Parents have mocked Meghan Markle‘s cookery tips on her new Netflix show that they say are ‘over the top’ and ‘extremely time consuming’.
The Duchess, 43, is seen in her ‘With Love, Meghan’ lifestyle show discussing making teabags, candles, a balloon arch for Archie, and jam which she says she does with her three-year-old daughter Lilibet.
She offers tips on children’s party bags that she fills with seeds, mini gardening tools, sugar snap peas, and sweet basil.
But parents have already flocked to Mumsnet to criticise Meghan for portraying an unrealistic lifestyle, labelling the party bags as like something you would get on a Saga bus tour.
Another said the show is ‘not anyway relatable’, adding: ‘Everything is extremely time consuming, OTT (over the top).
‘It’s literally giving yourself a tonne of work, in order for you to laud it over others with how thoughtful and talented you are.’
Another parent wrote on Mumsnet: ‘I don’t think she’d come in for quite so much flak if she actually really did all of this stuff in real life.
‘I don’t believe for one minute that she actually keeps bees or that she grows her own veg or arranges fruit into rainbows for breakfast.’
The Duchess’s delayed ‘With Love, Meghan’ lifestyle show dropped this morning on Netflix
During the documentary, Meghan shared rare details about to her two children, including that the pair, own their own mini gardening tools, despite both being under the age of six
Busy working mother Claire Crick said watching the show made her feel ‘inferior and like a rubbish parent’.
Writing on What To Watch, she said parents will be left disappointed if they think the show will deliver some ‘simple mum-hacks’.
‘Instead of feeling inspired, all this new eight-part docuseries has done is make me feel poor, inferior and like a bad parent because I’m not adding edible flowers to my children’s breakfast as a “sweet” way to start the weekend,’ she said.
‘The perfectly styled million-dollar kitchen, Meghan’s stunning white outfits (I mean, who wears white when cooking tomato pasta?!), and flawless hair and makeup all add to the perfectly styled spectacle of the show, but to most people, this isn’t reality.’
Parenting expert Kirsty Ketley told MailOnline she thinks the show will be a turn-off for most working mothers.
‘It appears that the Mumsnetters are certainly not feeling the pressure to copy her and are finding it very unrelatable, which I think will be the case for nearly all mums,’ she said.
‘It actually feels like we have gone back in time, to when Instagram first came about with all the “perfect mums” showcasing only the best bits of life. We are over all that now and much prefer to watch the likes of Stacey Solomon keeping it real.
‘Those who have millions in the bank and time at their disposal, maybe will love getting themselves some bees to harvest honey, but as someone who has worked for very wealthy families over the years, I cannot imagine many will aspire to be like her.’
The delayed show dropped this morning on the streaming channel where Meghan makes several mentions of her two children, Archie, five, and Lilibet in the series – offering a rare insight into their very private upbringing in Montecito, in the US.
Parents have already flocked to Mumsnet to criticise Meghan for portraying an unrealistic lifestyle
‘With Love, Meghan’ landed on Netflix on Tuesday morning and is aimed at showing a new side to the Duchess of Sussex
Pictured is a beaming Meghan, who will take centre stage for the new Netflix show
Meghan’s new eight-part show features her showing how to host small events for friends
Another clip from the show features Meghan in a full beekeepers’ outfit as she gathers honey
Filmed in the kitchen of a rented £5million mansion near the Sussexes’ Montecito villa, the new show promises an intimate ‘at home’ experience.
The idyllic rented pad, nestled within a gated community, boasts eight acres of avocado trees and lemon groves and is owned by Montecito’s influential Cipolla family.
Inside, Meghan is filmed cooking, baking, cocktail making, flower arranging and party planning using its kitchen’s lavish £15,000 eight-hob Thermador oven.
The royal also gets to show off some of her £80,000 designer wardrobe while she treats her famous celebrity pals to cakes and snacks.
Dangling elegantly from her wrist as she chops up fruit with a £134 knife is a luxurious £21,400 Cartier ‘tank Francaise’ gold watch and a £4,544 Cartier yellow gold bracelet.
Working on the hob of the Thermador oven, Meghan is seen preparing food in a top-of-the-range white Le Creuset pan, worth between £180 and £250.
