Devastating reason Prince William is continuing Diana tradition with his own children
The Prince and Princess of Wales might be our future King and Queen, but experts agree that they are both committed to raising their children as “normally” as possible. With Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, being second, third and fourth in line to the throne respectively, it sounds like an impossible – or even a futile – task.
But Kate and William are working tirelessly to provide them with as grounded an upbringing as they can, despite the unique circumstances of their extraordinary family background. “They can never be normal and nothing will ever really be normal about their lives – how can a child have a normal upbringing when he’s told at the age of six that he’s going to be King?” says royal expert Duncan Larcombe.
He continued, “But the things they can control, they do, especially in terms of what their children are exposed to and which events they take them along to. The way William and Kate are bringing up their children is very much based on the Middleton model – that small family unit of three kids, the same as with Kate and her siblings. They don’t live lavishly, but they do live very comfortably.”
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Keeping the children grounded even involves having them help out with household chores and, with no live-in staff at Adelaide Cottage, all three are, according royal sources, “expected to muck in”.
“They absolutely do menial tasks,” says royal expert Katie Nicholl. “They are far more ordinary than many might imagine – the kids even have to do chores in return for their pocket money. It’s about them wanting to have a normal, happy, ordinary family home and lifestyle which, at Adelaide Cottage, they are really achieving.”
With high-profile royal engagements to attend as a family, getting the balance right must be tricky for the couple. “Their approach from day one has been different,” says Katie. “The children understand their place in the line of succession and George knows he will one day be King, but William and Kate cushion all of that with fun, family and a wealth of experiences.”
Helping to keep the children’s feet on the ground are Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, who regularly help out with childcare and have been particularly supportive since Kate’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
“Having Kate’s family so intrinsically linked with them is key,” says Katie. “The Middletons bring a great dose of normality and stability to those children’s lives. They’re there on the bucket and spade holidays, they’re there for the parties and they’re there to step in when William and Kate need them. They really are just loving, normal, down-to-earth grandparents.”
But the children are also close to King Charles and Queen Camilla who, while perhaps not as hands-on as the Middletons, are offering George, Charlotte and Louis valuable insight into what their future as senior royals might entail.
“They’re getting a very different experience with them,” explains Katie, author of The New Royals . “They’re getting a taste of life at Balmoral, Christmas at Sandringham and, on a more epic scale, events like the Coronation and the Queen’s funeral. So the children are getting the best of both worlds.”
For Kate, instilling sound moral values into her offspring is high on the list of her and William’s parenting priorities.
“My parents taught me about the importance of qualities like kindness, respect and honesty and I realise how central values like these have been to me throughout my life,” she has said. “That is why William and I want to teach our little children… just how important these things are as they grow up. In my view it is just as important as excelling at maths or sport.”
Her recent illness has only helped to reinforce these core beliefs. “This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved,” she said in her cancer update video released on 9 September.
Ensuring the children grow up without being fixated on material possessions is also key. “It’s not about the number of toys they’ve got or the number or sort of trips that you go on with them,” Kate, a passionate advocate of early years development, said last year. “It’s just making sure that they’ve got the right emotional support around them, and that comes from the adults in their lives.”
Despite, or perhaps because of, his own unconventional upbringing, William is very much on the same page as his wife when it comes to keeping things as real as possible. “As far as we are concerned within our family unit, we are a normal family,” he said in 2016. “I love my children in the same way any father does and I hope George loves me the same way any son does his father. We are very normal in that sense.”
Like his late mother, Princess Diana, before him, William is keen that the children understand not everyone is as fortunate as they are and that some people in society “need a little bit of a helping hand”. Just as the Princess took him and his brother, Harry, to homeless shelters when they were younger, William intends to do the same with his little ones.
“My mother introduced me to the cause of homelessness from quite a young age, and I’m really glad she did,” he said earlier this year. Opening up about his plans to continue her legacy, he added, “I think when I can balance it with their schooling, they will definitely be exposed to it. On the school run, we talk about what we see. When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside supermarkets and we’d talk about it.
“I’d say to the children, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’ I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding.”
Katie Nicholl believes it’s fitting that the Prince is passing his parents’ core values on to their grandchildren.
“It wasn’t just Diana – Charles also wanted his sons to have a better understanding of life outside the Palace walls,” she says. “They both came from the same perspective of wanting to raise those boys with an understanding of normal life outside the confines of royal protocol.
“William and Kate’s children are probably more aware of homelessness than most children from privileged backgrounds, because it’s something their father campaigns passionately for and has done since he was 18. I think their eyes have been quite wide open from an early age – and that is largely because of William and Kate’s hard work.”
