“Kate Middleton isn’t such a good parent after all,” commented one tweeter. “It’s clear that ‘parenting expert’ Kate Middleton doesn’t know how to handle her own children,” said the other. “So much anger for a child who indulges,” tut-tutte another. “He probably won’t be disciplined at all at home.” And there was someone who wrote a kind of poem: ‘Children are smart, understand, and know when they are crazy. Queen Elizabeth, when she was this age, never behaved like this. Kate has to pick herself up as a parent.’
The weather was fine during the four days that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her platinum jubilee, but locally it rained accusations against Kate, the wife of Prince William. Why? During the hour-long procession for his great-grandmother, Louis, the 4-year-old youngest of Kate and William (I’m just going to emphasize that the child has two parents) did what all 4-year-olds around the world do when they are tired and have everything to do. takes a long time: a little grunting, challenging your parents, pulling funny faces. Nothing special, but try to manage that behavior as a parent when all eyes are on you.
The photo of Louis giving his mother a long nose, and Kate calling him to order and taking his hand, went around the world about three times. There were those who raved about the expressive prince (whose face indeed excels in plasticity). But soon there were also people who deduced from the photo that it was Kate’s fault that Louis behaved in such a way, that it was also her fault that she then treated him so ‘aggressively’, and that all through the day anyway. her fault. The British tabloids eagerly played the game and Prince William was kept out of harm’s way.
Built-up frustrations
That this photo is literally a snapshot, a visual magnification of an interaction between mother and son that lasted only a few seconds (there’s also a video of it) and that there is absolutely no indication that Kate and Louis are a bad mother and an uneducated mother respectively. would be a child – that doesn’t matter, of course. It’s amazing how many people think they read in such a photo. It’s actually no longer a photo, but a container in which people can put all their built-up frustrations about the British royal family or Kate, those privileged walking shampoo commercials (I’ll just throw together some critical comments), or about women in general, in one go. be able to lose.
What is interesting is not so much what happens next, how the whole apparatus of action, reaction and counteraction gets underway. This kind of fuss always follows the same laws and patterns: something gets blown up, a big-mouthed minority thinks all kinds of things about it, then the ‘good’ majority stirs up and stands up for the afflicted party, and eventually things get messed up. most cases soothed with a well thought-out media offensive, with a joke and some self-mockery.
The interesting thing is that after that – again: in most cases – it is quiet again, which makes one think: it was also a bit ridiculous. But only one thing has to happen or everything starts again. As if each photo feeds a collective memory that, quite contradictingly, causes collective forgetfulness.
That’s how it went, of course. After the attack came the defense: a TV nanny praised Kate, columnists stood up for her. Suddenly the photo of Kate and Louis symbolized perfect motherhood. Kate and William posted another perfectly directed wink on their joint Instagram page – and that’s it. I’m really curious about the next photo.
An earlier version stated that Prince Louis is three years old. That is not true. Prince Louis is four years old.