The Princess of Wales has “launched” her latest “campaign” this week. The campaign is called Shaping Us, and the goals of the campaign are literally the same as her stated goals for the past few years. Since 2018-19, she’s been banging on about “the Early Years are important.” She did the Five Big Questions, data was stolen and misappropriated, pie charts were made and now she’s acting like none of that happened? Must we start anew every single year with promises of new “campaigns” to tell us the exact same thing, which is fundamentally: babies and little kids are important! Her new twist, this year, seems to be that people spend too much time paying attention to the development of kids over the age of five. Here’s a video posted to their social media:
‘By focusing our collective time, energy & resources on these most preventative years, we can make a huge difference.’
Find out from The Princess of Wales why we've launched #ShapingUs and what we hope to achieve through this important work.@KensingtonRoyal pic.twitter.com/2bbazpt4E3
— The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood (@Earlychildhood) January 31, 2023
But that’s not the only thing… Kensington Palace organized a claymation video to drive home the point that… early childhood development is important. I found this creepy! But I’m not crazy about claymation. Apparently, this is a PSA and it will be shown in UK theaters on Friday. I’ll say it: I miss the pie charts.
Meet Layla 👋 @earlychildhood
Our earliest years shape the rest of our lives. From pregnancy to the age of five, the world around us, the people we meet, and the experiences we have are all #ShapingUs pic.twitter.com/Ta6trdYL94
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2023
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace screencaps & social, WENN.
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- The Duchess of Cambridge takes her landmark survey to London during a breakfast visit to LEYF (London Early Years Foundation) at Stockwell Gardens Nursery & Pre-school. When: 29 Jan 2020 Credit: WENN/Avalon **WENN/Avalon**
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- The Duchess of Cambridge takes her landmark survey to London during a breakfast visit to LEYF (London Early Years Foundation) at Stockwell Gardens Nursery & Pre-school. When: 29 Jan 2020 Credit: WENN/Avalon **WENN/Avalon**
Am I weird? I found that claymation production cute. I learned absolutely nothing and don’t really know what the point of it was, but it was cute…
Think it depends on how you feel about claymation. It generally can be both cute and creepy. This is fine? I’m just wondering who paid for this? Was it royal foundation funds? It’s cool artists are getting paid, I guess?
I just don’t understand the intent of this entire program. For years, we have heard from her how important the early years are..no shit Sherlock. So what r you doing about it?
Why doesn’t she do something practical like actually hold fundraisers at kp or Windsor castle for specific charities that really need help. Invite the aristos and that would be huge. Get some celebrities on board and she could bring in lots of money for some really good causes.
Image if Meghan, while in the UK, was posting videos and telling people the importance of a cookbook and clothes. Not doing anything tangible, just telling people hiw important they are.
This is what this lady is doing
Some of my earliest memories are of a creepy children’s claymation on TV, so…
I’m generally fine with claymation, this veered a little creepy. The only plot point I caught was the mom saying she’d be back in the afternoon, and everything went dark and scary.
Quit raising awareness and actually do something. I maintain they could have a parenting support course that’s just Daniel Tiger and Bluey episodes as examples.
That was beyond creepy….and why would the heavens turn gloomy and scary when it was just the mother who had left? I came away with nothing but a heavy dose of what the parents are doing to their children that affects their birth to their early 5 years.
Oh, and for added measure a sprinkle of POC gathering with the white family and a multi-generational home as well.
Not a flattering photo of her.
I read the title, saw the top picture and thought yeah, she *does* look like bad claymation.
Something weird is going on with her nose. It looks different to me. Or is it that the rest of her frozen face is what’s off, therefore her nose being left alone now looks like it’s not hers? Something is very off.
There is certainly something looking as if it’s growing on the tip of her nose but I am surprised that she still has the ability to blink with all of that botox in her forehead. It didn’t move and was smother than a babies bottom….
The nice eyebrow on one side and the mean eyebrow on the other is distracting me
Yes! I was fixated on the eyebrows. They are so different!
I was too. I think that there was certainly some misfiring as to which muscle could and could not function so the battle continued.
I wonder which eyebrow won??
So are we now on day 3 of this campaign and really all we still know is that the first 5 years are vitally important? I would think by day 3 we would have some specifics laid out but I guess that is wishful thinking.
I am dying at this comment! I thought the same thing but didn’t find the right words 😂
Holy squinty fillery botox! Her face can’t decide which way to pull.
This claymation is okay, if you are the type to respond to this image style emotionally. My problem is the message. What do they want me to feel? Or think? Or do? I know babies’ brains develop fast from conception and on. Even after they turn 5, actually. It’s been confirmed by science. There are longitudinal studies even in TV documentary format about it.
The claymation embrio looks like fried vomit for a second there.
I agree, her face is looking very “fillered”.
Just reposting my comment about the video (from the other thread) here because it’s more relevant.
That claymation video was beyond creepy and the baby a bit gross looking. And, just like Keen, it had no real purpose or educational value. The entire point of the video seemed to be: babies are born and then they age up to 5 years old. No shit, Sherlock!
Agreed, SussexWatcher.
Cap’n Kate and Team Obvious managed to make early childhood development cringe-y. They actually got the public to roll their eyes at the first five years of life.
That’s the achievement here.
Shouldn’t that be Cap’n Kate and Team Oblivious??
Definite did succeed with the eye roll campaign, that was a brilliant success!!
Kate looks like she’s high on drugs in this video lol.
Anyway, I’m not even gonna take this Early Years BS seriously. It’s really a joke! Start at home first Katie keen- focus on your kids first, especially Louis.
