raising a royal heir Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

Last royal post, I promise.

The guessing game is finally over: it’s a boy (those wanting a girl are now, according to Twitter, hoping he might be gay); they left the Lindo Wing with a tiny wave; and He Who Had No Name is called George.

Named after my first cat, I believe.

(Despite sounding like a stripper, Royal Baby will stick in my mind for quite a while longer, though).

But if there’s something we don’t have to guess, it’s that his upbringing will be nothing like that experienced by the garden-variety of child.

Below is my compare-and-contrast with the hoi polloi, and, out of interest, what previous royal generations did …

When all this is trained on your birth, and you start trending within your first five minutes of life, it's unlikely to be an ordinary existence

When all this is trained on your birth, and you start trending within your first five minutes of life, the chances of having an ordinary existence are zilch, I’d say

MEETING THE FAMILY
Circles household: Immensely grateful that DH made it to Son2’s surgical birth (on an overnight flight) with five minutes to spare.
HH: Wills was in attendance the whole time and the royal grandparents were helicoptered in for an unscheduled flying visit.
Previously: Prince Charles was the first dad to see his heir arrive; before that, multiple officials were present and births took place in royal residences, not hospitals.

“AHEM, to the hospital, please!”

HIS CRYNESS, ALL.NIGHT.LONG
Circles household: Schlepped into our nursery room in a fug of tiredness, eyes clamped half shut; often still on the floor in the morning.
HH: What prosperous parent doesn’t employ a maternity nurse these days?
Previously: Believing breastfeeding was the ‘ruin’ of refined ladies, Queen Victoria handed all nine of her children over to a wet nurse.

FIRST PAD(S)
Circles household: A modest two-bedroom home in Minneapolis.
HH: Apartment 1A at Kensington Palace, although why this is called an apartment is BEYOND me. It’s a four-story, 20-room property. There will also be a 10-bed country mansion in Norfolk.
Previously: Prince Charles lived in Buckingham Palace’s remote nursery, cared for by nannies, governesses and footmen, and only seeing his parents at designated times.

The ‘apartment’ at Kensington Palace

HIGH TEA WITH FRIENDS
Circles household: Decamped to friends’ homes whenever it felt like the walls were closing in on me.
HH: No shortage of mates with estates and big digs for little George to visit.
Previously: While growing up, the Queen didn’t get to meet ordinary folk under ordinary circumstances, only leaving the palace under carefully controlled conditions.

ON RAINY DAYS
Circles household: Braved the germ-ridden, windowless hellholes that are soft-play areas.
HH: Chelsea’s Purple Dragon, where there’s a pristine indoor play centre, pool, recording studio, etc, and the clocks on the wall tell the time in Narnia, the Shire and Neverland, is surely in his future.
Previously: At a guess, wellington boot activities were popular.

If the blue Bugaboo breaks, one has other options

FEASTS FIT FOR A KING
Circles household: Had good intentions, but resorted to jars, followed by fish fingers, all too often cooked with my coat on after rushing home.
HH: Any fish fingers eaten are more likely to be made of salmon and coated in gluten-free breadcrumbs.
Previously: Wills and Harry were weaned on organic purees, prepared by Princess Diana’s chef.

EARLY LEARNING
Circles household: Put Son1 in a US daycare centre teeming with snotty children and hoped for the best.
HH: A likely contender is Chelsea Pre-Prep and Nursery, which offers ballet, French and animal care among its extracurricular activities.
Previously: Queen Elizabeth was home schooled for her entire education.

AIR MILES
Circles household: These, we have clocked up a few of.
HH: I don’t see those ski holidays and island-hopping trips stopping, do you?
Previously: As a toddler, Prince Charles’ parents often went on official overseas trips, sometimes lasting months and, as was custom, left him behind. (Keeping routines intact, people – or had they discovered the joys of child-free travel?)

I wish the new royal family all the very best, I really do. They honestly seem like a jolly nice couple.

Some two decades ago, Baby Cambridge’s grandmother, the late Princess Di, brought her children over. Well, not exactly over to ours, but to the theme park where I worked during Uni vacations.

It was the Easter holidays and the news spread round Thorpe Park like wildfire that Princess Diana was visiting with young Wills and Harry. The park wasn’t closed or anything; they mingled with the crowds and queued for rides along with everyone else, while I stood at a cash register in a frilly Alice in Wonderland costume desperately hoping the royal party would come into my sweet parlour to buy some pick ‘n’ mix.

They didn’t, but one of the press photos taken that day, of the Princess and Princes on the Logger’s Leap water ride, became one of the most famous images of Diana relaxing with her sons.

I’ve LOVED watching the royal family being dragged into the 21st century

(My DH claims to have met Princess Diana, too, when she nearly ran him over on a zebra crossing in Kensington. At the wheel of a dark-coloured car, she apparently appeared out of nowhere, sped up to the crossing, looked my DH directly in the eye as he scurried across, and zoomed off. But my story is more relevant here.)

I was glued to the ~~#GlobalCervixWatch~~ Royal Baby Watch as history was made today. I devoured the 24-hour news coverage, the fillers, the interviews with knackered, bemused new mums who’d also given birth today. I laughed out loud at the electrifying false alarm, triggered when a security officer walked out of the hospital with a file, and ‘ahhhed’ at the news the fountains in Trafalgar Square would be filled with blue water if the baby was a boy and pink if it was a girl.

Never mind that when the announcement was finally made (four hours after the birth), the internet ground to a halt as millions of people checked the news, and the TV was being hogged by my boys racing each other on Super Mario.

My point, though, is I’m really glad the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge enjoyed this private, bonding time with their newborn. Tomorrow, they’ll be thrust under the most intense media scrutiny as the public demands images of her leaving hospital, and perhaps struggling with a car seat.

And, as this heir-to-the-throne will inevitably be brought up in the public eye, I hope that Diana’s legacy – the way in which, contrary to previous royal generations, she attempted to give her boys a more normal, grounded upbringing (you can say what you like about her, but she was an amazing mother) – will continue to live on. I’ve a very good feeling that with hands-on parents and the help of Kate Middie’s family, it will.