Totally agree.
She spent very little time actually raising her sons so they were always in holiday mode with her and then she dumps all her problems on them.
The number of 'dropped' friends is a long list while those who were 'close' friends in very few - that says a lot about her - all a one way friendship and if anyone dared to say anything slightly negative they were dropped regardless of how good the friendship had been beforehand.
I Simply cannot agree -that is simply not the case about her sons. She spent as much time with them as she could and was certainly a more hands on mother, than many upper class women. She loved being with them, and she was if possible the one who got up in the night to tend them when they were babies. Charles too, at least when they were very little, seems to have spent a fair bit of time in the nursery, giving bottles and playing with them.
Diana had to let them go to Boarding school, that was a given and she had to let them spend time iwht their father and the queen, after the separation. That was a given.
She did not "dump all her problems on them." She did talk to William about her life, because she beleived he was very mature.. what's wrong with that? It sounds like you're saying that she came home and said "Oh William Im having this problem with thte queen can't you go and sort it for me". or "William, i need soemone to carry coal in for me" or "tell your father such and such from me..." "Or "WIlliam I'm having a row with someone at work, I want you to go and intervene."
It was nothing like that. She talked ot them about her life, about what was going on, if they liked her boyfriends etc. Why should she not? if she did remarry, she wanted her boys to get on with whoever the man was. Perhaps she did lean on William a bit, but a lot of women who have no husband tend to put a bit more on the eldest child.. I don't think that it is so terrible unless she was ringing him up every day with problems.. or asking him to intervene in ways that would be inappropriate and stressful for a young child..
As for friends yes she was demanding, but she was also, as friends have testified a very loving giving friend as well.
She often did quarrel with people and as Rosa Moncton's said, if the friend had problems Diana would often turn up again, forget the quarrel and do her best to help. So it is just not fair or right, to say that her friendships were one sided. She was afraid of disloyalty, I agree and that made her suspicious of people.. and when she felt that a friend was crticising her or worse still talking about her behind her back, she got frightened and angry and would fall out with them.
But while such behavior was wrong, it was understandable. She knew that people in her life were often seduced into talking to the press, and she feared that they might say things that damaged her..
Her boyfriend James Hewitt was disloyal to her, her butler snooped around in her things, I think it was hard for her to know whom to trust and not surprising that she was jumpy and often did fall out with people...
But she did try to give to her friends as well as take from them, emotionally and pracitacally. When Rosa had a child with Downs Syndrome, she turned up with stuff she had found out, organisaitons that could help and so on. She offered to be the child's godmother. When Rosa lost a baby, she again turned up with helpful suggestions, that Rosa should give the baby a name and a burial service, to help with her grief...