The property features the centerpiece of the estate: a spacious kitchen with Caesarstone countertops, estimated to cost about £200 to £550 per square metre.
There are kitchen staples such as copper pans for around £200 to £600 and her favourite Vitamix E320 Explorian Blender, which is loved by countless other stars such as Miranda Kerr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Zac Efron, but will set you back £450.
At the back of the stove you see a selection of black walnut chopping boards, with each one costing about £60.
In perfect influencer style Meghan also uses an array of state-of-art Le Creuset cookware, all in matching white. A single pot online retails for about £180 to £250.
The eight episodes, which are each 33 minutes long, see Meghan inviting famous friends to a California estate where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips.
In the second episode of the show, she shared insight into what children’s parties are like when hosted at their sprawling Montecito mansion.
The property, an idyllic $8million estate nestled within a gated community, boasts eight acres of avocado trees and lemon groves, but it belongs not to Meghan, but to Montecito’s well-heeled Cipolla family
The property features the centerpiece of the estate: a spacious kitchen with Caesarstone countertops, where Meghan sliced her homemade honey lemon cake
Meghan offered tips on packing children’s party bags to hand out at the end of a celebration, suggesting parents add ‘seeds that they can plant’ – and that it would ‘give them something to do on the car ride home’.
Rather than balloons and sweets, the duchess revealed she likes to make gift bags that include ‘seeds’ that children can sow and ‘watch grow’.
‘I think a gift bag is important, the guest experience start young,’ she said. ‘Nice to have something to take home, a little mementos, kids get so excited and it gives them something to do on the car ride home before they completely collapse with their naps. It gives parents a little distraction.’
‘Unless it comes with loads of sugar and then they’re calling you like “Hi, and why?”,’ she joked.
The Duchess offered sugar snap peas and sweet basil to her party bags, along with manuka honey sticks, in replacement of sweets.
Meghan also spoke about ‘healing’ something ‘broken’ after she previously accused royal aides of preventing her from expressing her true self during her time in Britain.
The former actress’s lifestyle series ‘With Love, Meghan’ is being billed as a make-or-break moment for the Sussexes and their bumper $100million Netflix deal.
She closed the last of eight episodes with a speech to guests including her husband Prince Harry and mother Doria Ragland, saying: ‘I just want to raise a glass to you guys. This feels like a new chapter that I’m so excited that I’m able to share and I’ve been able to learn from all of you. So I just thank you for all the love and support.
‘And here we go, there’s a business! All of that is part of that creativity that I’ve missed so much, so thank you for loving me so much and celebrating with me.’
Yesterday, a sneak peek of the series saw Meghan tell how it was a ‘real delight and luxury’ to be a ‘present parent’ as she made a rainbow-themed fruit salad.
The show is a make-or-break moment for the Sussexes, who signed a deal with Netflix in 2020
Prince Harry tells his wife Meghan: ‘Well done. You did a great job.’ in the new Netflix show
She started by placing fruits such as grapes, blueberries and strawberries on a chopping board before declaring ‘you don’t have to do a big platter of this… you could do this with one small row for your kids for breakfast’.
‘It makes the morning a lot more fun’, said the mother-of-two, adding: ‘Can I just show you? If you just made one.’
While building the smaller rainbow-themed fruit salad, Prince Harry’s wife insisted: ‘It’s a real delight in being able to be a present parent. And it’s a luxury sometimes because we all have to work. We all have a lot of stuff to do.
‘But when you can take a minute to just… finding the fun in those moments, makes for a really sweet start to the weekend,’ added Meghan, before finishing off her colourful display with yogurt and flower sprinkles.
‘It doesn’t need to be big for a party, it’s how you incorporate these practices everyday,’ concluded the Duchess.
Sharing the teaser to her own Instagram account, Meghan declared that the ‘wait is almost over’, adding: ‘If this brings you joy, wait until you see all episodes of With Love, Meghan dropping on Netflix at midnight tonight!’
It came after Meghan revealed how her son Prince Archie tells her ‘Mama, don’t work too hard’ as she opened up about her children in an intimate interview with People magazine ahead of her cookery show.
Discussing the ‘heritage feeling’ behind her latest project, the Duchess told the US publication how her new series is her way of teaching her daughter Princess Lilibet, three, ‘what it’s like to be a working mom’.
