You can almost imagine little Prince George singing The Lion King’s “Just Can’t Wait to Be King” and protesting his lack of access to a device that many “normal” parents love sharing with their children.
It’s a little harder to imagine Prince William saving young George from a pack of hungry hyenas. But the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge do care about providing their children opportunities to experience life beyond castle walls.
“Normalcy in their lives…”
Speaking to US Weekly, “a Middleton family insider” explained the importance these regal parents place on exposing their children to new and different things.
“While they feel it’s important to make them aware of their backgrounds,” says the insider, “it’s also vital for both George and Charlotte to have as much normalcy in their lives as possible.”
Part of that normalcy includes simply having time to be active children.
“William and Kate are firm believers in toys, outdoor play, and encouraging an active imagination,” the source said.
Apparently, one of 2-year-old Princess Charlotte’s favorite playtime activities is pretending that she is a Disney princess.
“I don’t think it’s quite dawned on her that she’s a princess herself,” joked the insider.
While the duke and duchess are happy to expose the royal children to new and different things, there’s one genre of toys that they won’t let George and Charlotte touch: iPads and digital devices.
William and Catherine “grew up without gadgets for entertainment themselves,” noted the insider, and they turned out all right, so they’re passing that tradition on to their progeny.
iPads are “very much seen as Mummy and Daddy’s toys, not for children,” says the source, who insists, “They’re very much a normal family.”
George, 4, began attending Montessori School last winter. The young prince “is at an age where he’s starting to realize that the world he lives in is different to his friends,” says a source.
To George’s schoolmates, not having access to an iPad is probably as strange as living in Kensington Palace. In addition to the digital device prohibition, Prince George and Princess Charlotte are subject to a number of other peculiar regal rules.
Dress Code
While George and Charlotte are encouraged to play sports and get dirty, don’t expect them to dress in grubby garb! Royal children are always dressed presentably and respectfully.
George has a penchant for wearing adorable shorts; this isn’t an accident. The Sun asked fashion and etiquette professional William Hanson to weigh in on why George is frequently seen wearing shorts. Hanson describes the royal family as probably wanting to avoid “proletariat customs, such as the ‘suburban’ habit of making young boys wear trousers.”
The etiquette expert notes that Princes William and Harry both wore shorts until they were of pants-wearing age and assumed that the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother likely wore shorts as a lad as well. Simply put, shorts are a symbol of class privilege in the UK.
When’s the appropriate age to start wearing pants? Hanson guesses we’ll start seeing Prince George in pants once he’s “seven or eight years old.”
Travel Restrictions
Prince George and his father William have technically been breaking rules while travelling across the globe together.
“According to royal rules,” as cited by Yahoo Style, “two direct heirs—Prince William and Prince George—should never fly on a plane together so that the lineage is protected in case of an accident.”
The young heirs to the throne, with their desire to be a normal family, have skirted this rule thus far. We can only hope that by the time George is an adolescent, the regal family will fall in line with royal protocol.
It sure seems like there are a lot of rules for royals. So much for that free-wheeling, Simba-like spirit.