She really does look high as a kite. And also like she forgot her glasses and is trying to squint to read the prompter, but can’t because of too much Botox. It’s like the halves of her face are trying to run away from each other. She has a very asymmetrical face which is being made more apparent with age (fine, nothing she can do about that) and the heavy Botox and fillers (stop already!).
It’s the botox. It’s looking more unnatural.
Louis is 4, only one more year and he’s on his own!
Yep, what’s done is done with poor Louis. She’ll wash her hands of him and broody up a new one.
I lol’d, DouchesofCambridge.
I sure learned a lot from that minute and a half video, mainly that someone at KP has too much time on their hands.
I laughed. This was all so pointless
I don’t get her campaign of nothing burger, it’s just filling air time without actually doing something real for real kids because they are too lazy, not confident enough to commit to a real project. Have an end project to your campaign! like raise money to renovate and/or add new stuff to parks made for the children under 5. Why are they so good at having no great ideas?
I think you are on to something here about confidence. Probably they actively avoid commitment to actual deliverables and timelines because the team is
1. inexperienced/underqualified
2. There is no real leadership in KP
3. They don’t know how William and KC will react to certain things and when they will pull the plug on stuff, leaving them high and dry to take the fall out of an abandoned project.
Agree @smart&messy, they’re purposely avoiding deliverables and measurables.
I don’t get not having a goal for this thing. What the heck is the purpose then? besides giving Kate “work” for a few hours a month of course. They could make up like super easy goals and when they are achieved they can brag about it for months. Why is this so hard for her and her team?
Wait I think i have it! I think they are concerned that reaching goals = future expectations for more strenuous work.
Exactly, because it has NOTHING to say. Durham University have ALREADY DONE this subject and published (wonder where barbie botox got her idea from 😏) but, and it’s a big but, Durham University also pointed out that from 5 up support towards learning must continue as school years can be very stressful, and love and emotional support are just as important then.
@ Smart and Messy, you are on something. We all saw the fallout of the Caribbean Disaster Tour and the backlash with that fiasco, all of which was blamed on “staff”. What we all knew was that CopyKeen Kate adores the moments in which she can cosplay QEII, Diana and Meghan. CopyKeen and Bullyiam crashed, burned and burst the “goodwill tour” into flames. I guess they are gun shy now.
@douchesofcambridge Yes!!! If she raised money and built parks and landscaped around schools then I could understand this. Do something to Help, not just bask in the attention of her pet project.
Just how much is this ridiculous campaign costing the British subjects? The money would be better spent feeding and clothing kids and making sure they have heat than spending money on claymations and clothes for Kate to cosplay Meghan.
LOL @Brassy Rebel. The video reminded me of a time when my stomach was queasy and ate some oatmeal. I puked it out and other things. The flu. The wiggly worms in the video didn’t help along with the weird hair curls. Guess claymation isn’t my thing.
The idea of the claymation was cute. The execution was not. Over-the-top and try-hard. No heartstrings pulled over here.
And Kate sounds like she went to the Hilaria Baldwin School of Speaking Foreign Languages with her fake, unintelligible, many different regions accent.
I’ve been a a British murder mystery fanatic for probably a decade and I’m always rewatching or discovering new ones and I’ve never heard an accent quite as random and cutting as hers.
I always think of “Fake Accent University” from Friends!
@ThatsNotOkay Can you imagine her and Hilaria talking together and trying to out do one another?
Butchering “Ven aqí” over and over again….
There was just a media outreach day in London about early literacy and how turning on captions while your kid watches their shows can help. A blogger I follow highlighted it on her Insta. Keenwell Broom Closet Center for Airly Years, where ya’ll at? I have no clue who hosted, but there was zero wiglets present. Why is the concept of hiring people to make you look good so foreign to these people? Did they Brexit that too?
This is what we’ve all been saying. Instead of saying early years is important for years on end, she should focus on something specific. Literacy is a good one. She could also provide schools who are in need with grants through the royal foundation so they can provide breakfast and lunch for their pupils (child hunger is on the rise in the UK). Or since she loves sports so much so could do some sort of program that highlights the benefits of playing outside, with other kids. But that would require some actual work.
Literacy is a good one and honestly she could just blatantly copy Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Hell Dolly would probably partner with the Royal Foundation if she wanted to start something similar in the UK (not sure if there is already a similar program?) Kids who qualify for the program (I think based solely on zip code) get something like one free book every month until they’re 5, to help build their at-home libraries and encourage literacy.
That’s something concrete Kate could do that would win her big points that wouldn’t scream “political.”
Literacy is a great idea. And really with council budgets being slashed getting books into British communities is even more difficult- imagine the royal foundation partnering with libraries and community hubs??
Or like has been mentioned here, learning from Dolly’s foundation model. Again, there are so many ways to do something on this issue.
Literacy would be great and it would be so easy to model the DP imagination library. To make it British, tie it in to Matilda who overcomes her parenting by reading initially, lol.
I think what bugs me about Kate the most (and is tied to what bugs me about the entire family) is that she has ACCESS AND MONEY to whatever her little bitty brain desires. She could pay the best of the best to give her something concrete to do with this early years shit and instead she just keeps rebooting awareness campaigns every couple years in January.
If they did something like Imagination Library, there’s a easy work to be shown every month that she wouldn’t even have to do much of: social media posts highlighting the author, highlighting the book characters, Kate reading the book, some sort of book tie in, boom 4 content posts, one per week to make it look like she actually does anything.
