.The Duke and Duchess will not be hiring a nanny for Prince George
.But William and Kate are 'faux normal' parents says our writer
At it alone: Kate, pictured before her pregnancy, will not be hiring a nanny to help with Prince George
At first, the news that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had decided not to hire a maternity nurse or a nanny seemed perfectly plausible to me.
My son’s maternity nurse (in starched uniform with those horrid nursy black shoes) had some pretty odd ideas.
Permanently sleep deprived and not exactly a scholar to begin with, she believed that our friends and family were a repository of deadly germs and therefore should not be allowed to visit the baby at all. My son was virtually crawling before he met his grandparents.
So good for you, William and Kate, not to be subjected to the madness of a maternity nurse. But you’re not hiring a nanny either? You what!? Hmm.
Saying that you’re not hiring a nanny reminds me of those celebrities who claim they will never go under the knife and then do (and still pretend they did not, despite not being able to smile properly).
The lady doth protest a bit much – and way too soon in my view.
I get it, of course. Kate and William want to be like other ‘normal’ parents – the sort who get up six times a night, have congealed vomit (and faeces) on their clothes and look as if they have survived a plane crash.
Normal parents would chew off their right hand to have a bit of abnormality in their lives in the way of a trustworthy nanny who can take Prince George to the park and allow them the time to take a bath or, better yet, a nap.
If only they had some spare cash.
Normal parents don’t have a full-time ‘housekeeper’ at home (as William and Kate do) or the Millionaire Middletons as in-laws with mansions and endless staff milling about either.
Normal grandparents don’t want to change nappies or even babysit any more, I hear. They’re too busy spending their children’s inheritance.
What William and Kate are is ‘faux’ normal. They want to appear like harassed, sleep-deprived normal parents, without actually being them.
At it alone: Kate, pictured before her pregnancy, will not be hiring a nanny to help with Prince George
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Kate never looks anything other than immaculate with her blow-dried mane and pressed designer clothes – even now.
Normal parents don’t look like that at this stage of life (I never got out of my nightie). I looked at the picture of Kate in her new blue polka-dot dress holding the newborn and wondered how many people it took to get her ready. I couldn’t bend over, let alone zip up a dress, at that stage.
It’s all semantics. No one admits to having a nanny in 2013. Ever since the cult of parenting began in the 1990s, a nanny has become almost a term of disparagement.
Family: The Duchess of Cambridge, pictured as she departs The Lindo Wing with newborn George in her arms and husband by her side, it thought to be planning on relying on her parents for help in the early months of her son's life
By implication it means you have outsourced your God-given duty as a parent to someone (inferior) else. Now that parenting is a political movement (complete with hostile guerrilla factions that man the web 24 hours a day), no one can admit that they don’t spend every minute of their day supervising (and enjoying) their infant’s every activity even if they work in an office from 9am to 6pm.
It is taboo, almost as bad as incest, to discuss parenting in a tone any less earnest than might be used in the War Room of the Pentagon (with the Third World War about to break out).
This state of affairs has made women, well, lie. I know professional women who march by my door daily on their way to work who claim not to have a nanny.
Did they leave their children alone, you wonder? They have (they confess defensively) ‘part-time housekeepers’ or ‘au pairs’ or ‘babysitters’. Most of these speak poor English, have no experience, are paid in cash and work double the legal working hours because they’re desperate.
When not looking after the children all day and often night, they also clean, iron, walk the dog and answer the telephone. This is considered socially acceptable, whereas a qualified English nanny with experience who actually pays attention to your child and speaks English well enough to read to them, is not.
The famous Norland Nannies (the sort that Prince Charles had) do still exist but mostly no longer wear uniforms or live in nurseries.
The more common qualification is NNEB (National Nursery Examination Board), which means the women (and men) in question took the trouble to study infants, and did not arrive, as many now do, from abroad with no references but the willingness to work for half the wages in cash.
I see the ‘au pairs’ through basement windows clutching a baby in one arm, a vacuum cleaner in the other and a mobile strapped to their ear at all times.
A proper nanny maintains high standards so you can relax and concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing instead (attending state functions, working for charity, for example). An educated nanny will also be able to understand the revision Prince George will bring home (at age two).
Helping hand: Duchess Of York employed nanny Alison Wardley to help with the upbringing of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie
My nannies had a lot more experience with babies than I did and far more patience. I never outsourced my responsibilities as a parent to them, but boy was I grateful for the time to work they offered me, especially in the early years.
Still, it is now fashionable in London circles (certainly in Will and Kate’s) for wealthy, glamorous and famous women to boast about not having ‘help’, period. I see them (yummy mummies) taking their children to nursery school in immaculate ironed clothes, and I also see them jumping into their 4x4s to go to Pilates or the hairdressers afterwards.
I never, ever, see them at pick-up. They know the other ‘hands-on-I-have-no-help’ mothers also never show up at pick-up so the coast is clear.
It’s all faux parenting to me, a bit like the kind William and Kate are about to embark on unless they come to their senses. It’s the pretence I object to. Why has mothering gone the way of cooking where everyone lies about having made the three-course dinner from scratch when they clearly haven’t?
No Norlands: There will be no nannies in strict uniforms for Prince George - if the Duke and Duchess are to be believed
Why can’t we admit that looking after small children is exhausting, frustrating, repetitive and help – if you can get some – makes it much more rewarding?
I don’t begrudge the young Royals the posturing. I think it’s charming that they so badly want us to believe they are like us, when they are clearly not.
Most of us are grateful to Kate for taking on a job that so few would if they had the full job description in front of them.
Kate’s pregnancy – a source close to her tells me – was a nightmare from the beginning.
She has been unwell throughout but every time she appears in public she has to maintain the illusion of perfection and good health – how faux is that? But also, how admirable?
This is the best of British characteristics, that ability to rise above how you ‘feel’. And besides, we really want to believe her, because we would all feel so bad if she looked downtrodden and depressed and sorry she signed up for the job and now can’t get out of it.
We want our princesses to be fairytale-like and happy: the appearances are for us, not for them. We don’t want reminding of reality.
Kate is our Walt Disney princess. Vomit on the designer sleeves doesn’t go with the picture.
Here’s another argument for hiring a nanny, Kate. Your husband. It’s the first part of marriage that is the most testing and babies bring any simmering issues to the boil.
Research suggests one very bad night without sleep can create the first cracks that eventually break the back of a relationship.
I’m sure the Middletons (with whom Kate is staying) will take Prince George to the park and let the young marrieds pop out for a meal – but wait, they can’t do that either. They’re not normal, after all.
Another reason to hire a proper nanny, Kate, is because if you become normal, who will administer all the boring official tasks you do daily, or sit through church services that most of us can blow off without too much backlash?
Even if Prince George also goes to church, a nanny can keep him entertained so he doesn’t make a fuss and attract unflattering commentary from the world’s media.
Parenting is a hellishly hard job. It’s difficult enough without also having to perform public duties and look good. Parenting politics also go the other way.
Mothers who drag their tired children to restaurants because they couldn’t find a babysitter arouse a lot of vitriol, too. If Prince George screams in public because he missed his nap, you will get it in the neck, Kate. You can’t win.
It’s just the beginning of a long and tiring journey: don’t try to be perfect or normal. Get a nanny, take a nap.
Family: The Duchess of Cambridge, pictured as she departs The Lindo Wing with newborn George in her arms and husband by her side, it thought to be planning on relying on her parents for help in the early months of her son's life
Helping hand: Duchess Of York employed nanny Alison Wardley to help with the upbringing of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie
No Norlands: There will be no nannies in strict uniforms for Prince George - if the Duke and Duchess are to be believed
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