Mothering With Grace

While the press often characterized her life as a fairy tale, a closer look reveals a woman who believed in the importance of family and traditional values.

It was 70 years ago that Grace Kelly won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in The Country Girl. The beautiful actress was at the height of her career, working with directors like Alfred Hitchcock and leading men like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. She wore beautiful clothes, rented a fabulous apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and had her pick of successful eligible bachelors. And yet, of that time in her life she said, "I loved acting. I loved what I was doing. But I was personally unhappy. A great success is no fun if you have no one to share it with. I wasn't personally enjoying mine because I didn't have a personal life that was complete." One year later, she shocked Hollywood when she gave up her career and sailed across the ocean to marry Prince Rainier and become Princess Grace of Monaco.

Most people today know Grace Kelly as a style icon. As an actress and later as a princess she was always well dressed, well spoken, and radiated glamour. While the press often characterized her life as a fairy tale, a closer look reveals a woman who believed in the importance of family and traditional values. Feminism has led women to believe they can have it all and to then be resentful when they can’t. Grace Kelly, through words and example, shows it is possible to sacrifice a successful career for the greater good of family life.

"My real life began with my marriage" Grace once said. She had been linked romantically with some of Hollywood's leading men and almost married fashion designer Oleg Cassini, yet she seemed to intuitively know that a marriage made in Hollywood would probably not work. "When a woman has a certain success and her name is well-known, it’s very difficult to find a man you can respect who will not lose his identity in marrying you. I would not have been happy with someone who became Mr. Grace Kelly." She was introduced to Prince Rainier III while in Cannes for the film festival which led to seven months of letter writing where they realized they shared many things in common, particularly their Roman Catholic faith and desire for a close family. They were married within a year. Within a week of their marriage, she was pregnant with Caroline and five months after Caroline's birth she was pregnant with Albert. Stephanie completed the family several years later. To have this family Grace had to give up her country, career, and ultimately a great deal of personal freedom. While she acknowledged the difficulty of this in the beginning, she never complained. She once said about her decision to stop acting “that was my choice. I just hope I’ve developed as a person instead. That’s what’s important to me – to fulfill my role as a wife and mother and princess.”

According to Howell Conant, longtime photographer of Grace and her family, "Princess Grace of Monaco may well have been the most hands-on royal mother in recent history... Monaco was a little taken aback of how involved Grace was with her kids but her unpretentious side... wouldn't allow her to give the child rearing over to someone else." She once said, "what children need most is the love and attention of their mother" and despite the demands of her duties as princess of Monaco, she made sure her children had that.

She breastfed all her children for their first two months of life (which was not typical in the late 1950s) and told the La Leche League in a speech in 1971 "Breastfeeding is the basis of one’s actual first relationship with the child, a physical one which becomes psychological later and gives the child the basis for a lasting sense of security." This was so important to her that she admitted little patience for those who would not take the time to overcome the difficulties of breastfeeding. “I have many duties and obligations of State but family comes first. I would liked to have breastfed my children for a much longer period than I did. But in the beginning, when they first needed me and I them, State had to wait upon mother.” Ladies Home Journal published this speech in full in 1971 and the La Leche League credited it with helping the acceptance of breastfeeding in the United States.

When her children were young, she would have breakfast with them before sending them off to school. After a busy day full of obligations, she would rush home to say goodnight to them before going out to other events. As life at the palace was very busy, Grace and Rainier cherished their time at their summer home where they often went with little staff and spent time alone with their children. Grace would cook, Rainier would work the land or in his workshop and they could act like a normal family. Their press agent Nadia Lacoste once said "The thing about them as a family, is that they were just that, a real family. The Princess would read to her children in the evening. The Prince would balance all three kids on his shoulders or get down on his knees and play with them. They were a team at work and a team when it came to raising their children. They shared the feeling that it was important to be close, to be together. You know, to stick together." They famously said they didn’t want their children relegated to another wing in the house or handed off to nannies and minders and they worked hard to keep the family as close as they could, in spite of the obligations and pressures that came with being a royal family.

In many interviews Grace spoke of a woman’s role as “the heart of the home” and “creating the cadre, the framework of family life”. The prince and the princess worked hard to instill manners in their children and teach them discipline and morals. They also believed in the importance of being in nature and learning skills. Like many mothers, Grace worried about outside influences on her family and speaking at the 41^st International Eucharistic Congress in 1976 said, “our children are besieged by outside influences that leave us mothers feeling confused and a bit helpless…television has invaded the home – the place where a mother used to feel her family was secure and protected…our children must learn early a sense of values and selection.” She often spoke of religion and insisted that only religion, whatever the faith, can help with the disintegration and uncertainty in the world. The family meal was another way she tried to maintain a dialogue with her children, particularly when they were teenagers. Interviews with Grace from the 1960s and 1970s, times of great cultural upheaval, sound very similar to reading some of today’s top homemaking blogs like “Theology of Home” and “Like Mother Like Daughter”. Despite her fame, in many ways she was just another mother, using her platform to encourage traditional values.

Many times, after leaving Hollywood, Grace was asked if winning the Oscar was one of the greatest moments of her life. She always said no. The greatest moment was when Caroline took her first steps and then tumbled into her arms. It is a good reminder, from one of the world’s most glamorous women, that many of life’s greatest moments are not found in work. They are found in the everyday moments of family life.