The royals are just so do nothing for the most part but the worst are W/K. They say things but they don’t actually DO anything even when it’d be easy and generate insane amounts of good PR.
Getting adequate nutrition is massively important in the early years. I don’t know why she can’t link that to her food bank visits. She could do so much good. It saddens me to think of children going hungry and it would be wonderful if struggling families got more help.
@ Isabella Saxon, I think the nutritional aspect could be a win-win for CooyKeen. Nutrition is incredibly important for all school children of every age. Given the high costs of foods, and the exploding expenses related to heating and food costs, this could be an easy format to build on especially during the current crises that everyone is facing. Unfortunately they bungled the visit with the local food bank which CopyKeen and Bullyiam could have scored major points had they arrived with donated food and money that all of the food banks desperately need right now. But alas, another missed opportunity and another PR puff piece fiasco for them both, I might add.
Yep. Get them to 5 and you can turn them loose, they’re fine.
That’s what I always thought. At five, they’re ready to go out and get jobs.
Probably more ready than she’ll ever be.
I guess I don’t hate the claymation overall, but I do worry that the baby’s hair appears to have been replaced by…brain worms?
My thought exactly! Won’t someone save the child from the brain worms!?
You don’t know me well enough to talk about my brain worms!
@L84Tea 😭
Brain worms! Is anyone else here watching “The Last of Us”? The claymation brain worms looks like the fungus zombies. Too soon?
I thought of the same thing.
I thought the video was cute.. is it going to show in theaters before movies start?
Also, I read somewhere that a bunch of money influencers were at the event and are set to promote this? Wonder if they’ll be paid and are tagging it as an ad?
This is all an elaborate cover for not working the past 9 years, because she was focusing on the first five years of her young children’s lives, which of course is fine to do, but the extent of this long con is overkill.
Yeah I feel like this is basically her saying “I haven’t worked at all bc the first five years are important and that’s my excuse.”
Meant to say “mommy influencers.”
I don’t have kids, I disliked kids when I was a kid. I love them now, but I don’t want them. I don’t have any pregnancy or early childhood ads or youtube recs targeted to me. And yet, nothing I am ‘learning’ here is new. Surely, SURELY there is something of substance going to happen? What has she done in the past 5 years with regards to this cause? These sorts of messages can be so dangerous as it piles on the guilt to over-stretched parents who aren’t able to provide what they want because of the systemic issues here in the UK. Furthermore, she says there is more focus on the later years…and yet those systems are failing too? What is going to be the point of this cause for her? Awareness isn’t something that needs to happen, as we are all aware of the importance.
In her words, ‘what else?’ *dramatic eye roll and maniacal grimace*
Ha! Okay yeah, good idea. Turn the infamous “what else?” question around to Kate and this campaign. What else???? It’s been rinse and repeat, groundhogs day shenanigans for the past few years.
I agree, we all know this. What are the plans beyond awareness? It’s like if I stood in front of a first grade classroom for the entire year telling kids 2+2 isn’t 5. Okaaaayy????
Genuinely, I don’t think there are plans beyond awareness. It’s just a long-term campaign to raise awareness forever that the early years are important.
Agreed. It’s almost like they all know Kitty isn’t a permanent member of the royal family, so why bother coming up with anything people with more than 4 brain cells can tell is busywork?
She’s starting to remind me of a movie called “Drop Dead Gorgeous”. It’s a mocumentary about a small town beauty contest, and the character who has to run it every year struggles to think of a theme. She chooses Proud to be an American! The previous years were Buy American, USA is A-Okay, and Amer-I-CAN!
One of my favorite movies of all time! 😂
Thanks for the film rec! I keep seeing it on my Netflix, I should watch it 😀
Feels apt that in the parody show, the Windsors, she was replaced with a robot and Will didn’t even notice for months hahaha
It is such a funny movie!
A darkly comedic classic.
🤣😅😭😅🤣😭😅🤣😅😭
I hope she reads this and it makes her cry.
OMG! LOL LOL LOL! She looks like she already was crying….and why does she always seem like she is struggling to even talk? I bet they yelled at her to “do better” after like 400 takes! She is so out of her element with the public speaking or just even interacting with people in general.
Truly embarrassing that keen resorts to showing this at a theatre with coming attractions.because she knows nothing about the topic just speaks in platitudes
That claymation video was horrible, and it did remind me of Lurpack adverts. Aside from that how patronising it was! Sometimes circumstances mean life isn’t all butter. Sometimes it’s ‘Own Brand’ margarine..
I’m really serious when I ask this but what is wrong with her face? Did she have a stroke? It looks like it’s half paralyzed and she can’t quite open her eyes all the way.
Her mouth looks odd as well.
I think its just too much (bad) botox.
I also think in some appearances/videos she looks really hungover or exahausted or both. Something in the swelling around the eyes and the puffy face.
🙃I only hope she gets all the attention she’s asking for. These past weeks have been hilarious.
Creepy or not, far more work went into that claymation video than anything else to do with this ‘Shaping Up’ project. I hope the animators were paid well.
Maybe it was Pippa’s graduate thesis?
Wonder if bully am puts it up for a BAFTA, after all he is president “don’t ya know” 😂
Dude this is freaking terrifying. Like what the hell. I’m actually sort of scared of Kate now. Does she have some weird current of David Lynch inside of her to champion this video?
Kate and William are about to run the Duchy of Cornwall dry…and it hasn’t even been a year since Charlie handed it over!
Royals are celebrities. To launch a program Kate holds a glitzy event and invite media celebrities. At what cost I wonder.
