Royal Mom Kate Middleton Admits Raising Kids Is A Hard Job

Catherine, Princess of Wales, has long been engaged in inspiring charity work with a particular emphasis on children. Back in 2021, she founded the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, which explores the possibilities of early childhood development for a better future. The center commissioned a report after launching which exacted both the social and financial costs of neglecting early childhood development. In the report's foreword, Kate writes about the significance of the early childhood years. 

"This period is when we first learn to manage our emotions and impulses, to care and to empathize, and thus ultimately to establish healthy relationships with ourselves and others," Kate said. "It is a time when our experience of the world around us, and the way that molds our development, can have a lifelong impact on our future mental and physical wellbeing. Indeed, what shapes our childhood shapes the adults and the parents we become." 

Now, as part of her newest initiative centering around early childhood, "Shaping Us," Kate shares in a video interview with Capital FM radio host Roman Kemp that she has drawn the same conclusions from her own experience as a mother that science backs as well. Paramount to the development of a child into a healthy adult is "having a nurturing environment and having experiences in which a child can really understand and discover not only themselves, but also the world in which they live," she says. 

In the interview promoting "Shaping Us," Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Kemp discuss the barriers that families face in raising their children, as well as what Kate sees are the most crucial elements of a supportive home. 

"While raising the importance of early childhood, this isn't about putting extra pressure on families, it's actually saying they need the support and help reprioritizing family life, home life, and all that it takes in raising children today because it is tough," she explains. "The relationships in a family or surrounding that child are so important. The environment in which you bring up a child is important as is the experiences you engage them in."

Kate adds that material possessions are less important than the strength of a family's emotional bonds. "It's not about the number of toys they've got or the number of trips you go on with them. It's just making sure they have the right emotional support around them that comes from the adults in their lives," she says.

However, the initiative has faced some criticism from the early childhood sector itself, with many experts claiming that "Shaping Us" feels scrubbed of certain socio-political realities. Dr. Mine Conkbayir, a member of the Practitioners of the Early Years Sector, told Sky News that attention from public officials on the subject is familiar and ultimately unproductive. "But nothing is done. The time has long passed for 'awareness.' We need action — long-term investment and funding in the early years," she said.