Prince William ‘a shouter and hypocrite’? Let’s bury the perfect parent myth

So far the juicy bits being hashed over from the new book about the Princess of Wales are about her man Prince William. Apparently he’s a shouter, has hypocritical tendencies (didn’t want Meghan wearing Diana’s jewellery but it was fine for Kate) and told mates “I’m free” then got drunk when he broke up with his now-wife back in the day.

I’m not normally a deep thinker unless I’m awake at 3am, wondering what the warm smell of colitas is actually like. But this round of royals “news” interests me. Not because it raises the question of whether a cross William would be more exciting than the measured fellow usually presented to us, but because it gives the chance to think about the deeper cause of his alleged bad behaviour.

Prince William, Prince of Wales with his children Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Prince George (right)Credit: Getty Images

This is a man who as a boy was sent to boarding school at age eight, whose parents divorced, whose mother died, whose Nan was on banknotes, whose every move was mapped out for him from birth.

Yes, unresolved childhood trauma writ large. By all accounts, the royals believe the best therapy is a brisk gallop or jolly well getting on with it. Prince Harry called out the generational royal-parenting style in 2021, saying he was caught in a cycle of “pain and suffering” growing up.

From what we can see, as fathers William and Harry are more hands-on than their own parents. No school banishments, some whisking away to nurseries by nanny, minimal enforced collecting of rescue hens’ eggs.

What will be interesting is if they go completely the other way and be truly modern parents: obsessed with the mental health of their children. Indulgent. Too scared or drained by responsibilities to say no.

Statistics point to children experiencing more mental health issues than the generation before. That’s possibly because there’s more awareness and diagnosis of mental health, but what sticks out is over 13 per cent of Australian kids aged four to 11 are experiencing a mental health disorder, according to the Black Dog Institute.

Nobody can say if a more modern style of parenting is a factor in the dramatic shift in our kids’ wellbeing.

What we do know is almost three quarters of Australian two-parent families have two parents in paid work. They’re knackered. Feel guilty for forgetting Book Week or missing school assembly. Make up for it with phones and helicopter parenting that pathologises normal childhood experiences like being sad and angry and anxious.

Other than being a mother I have zero qualifications to fall back on here so might be talking rubbish. But looking back from the self-satisfied heights of having done it, I wonder if as parents rush to check on whether their kids are OK and not sad or think they’re a cat, they’re overcomplicating what’s really needed. Which for mine isn’t hovering and indulgence but dishing out ferocious love and listening carefully while not being their best friend and fixer.

Certainly in my day parents found ways to damage us – they would have given up Cinzano indefinitely rather than say “I love you” – but I’m not sure they ever really worried about the impact of what they were doing. We were left to our own devices mostly, fed and watered and sent out into the street to find fun all day.

Maybe they’d drop us at weekend sport, then leave to do their own thing. Nobody did our science projects for us, nobody blamed teachers when we mucked up at school, they just told us off at family dinner before we sat down to watch Roots together. That style worked pretty well, by and large.

If I ever get to be an interfering grandmother, I’ll be big on boredom, boundaries and responsibility. There will be no entitlement.

I’ll hear and not judge if my children’s children are open to sharing what’s worrying them.

But I won’t ask if they’re anxious or triggered. As with driving, when you focus on not crashing into something you always crash into it.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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