Jesus at the pics. What’s up with her right eye?
All she’s doing is throwing distractions in the name of work in peoples faces. First it was her early years initiative with pie charts and unfortunate presentations. Now it’s claymation with unfortunate presentations. It is clear that public speaking isn’t her talent and that’s fine but lady…Get. Help. Get a team of people together to help with your prep and practice and work on your anxiety. Why is she so lazy? It is all surface with the clothes, wiglets and Botox. The choice of mediocracy is sad.
Oh, dear…the little girl in that last photo. “Who is this woman, and why is she making Scream Face at my friends?”
It’s weird to refer to the “most preventative years” rather than the most formative. Way to push fear and negativity, Princess Mumbles.
100% this. I took umbrage with it the first time she used the term, as if adulthood was a disease that she’s trying to prevent from happening. Literally no one in the field refers to those years as “preventative”—she must’ve confused her medical and academic lingo. Is she planning to do a ton of screening (in the first five years only) for potential signs of anti-social behavior and delays? If so, she could make it make sense, but once again, please clarify and specify why the Early Years are coined this way.
After watching the vid, I’m with everyone: what else? You know what other years are hugely formative—I mean, preventative—and can ruin your life, even if you’ve had the best childhood ever? That’s right, your teens. The disruption of hormones can turn everything upside down; what you consume and the influences around you affect the decisions that you make, which can have lifelong repercussions (eating disorders, body dysmorphia, erectile dysfunction, drug-use, etc). Sometimes, no amount of a happy childhood can shield a child from the rollercoaster that is puberty. Social theorists often compare it to a rebirth into adulthood, so basically another first five years! When Keen’s kids get there, be prepared to hear about how important they are, ad nauseam.
I thought that was an odd word to use as well, preventative years.
Right? If she was talking specifically about screening and early interventions, sure. But she’s broadly categorizing them as “preventative” without specifying what you’re trying to prevent. Language matters, Kate. Do better.
I don’t think one wants to prevent the rest of life … she’s a moron.
I think the claymation is confusing and doesn’t convey the importance of early years.
It is “Scenes from The Early Years”, as seen through the eyes of Catherine, the Princess of Wales. Childhood is all about getting ice cream, swimming in a pool, ripping apart toys. The heartstrings are tugged when Mommy has to say goodbye to visit a food bank for 45 minutes, but Granny CarolE swoops in and all is well. Then at the five year birthday party, it’s all the Land of OZ with pretty colors. Note that the family is William’s family–parents and two boys. (What went wrong with him in his first five years, Kate wonders?) However, the Chuck and Di stand-ins have their appearances changed. Nevertheless, it’s a diverse family (not in line for THE CROWN so it’s perfectly acceptable). And they even invited the wheelchair lady from Notting Hill to the party, but not the same sex couple from next door, who have to watch over the fence.
It’s not news that childhood growth and development at the very early stages of life are extremely important. However, she is missing what we often miss here, in order for a child’s early years to be good ones, we must make it easier to be a good parent. In the US that means several things, 1. Universal child care 2. Universal pre-school 3. Access to good ongoing preventative healthcare, 4. Access to healthy foods, How are those best accomplished? Parents struggle but those without resources that struggle is far greater and children suffer when parents don’t have access to good resources. I just wish they thought more deeply about the issue but they don’t it’s just a “the first 5 years are very important”. No kidding, but how do we as a society make it easier for parents to raise healthy children?
100% agree and almost exactly what I said yesterday about this. I’ve been a parent for over a decade now and honestly I’ve known about the first five years being really important for a long time and I’m sure most parents have as well so to me this is all pointless surface level regurgitation of information that has already been researched and studied by others. She adds absolutely nothing new to this conversation.
My son turned 4 not long ago, so wow, I am almost out of this window. Hope I did a good job—one more year left!
In these four years, what has Keen taught me (keep in mind she’s been @the awareness for 10 years)? Absolutely nothing. Nothing consciously or subconsciously. The message hammered nothing, changed nothing.
Who, really, is her target? Even with degrees and credentials in the field, have I been especially intentional in raising my kids? Very often life just happens, much of it a blur. At the end of the day it was about loving them, explaining things to them, providing safe and happy environments, creating opportunities to socialize…etc. While there was some explicit teaching, so much of the learning was spontaneous, things they absorbed and picked up without me realizing.
What I listed are things most parents instinctively know how to do. The ones who, due to circumstances beyond their control, cannot provide this environment have very different needs and will not respond to such ineffective messaging. And we already know that Kate is not equipped to address their needs…so again, WHAT is the message and who is your target? Because as it stands, the people who know already know, and the ones who don’t…you’re not saying anything of value to them because you’re not showing them HOW.
@Lux- Exactly! You explained it so well.
“Meet Layla” oh ffs
(Also who wants to bet this thing was planned the second Meghan’s pearl was announced?)
The claymation is cute but it just reminds me of an ad for Nationwide bank of Halifax
Or*
I’m confused. Who is Layla? Is that the baby in the claymation?
@jais yep
You don’t know me well enough to use my name Kate
LOL, Layla!
When the chickens come home to roost, all at the exact same time.
Hahahahaha @Layla. Awesome comment. I’m sorry she’s dragging you into her bs.
I gasped at the part in the video about the mom going off to work and the kid looking devastated. Like, what a slap in the face to working moms. I think the video was trying to then convey the importance of quality daycare/childcare settings, but it came off really poorly IMO. Working moms deal with enough, we don’t need even the slightest bit of guilt from someone like Kate.
