy first five years helps you cope with stress, as she is obviously unable to do.
The Shaping Us campaign should’ve been called the Shape Up campaign. It’s shaming others to shape up when really it’s keen’s team that needs to shape up.
I think she would have called it this if she could have.
As I noted above, I can’t get over the use of the word “shape.”
I can’t decide whether “Shaping Us” makes me think of underwear (like shapewear) or a romantic comedy. Like one of the pictures yesterday just made me think it was an ad for a rom com or something.
i feel like it takes a lot of effort to be this bad at something. You have to be actively trying to NOT be good or to NOT be credible, right?
That Instagram account makes it very obvious who the ‘centre’ is designed to support.
I’ll give you a hint.
It’s not the children.
Where is this centre located anyway? At KP or in Windsor? I’m not going to check the IG if they mention it there.
I asked this a few weeks ago. There has literally to my knowledge ever been a photograph of this “centre”. All meetings are held in drawing rooms at KP that already existed or offsite. I’m sorry how are you working with experts and doing groundbreaking research with ZERO dedicated space to it. I guess we should be happy though, at least all the pics have saved us from another January/February of articles exclaiming how this is the year where Kate has finally ” found her voice!”
Early years advocacy is intensly political. It’s advocating for money to support child care, nutrition, early education, health care, mental health. It’s about supporting communities with tangible resources. It’s not about “awareness.” Kids need food, clothing, attention, health care, behavior training, language acquisition, socialization. Those are all things that require money. She would have been better off selecting 1 particular element of early child care that she can actually do something about–nutrition for children, perhaps. Physical fitness for children might have been an even better fit–encouraging sport and physical activities even for the youngest kids, as it aids in brain development and physical/mental health. But if Mrs Wales isn’t willing to lobby for resources (she could give a speech to the Commons about the importance of funding early child care), then she’s not only wasting her time, but she’s also taking attention away from programs that are actually doing the work to advocate for children. People will be commenting on her coat dresses instead of talking about this critical issue, and she’s apparently fine with that.
That’s why I want a journalist to ask her some questions on the spot, on camera. “Your Royal Highness, what is the overall goal of your initiative? How will this initiative lead to more public resources devoted to this issue? What role will you be taking to devote more private resources to this issue? What is this initiative’s five year plan, and what specific goals have you set for each of the next five years? Where do topics like nutrition, education, and health care fit into this initiative? Is there one topic that will get particulat focus, or will you be taking a more comprehensive approach? Ultimately, how will you measure the success of your initiative?”
Any leader of a real program would have talking points on each of those questions, and should be able to deliver those talking points in a public setting. Meghan could do it without notes for her projects. Can Kate do this? I’d love to see someone test her on it. She’s the flippin Princess of Wales–she needs to rise to the occasion.
+💯
Hallelujah, Lanne. 👏👏👏
A researcher for a public policy institute (progressive think tank), and those are all key points that we embed *in the research design* as well as the media strategy. But with Duchess Dolittle, there’s no “there” there. She can answer any of those questions, because it never occurred to her that any of them might warrant being explored in the first place.
Princess of Wales but still not an expert. She needs to set up “round tables” where she stays out of it. ANd her constantly saying this is important is not the answer, there is need for Substance that only experts can bring to the table.
I think we know Mrs. Wails would laugh and say ‘I’m just learning!’, ala the food bank when she heard the word donations.
I can’t “listen and learn” anymore. The only thing I will say is the logo simply reminds me of the TV show This is Us and it makes me miss it. That’s all.
So this is basically Kate’s version of Melania’s “Be Best”: Be bestest—earlier.
I wonder what her sister Pippa thinks?
lolz. teachers are on strike in the UK today because they are paying for food for the kids out of their own pockets. I hope they go to the palace and tell kate to hand over money to pay for this food if she cares so much.
It is SOOOOOOOO tone deaf for her to be blathering on about this during these strikes – these strikes were announced a weeks ago. You’d think someone in her team would think ‘Hmm, maybe this week isn’t a good week for Genius McMumbles to tell us all water is wet’.
I can’t watch these video’s of her speaking – she is sooo bad at it. She seems to spend most of her focus on trying to move her face and keep up that fake posh accent. Its obvious its not natural to her.
This latest video is SO bad! She comes across as a prissy, preachy school teacher and the whole thing is reminiscent of an English lesson at elementary level for foreign students with everyone saying one line.
It is beyond painful to watch.
Same day, same hair, same makeup, same earrings, same location as the first video launched a couple-three days ago.
I’m sorry but those earrings are hideous.
I think its the same dress/sweater too. I was looking at another video and she just seemed to be wearing a dark colored jacket over this top.
She really just filmed 2-3 videos in a day, popped up to Leeds to not buy flowers and annoy university students, and she thinks she did something.
Just checked–yep, I bet you’re right, that’s the same dress. Good gad!
She has long done this – done many ‘events’ in one day which are then drip fed over a few weeks, each marketed as a separate event to make it look like she’s busy. I recall one day where she did a few of these types of videos and changed clothes/hair etc.. a few times.
That Botox Brow trying to escape from her face is ALL I can see now every time I see a photo of her…
I say spend more money on it. Get some “Game of Thrones” actors in on the campaign.
‘What if Joffrey’s parents helped him to regulate his emotions in a mindful way?’
‘What if little Ramsay Bolton’s father read a story to him every night?’
‘What if young Sansa wasn’t taught that her greatest value was in looking pretty and marrying a prin…uh, I mean, what if Sansa was given fresh fruit and veg every day as a child?’
That video is terrible.
What would be less work for Kate, but still put her face on camera, is if she did a series of short videos highlighting a particular organization that works with early childhood issues. Kate could appear first in an introduction of 2 or 3 sentences and then turn the whole thing over to the featured organization. She could appear again at the end for a simple thank you.
Exactly! I posted on Kaiser’s twitter that all of this would be fine if it were leading to something, like actual action on helping people, like, “The Early Years are so important, so that’s why we are unveiling the Universal Child Care Program” or something of that nature, but you’re right, they don’t even have to reinvent the wheel, just highlight and support the organizations that are already supporting parents and small children. No brainer.
Enough already Kate! Saying the same hollow message over and over is ANNOYING. From looking at the social media reaction, I do not think she is going to get the respect she thinks she will when this promotional blitz is over.
I didn’t read the previous comments, but my question is, “Is ANYONE watching her crap?”
Wow, her face has gone rogue.
Let’s be honest. This was supposed to be an excuse for Kate to talk about being a mother, feeling broody, and spend few hours every couple of months being photographed playing with toddlers. Lots of expensive pant suits and coats with coordinating leather notebooks (THEE classroom essential she debuted at Harvard…like she graduated from there?!?) This was supposed to be light and playful…like Kate’s tiny purses. I don’t think they realize the gravity of wading into the cost of living, education reform, funding for preschools, or teacher’s pay. I wonder how they will be able to explain the lack of impact from the campaign 5-10 years down the road? Will she and Will be able to consistently beat this drum? If their mental health campaign is anything to go by, I think not!
Honestly. I am a the end of my rope with Kate.
If I was in charge of things,
rule #1. Kate gets zero money for 6 months. No money. No new clothes, shoes, hats, wigs or jewelry.
She might as well set fire to a cash bank vault. Shallow and a true BS artist, plus thick as 2 bricks.
Shaping Us? Girl maybe work on shaping those eyebrows.
For real they are so glaringly mismatched. Who did that to her?!