Families are struggling. And the royals just rub it in
While the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge advocate for mental health, they’re guilty of promoting impossible standards of family perfection, writes Lucy Carne. Just look at recent photos in Kate’s mini woodland.
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We are warned of the potentially damaging effects of comparing our lives to those on social media and anxiously falling into a black hole of self doubt.
But what about the royals?
They may not be Victoria Secret models perpetuating a distorted body image, but the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their three angelic children are just as guilty of setting unattainable ideals of the perfect nuclear family.
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When I saw the pictures of their wholesome fun in the mini woodland Kate designed for the Chelsea Flower Show last week, I felt the creep of existential guilt from my inferior parenting.
Had that been my own three small children, the scene would have been less Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood and more Lord of the Flies.
Guaranteed someone would have “accidentally” whacked another with a stick, one would be submerged in the creek gulping down mosquito larvae and another would be crying to go home and watch PJ Masks on the iPad.
Meanwhile, I would not be graciously smiling as I crouched in my espadrilles wedges and tucked a blow-dried tendril behind my ear.
I would instead be frizz-haired and exhausted, scratching masticated Arrowroot biscuit off the pram while wondering if I could get away with serving scrambled eggs for dinner again.
The divine mother and well-dressed, well-behaved children being watched by the smiling father is a 1950s prototype that no longer resonates with modern families.
We want flawed, unfiltered parenting — like in The Letdown, Tully, Modern Family and Bluey.
Thankfully, the era of royal children being wheeled in a pram to take air on a lawn watched through a fence by the public (Queen Elizabeth II) or left alone for six months in the care of nannies while their parents tour the Commonwealth (Prince Charles and Princess Anne) is over.
Diana, Princess of Wales, revolutionised royal parenting protocol with her kind and normal mothering.
Who can forget the images of the young princes in jeans and sneakers hollering with their mum on a theme park ride?
Yet it seems Kate and William’s heavily staged photoshoots of the faultless, happy family is taking us back to prim and rigid times.
Of course, being a royal is far from ordinary — it comes with pomp, duty and the benefit of living off taxpayers.
But while William and Harry advocate for mental health and speak out against the damaging effects of social media, they are guilty of promoting images of impossible standards.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s curated exhibitionism of perfectionism is out of reach for normal parents.
A 2018 survey by The Priory Clinic of more than 1000 parents found that idealised images of parenthood and “over-sharenting” caused 40 per cent of mums and dads to have feelings of inadequacy.
Having a family today is hard.
Women are being discharged from hospitals less than 24 hours after giving birth, four year olds are going to kindy in nappies, childcare is unaffordable, children don’t know how to use a knife and fork. We have lost “the village” and our young families are struggling.
The royals just rub it in.
Lucy Carne is editor of Rendezview.com.au
@lucycarne
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