It was bad enough when this was just general stories about Kate wanting to be keen and something something early years expert something something. But now we’re seeing the “specifics” and its REALLY bad. They spent money on this! They’re using BAFTA to promote it! It’s bad claymation!
The problem is that Kate wants to be like Meghan (and William like Harry) with their concrete projects and outcomes etc. But she would have been better served to just keep doing the basic royal PR like Sophie and Anne. Yes its just PR and photo opportunities, but Sophie and Anne aren’t acting like they’re doing anything else. Kate and her team are trying to act like she’s doing something “major” and important and earth shattering and since they’re not, it just looks stupid.
That’s such a good point. Every engagement she has on this subject ends up being so offensive. Previously, it was ‘if you don’t have a happy childhood, you’ll end up with addiction.’ Now it’s ‘you need to spend all day with your kids and give them every ounce of your attention and give them fun experiences and don’t deprive them.’ Just…offensive
She could do ANYTHING and it would be totally fine if she just gave a sh*t. But she doesn’t, about anything that isn’t herself. That’s why all this flops and her visits flop too. She is indifferent and everyone can tell so they are indifferent as well, beyond the photo ops.
This is exactly it. If it weren’t superficial, if she really cared, I would forgive all (or at least most) of the rest.
I was hoping someone here would point that out! The colours of the video went from warm to grey and lonely ONLY for that 5 second segment and I found it disgusting. There are too many families in the UK where both parents work and they STILL can’t afford to feed their children properly, even with food banks. Universal Credit for families gets smaller and smaller each year; the Tories constantly bang on about scroungers and how “to get people back into work” but OH NO, Keen’s “brand new initiative” says it’s terrible for the child if the mum doesn’t stay home. Mums are doing damage to their child’s Early Years development by putting them in a nursery (pre-school/day care for the Yanks) where their carers have already researched and planned out said development…..it’s elitist and classist and it reeks.
@Danim yes it was disgusting and also disturbing. I watched the video between meetings and all I could think about afterwards was what the ACTUAL fu*k did I just see?!? A truly demented mind created that piece of pure shit.
That’s what was going on in that segment?! I thought the kid had been abandoned or someone died. Jeez.
Working mom’s support their children be it a single or two parent household. They ensure by supporting the family saving for a good education. Kate has 4 homes and lots of money and cam jet off on expensive vacations. Kate never even had to support herself pre marriage
Yeah, there’s a weird mom-shaming or parent-shaming vibe in all of this. I’m assuming that’s not the intent, but as experts in this area, there’s gotta be a way to present this info without the gross vibes.
That’s been her angle for years and its gross and I don’t know why they don’t change the angle of the whole campaign a bit. If you (as a parent) really knew the importance of the early years you would……what? Not work? Find a better (i.e. more expensive) daycare? Hire a Norland Nanny? It all screams “if you really loved your child you would do XYZ!”
Barring abuse situations, most people really are trying to do the best they can as parents. If they are sending their kids to a less than ideal daycare, its probably because that’s what they can afford, or that’s who has hours that can accommodate their schedules, especially if they’re in the service industry, ranging from house or office cleaners, to restaurant workers, to medical workers who don’t have a basic 9-5 job. If their kids aren’t eating the healthiest or most well rounded meals, its probably bc the parents dont have time to cook those meals or the healthier food is too expensive and its hard to beat mac and cheese when you can buy 3 boxes for a dollar or whatever. Or the parents want their kids to be involved in sports but they’re too expensive, or not local enough. Or the mom really wants to play with her kids but she’s overworked, or suffers from depression or anxiety so actually CAN’T engage the way she knows she SHOULD (which just adds to the depression/anxiety etc).
People WANT their kids to be healthy and happy and to grow up well. (again barring abuse etc., but Kate isn’t talking about that anyway.) They need the resources to help them do that. Kate isn’t talking about the resources. She’s just talking about “awareness” and she sounds stupid at this point in time.
@Becks1 this comment might be influenced by what’s happening here in the US, but I don’t think she is making a mistake. I think conservatives around the world are trying to move women back into a space where their only choice is to be a stay at home mom-again, nothing wrong with making that *choice*, but there’s a sinister layer to all of this and a real pressure being put on moms/women. Again, maybe I’m reading that through my US lens and it isn’t the same in Britain, but that’s what I’m getting. Especially given her lack of any suggestion that social programs could be part of the solution here. It is all put onto moms.
Jeez, no I think you’re onto something@alarmjaguar. The whole raising awareness thing is offensive at this point, only in that this is not new info and it’s about the resources, as Becks1 says. But going even further, about making the choice to stay at home, which is a fine choice, but not the only choice. Policy can take away these choices in a lot of ways. I’m thinking about Meghan advocating for a longer parental leave. Going back to the claymation, a mom leaving her child should not bring about a change into dark colors, my god. We’re talking about leaving and coming back, at least in the claymation. But a certain segment of people wanting women to stay home and raise the kids is a real thing. Bye bye roe v wade.
That moment in the video is bizarre. It does imply abandonment on the part of the mother.
Kate doesn’t have a clue what life is like for most employed moms. Making them feel lousy about working — whether their job is necessary to household survival or not — is a crappy move.
She went from childhood to the palace without ever having to earn a paycheck. She’s never had to figure out to balance child-rearing with paid work. She did teach her own children, though, the follow lessons in their early years:
— Mums always have lots of paid help.
— Mums don’t need to develop lives of their own.
— Mums should beware other mums who might steal their husbands and bully them to scare them away.
