The Prince of Wales is raising his three children — Prince George, 13, Princess Charlotte, 12, and Prince Louis, eight — using a model set by his late mother to ensure they have as normal a childhood as possible despite growing up in the public eye.
Before her death in 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, worked hard to ensure her sons were not spoiled, even going so far as to refuse or pass on gifts intended for them from royal fans — a philosophy that the Prince of Wales has also adopted.
A normal childhood in the public eye
"Diana was the first person to make sure her boys had some sort of normal lifestyle, and that is continuing with the Wales children," Simon Vigar, author of the book The Four Wives of Windsor, told HELLO!. "George, Charlotte and Louis have a more normal childhood than William and Harry did."
Catherine, Princess of Wales, has also opened up about the family's view on material possessions, such as toys, in a video for the Shaping Us campaign.
"The relationships in a family or that surround a child [are] so important," Catherine said in the video posted in 2023. "The environment in which you bring up a child is as important as the experiences you engage them with.
"It's not about the number of toys they've got or the number of sort of trips that you go on with them. It's just making sure that they've got the right emotional support around them and that comes from the adults in their lives."
Mobile phones and the move to Eton
Another major challenge for the couple — one that Princess Diana did not have to face when William and Harry were young — is mobile phones. The Prince and Princess of Wales have long grappled with the decision of whether to give their children phones, and especially access to the internet.
"It's really hard," the heir to the throne told broadcaster Luciano Huck. "I think when George moves on to secondary school, then maybe he might have a phone that has no internet access."
"To be honest, it's getting to the point where it's becoming a little bit of a tense issue," he admitted. "But I think he understands why; we communicate why we don't think it's right."
This debate is likely to come to a head this September, as Prince George moves to Eton College. Luckily, the school's rules dictate that first-year students are banned from having smartphones. Instead of internet-connected devices, Year 9 pupils are given basic offline "brick" phones, such as a Nokia, strictly limited to calls and texts with family. While older students are allowed to have smartphones, their use is heavily regulated.
Nevertheless, William and Catherine's main worry is that most classmates now carry a camera phone and use social media, creating a digital privacy challenge that Prince William and Prince Harry never faced at that age. Images and videos of the young prince could be uploaded and distributed online within seconds, and the pressure of online scrutiny is something the parents want to delay for as long as possible.
