The Australian Women's Weekly June 2016

HOW MANY two-and-three-quarter-year-olds get to host the President of the United States in their own living room? In his monogrammed dressing gown, Prince George looked every inch the future King as he extended bedtime to shake hands with his powerful house guests, Barack and Michelle Obama, and display some regal riding skills on the rocking horse they had given him when he was born. Of course, George stole the show, but the meeting and subsequent dinner with the Prince’s parents – which followed the American duo’s birthday lunch with the Queen – sent out a clear message. Don’t worry about the future of the monarchy, the Cambridges have it sorted. It’s a conclusion I couldn’t help but come to after being invited to spend a week with George’s parents, the…

PEARL OF WISDOM People who shine from within don’t need the spotlight. H. O’DONOGHUE, KAMAROOKA NORTH, VIC. Born to rule The photographs of the Queen are a great record of her life and a fitting contribution to her 90th birthday (The Queen’s 90th Birthday Special, WW, May). As for succession, when the time comes, the person really does not matter, as all the royal family are skilled to take the job and it would not affect our country. But if we become a republic, who knows who would rule? We will never know who will come next. J. JURGENS, BOWEN, QLD. Queen or president? My family and I have thoroughly enjoyed the May edition of The Australian Women’s Weekly, particularly the Queen and the royal family,…

Women On The Front Line (WW, May) resonated with me, as my niece presently lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a reporter for local media. To say we, her family, have concerns for her safety is an understatement. She down-plays the dangers, but earlier this year, seven of her colleagues were killed in a suicide bombing. The management evacuated her to Dubai, but before leaving, she made a promise to her remaining colleagues that she would return to Kabul to help them report on the positive aspects of life in Afghanistan. She is back in Kabul and, as a single woman and senior reporter in a team of young Afghan men, she has nothing but praise for their respect and concern for her safety and wellbeing. NAME AND ADDRESS…

You came to us for NEWS A controversial study claiming mums prefer the eldest child really had you talking. It reached 63,000 people and the debate was argued into the early hours on our Facebook page. They’re not wrong. I’m the middle child and I’m the least favourite. The eldest and youngest children could literally get away with murder. If you aren’t a middle child, you’ll never understand. POSTED BY BROOKE JORDAN So untrue. I think a mother has more than enough love to share it around equally... I love all my children for who they are. POSTED BY JANE MATHER The shock news that music legend Prince had died at his Paisley Park estate led to a lot of speculation and hyperbole in the media. Readers came to The…

It was surely no coincidence that the three official 90th birthday portraits, taken by celebrity portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz, echoed photographs of Queen Victoria and her family, whose length of reign Queen Elizabeth II has now overtaken. This handsome shot (left) shows Her Majesty not as monarch in crown and regalia, but as a happy and loving mother with her five great-grandchildren and two youngest grandchildren. The two other photographs show the Queen in the grounds of Windsor Castle with her dogs and…

IT WAS THE moment Sonia Kruger first felt like a mum. Waking up after her caesarean in January last year, she looked across the hospital room and spied an impossibly perfect little bundle in the see-through baby bassinet. “I kind of came to,” says Sonia, “and [thought], that’s mine! It was amazing. I remember Craig came in and I started crying, and he was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ and I went, ‘I’m just so happy’.” After years of longing for a child – and enduring multiple miscarriages and failed IVF attempts with her long-time partner, TV executive Craig McPherson – Sonia gave birth to daughter Maggie at the eleventh hour, at the age of 49, after a close friend donated an egg. Since then, the TV presenter, who turns 51 in…