I assume it is intentional to shame mothers with jobs outside of the home. Kate is after all ok with co-opting white supremacist imagery all the time as well.
Agreed, Kate is not capable of coming up with creative ideas unlike Meghan and that’s fine. She didn’t run for the presidency but married an heir. She should just stick with what she is good at and not try to copy Meghan. That’s why it was a huge mistake to drive the Sussexes away but oh well it’s all too late now.
I work in marketing and a video like this would have cost a fortune. At least £100k just to produce it, minimum.
Plus the media coverage cost to ‘promote it’ on top of that.
It wouldn’t be such a waste of money if it actually had some tangible call to action with it and was connected to the reality of public sentiment in the UK right now. Child poverty is ridiculously high here. Apparently as many as 4 million children, 30% of the population. And that number is predicted to rise with cost of living crisis here. Why not donate £100k (and more!!) to any number of reputable charities battling to help children and families out of this mess. Including food banks.
Absolute waste of money and vanity excersise.
Exactly! The money spent on this useless video could have bought a ton of food for the food bank she went to empty-handed. Actually feeding families would have done infinitely more good than spending all this money to hammer home the message that early years are important, because they lead to later years.
I was wondering how much money they wasted on this. Definitely couldn’t have been put to better use, like actual programs for kids or parents. Heck, just buy a bunch of books for little kids. So many things they could have done with this money and they did … that.
Exactly, plus I just heard on the news that they’re playing it in cinemas. And that will cost hundreds of thousands for multiple placements and run time. Easily up to the £1m mark for that kind of media. Insane!
Really @emi_5? That much money. Maybe, maybe for a really big corporation. I’m just going to conclude that they are using this video for expenses paid for bots. It sucks. I’ve seen, lol, videos over the last few years of boyfriends asking their girlfriends to Homecomings & proms that were far more creative (some with animation). No claymation thank the lord.
I have a general understanding of how the process works and expense involved. This wasn’t very good. Having a good laugh at derangers that were p*ssing/moaning about Pearl. Pearl was at least going to be longer than less than a few minutes. Still hope someone picks up Pearl. I’d watch it.
An educated guess.
Honestly , also the fact they’re running the video in cinemas is quite frankly bonkers. Cinemas are empty right now because people are choosing between heating their homes and eating.
This claymation is super creepy to me. They should have gotten the makers of Sean the Sheep to do it! This just looks like Mudd. Also, as someone who used to work in early years, people don’t focus “too much” on latency age children and adolescents. We do not focus enough on property funding and creating awareness of any age group’s well being, worse on latency age and teens and appallingly low on early years because people wrongly believe that babies “forget everything”. Baby trauma is stored in the body. The way she says this I interpret it like we should be robbing peter to pay Paul! Don’t re-allocate funds from latency and teenaged children to early years, fund BOTH adequately. You think someone whose such a mental health expert that she knows the nuance and eclectic trauma informed approach to types of therapy that she feels knowledgeable enough to say, “talk therapies don’t work on everyone” from a place of hard work and not just a peanut gallery passive aggressive dig at Harry, would know better. Literally put your money where your mouth is Kate.
What a great point. I am not knowledgeable about programs for teens or latency age children in the UK but she makes it sound like they get a lot of attention. Or maybe she’s referring to addiction programs when she says more attention is paid to “later life”? Who knows? Once again, vague language fail. The message should be so clear as to make it unnecessary for us to parse her words.
I’m no expert but as a layperson aren’t two very significant things for brain development diet and reading? Neither warranted a frame in the claymation?
I just don’t understand the project. She’s telling people “early years are VITAL” yet not one statement includes WHERE to focus to support development. It’s staggering how un-meaningful it is.
She is definitely working way harder on her face than on her early years project! She can barely move her face. All these micro movements of her brows – in videos from years ago she had a normal face mimic (or rather a lot of movement in her forehead region). Also she looks totally overfilled.
And a couple of years back her brows were symmetrical…
Looks like she is desperately trying to avoid her face collapsing and it’s not working.
Charles been telling them to glam it up
GF’s face is swollen – the tox and fillers haven’t settled properly, you can see it around the eyes. Plus she’s really struggling to make that face move in order to show ‘something’. I though the video of her talking was creepier than the claymation video.
I laughed at your last sentence. You’re right! It’s like seeing a doll move… really creepy.
I’ve noticed that she’s said the same exact thing in the letter on the website, the video, and the speech at BAFTA, but she still has to look at her notes to remember what to say. I agree with what everyone has said. “Yes, the early years are important, everyone knows, but what will the Royal Foundation for Keening do to help?” The research is already there. Let’s see some solutions.
Yeah, I wrote something similar at the previous post about her speech at Bafta yesterday. It was just the same repetitive words and notions that were in her open letter… and now this again… no imagination nor originality …
@Elizabeth:
I just posted the same thing below before seeing your post.
Yes! It is literally all the same text everywhere. Someone wrote exactly 1 speech and called it a day. I suppose it requires some talent to string together so many words that say absolutely nothing. She’ll never say more than this though. It’s how she’s made it so far. Any hint of substance or taking a stand for anything and the DM (and their Tory backers) will string her up.
This is just a bunch of nothing, all cobbled together to give the illusion of activity. It’s just hot air, a vanity project to pump up the profile of this useless lazy woman. The “experts” involved must be a bit ashamed about how useless and lacking in substance it all is. (But I guess they’re all thinking the OBE/knighthood is in the bag). I keep waiting for something concrete and useful – actual research, donations made, specific themes explored, action points, measurable achievements. But … nothing.
