Kate And Meghan Are Choosing To Parent Their Royal Kids In Surprisingly Different Ways
As we all know, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are both royal mothers. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is mom to Prince George – the heir to the throne – plus Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, on the other hand, has just one child, Archie. Yet she and Prince Harry opted not to give him a royal title. The two women seem to have contrasting approaches to parenting: let’s examine the differences.
Parenting is difficult in and of itself, but if you’re royal there are so many more rules to follow. For example, the reason Prince George almost always wears shorts is because it’s traditional for royal princes to do so until the age of eight. Imagine the tantrum a regular kid might have when his clothes are picked out for him – and then imagine having to explain to him he has to wear them.
Royal parenting has always had, to put it bluntly, a bit of a checkered history. Queen Victoria was not a fan of motherhood at all. By all accounts she herself experienced an extremely controlled and smothering sort of childhood, and perhaps if she’d had the choice, she might not have even had children. But she did, a whole nine of them. And she was determined to shape them into perfect young royals.
Alas, Queen Victoria’s harshness was apparently passed down to future generations. King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II’s dad and Queen Victoria’s great-grandson, reportedly developed his stutter as a result of his father’s strict rules and pressure. And the Queen herself wasn’t immune to the long-standing but problematic royal parenting traditions.
It’s said that Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t the most demonstrative of mothers. She had a country to rule, and that inevitably meant less time for her children. Nannies were given the job of child-rearing, and Prince Philip stepped in to shape the young Prince Charles into what he thought an heir should be. Yep, it seems this meant pressure and hard words.