**Excuse the crossposting. I read these articles out of order**
The video of her in green, the claymation video, the speech at BAFTA, and the open letter she penned, sound the same.
They couldn’t even be bothered to spend time writing different scripts/speeches! So repetitively basic.
I hope there’s more to this initiative than regurgitating the same words in different outfits and settings.
Maybe if she had got elocution lessons during her early years public speaking as a princess wouldn’t be so challenging for her.
I just can’t with this nonsense.
Anyone else remember the claymation video that Tool did for “Sober”?
Because now I’m just getting the same creepy vibes
Amateur hour at Kensington Palace. Her eyes look horrible, she’s clearly overdosed on Botox.
I never watch Kate stuff with the sound up. Thing is, watching it muted is really interesting because you can concentrate solely on her (soft focused) face. I’ve never noticed how much she blinks. She does it a lot. And what is happening with her eyes in general? They are so disengaged. Finally, will the left eye brow ever come back down?
I watched it with the sound off too @sparrow, her faux-posh accent is unbearable. What I can’t get past is why are her eyes so squinty? She looks like she’s been crying or has allergies or something. Maybe she’s on tranquilizers that make her dozy (well maybe a bit more dozy than she generally is when she’s not ripping pictures of Meghan to shreds and gnashing her teeth).
Have we switched to “Shaping Us” because “Early Years” is more than five years old, and therefore not worth anyone’s time?
The Ted talk that someone tweeted in response is more informative. Gives parents five things they could actually do to support their child’s development.
That little girl is/was amazing. I’m looking up to her in admiration. Chills how her talk is. She reminds me of a valuable Duchess that lives in Montecito. For those that don’t know..
https://twitter.com/ImpishSugar/status/1620284640820076544
The bar is so, so low for this woman.
That claymation video was creepy. I know it was supposed to tug at your heartstrings, but I couldn’t get over how creepy that baby looked.
Word salad. I’m embarrassed for her — there’s no substance in her work beyond the obvious. Who’s forcing her into this? She’s clearly uncomfortable.
This is like the kid in school who over did his poster to hide the fact that he didn’t read the book for the book report. She is in so far over her poor botoxed head
I absolutely loved the claymation. It brought tears to my eyes. I have a young grandchild and the video was spot on. Kate gets put down no matter what she does. We call her lazy if she does nothing – which as we learned from Spare, they have little control over. And she is criticized for trying to do something that she feels is important. It seems a bit illogical.
She majored in art history. She needs to showcase the real experts. She is a lightweight and tends to make things about her.
It’s fine if you like this video but she in fact gets masses of praise for doing nothing, in almost every sphere. Please do not pretend she is actually criticized no matter what she does.
As the Prince and Princess of Wales they have far more control than they’ve ever had. This campaign still is filler with no value.
Exactly. The “ahhh, how cute and emotional” reaction to a bit of animation is not enough to hide the cynical use of a project to assuage critics who think she does nothing. I never knew Kate had an interest in early years before or during her education, after graduating or after marrying William. No one did, not even Kate herself. That’s because it’s a manufactured “passion” she and her team have come up with in desperation, and as long as she can churn out the sweet little videos that the public find so adorable, the longer she can get away with doing bugger all and insulting the work of real experts.
I think the bit that galls people is that Kate doesn’t and never did think any of this was “important” before she needed to. It’s not like she researched it at university level or took part in relevant charity work as a youngster and beyond. Kate and her desperate team have come up with something very easy for her to do because 1) “early years” is nebulous enough for her to say very little beyond word salad sound bites ; 2) it’s cosy and uncontroversial (the way she does it, anyway); 3) she can rope in the real experts and use them by association; 4) she’s a mum, so she must love kids! (I doubt it, but that’s the optic); 5) it makes her look like Diana (she hopes).
But what is she trying to do here? What, specifically, is she trying to do? That’s what we are all criticizing.
She is literally trying to raise awareness… of a fact that is already widely accepted. I don’t think there is a thing more to it at this point. I watched a clip on Twitter of Camilla Tominey( I try to read the captions and only watch ones where there is a counter view point otherwise I can’t take it) and in it, she strait up says that Kate needs a legacy project, like Diana had with aids and land mines. But I swear even CT was kind of embarrassed about this. She is raising awareness on a topic that people have already raised awareness on. There will likely be no resources or anything more to it unless KP adjusts to the criticism.
Y’all know this took about a 100 takes, right? You can’t tell me princess mannequin doesn’t have a speech impediment.
There’s something here, but they’re not deploying it effectively. I work for an institution that serves a lot of at-risk teens and young adults. Most don’t have kids (yet) but they all have to take a parenting class. And this is the stuff they teach, things like “talk to your baby,” “imagine what might make your baby feel safe, then do it.” etc. They don’t even get into things like “positive reinforcement works better than negative” because the kids can’t process that yet. These simple concepts are novel to so many of them who have never seen a model of kind or effective parenting.
So that’s how this claymation video (I’m on the side that it’s cute) could be used. Don’t show it to the movie-going crowd where it comes off as patronizing. Don’t waste time putting it on Instagram so those of us fortunate enough to have regular internet access can make fun of it. Develop a basic curriculum around it and show it in juvenile corrections, high schools with high student pregnancy rates, youth rehab facilities. Have the Early Years Centre do a study to determine which demographics/regions have the highest rates of juvenile crime or addiction and show it to those kids who are about to have kids themselves. Identify the cycle and then try to break it.
GAH! This isn’t that hard!
Awareness won’t give us money or nannies or great preschools, all of which Kate has. It costs the royals nothing to say: Pay attention to your kids.
Getting adequate nutrition is massively important in the early years. I don’t know why she can’t link that to her food bank visits. She could do so much good. It saddens me to think of children going hungry and it would be wonderful if struggling families got more help.
The only children she cares about are her own. She didn’t care about the children on the other side of the fence on the Flop tour, she emphatically just wants to “learn” about children needing food at a food bank, and only wants photo ops with black kids. You can even tell in pictures that children pick up on her insincerity when she visits schools. They are always moving away from her as she desperately tries to engage them. As a person who is dedicated to children and early childhood development, I’m deeply disappointed that people are falling for this sham, and fawning over this “new” campaign. We literally have a program in CA called The First 5. Also I could NOT with that gross claymation.
Yeah and I question at times how much she cares for her kids. I know she loves them, but does she actually act in their best interest?
@Liz
Okay? I’m hoping their nanny at least has healthy bonds and nurtures them. Now if this campaign gains traction and children TRULY receive support from this, I’ll feel a lot differently. It would be terrible waste of money or PR stunts for her and no betterment for children. Hoping for results, but not holding my breath.
Good lord! Jeebus! KKKhate looks high as a kite here! Something is seriously wrong with her. Lost control of her eyebrows and can’t annunciate to save her life. Is she constantly sedated?
But hey, the lazy, basic white English rose is “better” than the intelligent, capable, empathetic biracial Duchess.
Loyal subjects of the UK, enjoy your dusty, crusty, boring remainders.
If I were a real expert in this field, or had spent my education researching it, I’d be so insulted that someone totally uninterested or inexperienced in my world had fallen upon using it to hide their lazy ineptitude. It’s like Kate has picked the easiest module on a college course. In her mind, anyone can call themselves an early years pioneer; in her mind, this field is simple and cosy enough for anyone to join in. The more she does this, the less power it affords those who really have the passion and the intelligence to do it properly. Some of the psychology takes years to research and carry forwards. Being a mum is helpful but certainly not enough. Being Kate Middleton is definitely not enough. And if Kate Middleton was truly intelligent, and sincere about early years, she would back out, stop diminishing the professionalism of the real experts, and admit she is not enough.
@Sparrow
+1000
“LAYLA
October 4, 2022 at 7:53 am
Incoming red pantsuit…..”
My comment 3 months ago… I called it!
(Although tbf this one was a bit obvious. A lot of people probably called it)
Oh god
Sorry guys
Wrong post 🙈
It actually works perfectly here too.
Meghan had a thousand knives being put into her by the media when she was pregnant for Archie. Where the heck was Kate? Where was she? Why did she not advocate for people to leave Archie’s mom alone because the early years are so important to her? The highest level of B. S. EVER.
We have all missed her Big Plan:
Step 1) Show pie chart: 76% are not aware the first five years are important.
Step 2) Play creepy animation video in theaters.
Step 3) Next January, show NEW pie chart: now, only 74% are not aware the first five years are important. Even more believe that moms should stay home with their children and not work, just like Kate.
Boom! The awareness campaign is a success! (eye roll)
You forgot the part where she sneaks around London, hiding books, like the Pink Panther of literacy, but only if you can find a book somewhere, and have someone teach you to read first.
It’s a sad day when Americans who generally dislike Kate are helpfully suggesting ways she can run a proper campaign to help children in England. How pathetic and disingenuous Kate is!
English is not my first langage and I thought “claymation” was a description of her face which looks weird 😅 Kind of like clay. What happened ?
Y’all, this is NOT A REAL PROGRAM. At best, it’s a press release. Claymation animation is extremely labor-intensive and expensive to execute. This is an insane amount of money to spend on…a press release. Sad.
It’s Tory propaganda about how anyone but “the right sort” should be thrown out and definitely not allowed into the country.
That’s what I’m saying! These royal embiggening projects are costing a fortune, I don’t know why the British public let them play in their faces. The ONLY thing the royals spend their money on is themselves, their appearance, their vanity projects, their Harry hate brigade, their upperclass connections, nothing for the people ever.
Emily, so let me get this straight: the poor children who Kate won’t help, but is raising awareness about, are getting a “soft diplomacy” message from Kate (whispered to her by the Tories) to just leave England because nobody truly gives a f-ck about them and they will surely freeze, starve and die if they don’t go? Did I get that right? Because that is a VERY political message that Kate is then participating in. And it’s so frightening! She is outwardly saying, “We care so much about the little children,” but the true message, the whispered message is, “Leave or die.” So Kate is involved in a chillingly evil plot to neglect the poor and unwanted little children and she is richly rewarded with castles, clothes, jewels and millions of pounds. It makes me want to cry and throw up at the same time.
Yes, I do believe this is what is happening. I don’t think they’re saying the British children should leave, but they are saying forget funding them after they’re age 5, they’re a lost cause so forget any programs to help them and fund the police instead. Child immigrants, though, they want GONE. Like the Albanian children who were kidnapped while seeking asylum in the UK. There was an article about how they’re all thugs anyway because they had poor starts, and this crap directly plays into that.
God I’d love to know Catherine Quinn thinks of all this. Oh I want her to dish the dirt, just lay it all out.
So I also have quite uneven eyebrows and thus I do have a bit of sympathy for Kate here but also SHE COULD STOP WITH THE FILLER AND BOTOX. It’s making her eyebrows so much worse. I laugh every time I see her left brow running away. Poor sausage. This whole thing is such a struggle.