Princess Charlotte: How the Royal baby can avoid being seen as the 'spare heir'
Princes Harry and her cousins Beatrice and Zara Phillips hold a few lessons for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby girl
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana has just been born into a life of unspeakable privilege, and almost unimaginable wealth, but there are pitfalls to her status.
Upon her tiny shoulders is the weight of being the "spare heir". In Royal terms, this means the younger sibling, with a slim chance of becoming monarch, but the pressure of being just as scrutinised as her older brother, Prince George.
Here's how she can avoid the downsides of being the feckless younger sibling. Thing that might almost - almost - make her more like the rest of us.
Avoid partying
Prince Harry had a rep for a while falling out of west London nightclubs such as Boujis, Mahiki and Crazy Larry's. Now Harry tends to take his slacks and deck shoes off to festivals and is less of a paparazzi darling.
His most recent "scandal" was being photographed naked in Las Vegas in 2012, which is basically decades ago in media terms.
So, advice to Charlotte could be to keep her clothes on in Vegas, but that probably applies to all of us.
Get a job
If you're a man, you end up being put in the army (cf. almost ever prince ever) but for a woman, the options look a little different. Other female Royals further down the line of succession get slightly cooler jobs. Zara Phillips gets to ride horses and compete in the Olympics, for example.
Alternatively, Princess Charlotte could just copy Princess Beatrice and just go on loads of holidays instead. Beatrice went on an incredible 11 holidays between November 2014 and April 2015, during which she took in St Barths, New York, and Beijing. Nice work if you can get it.
Do your bit for charidee
Royals always have to do their bit to help other people. If you're born into that much money and aren't even expected to have a proper 9-5, then there's no way you could be seen just swanning around in St Barths without doing something good on the side.
Harry, for example, found his niche working with disabled troops. He trekked across Antarctica with wounded servicemen and women in 2014, and in the same year he championed the Invictus Games, which is a Paralympics-style event in which sick or injured veterans compete.
For Charlotte, this will probably mean many, many charity balls. She will no doubt be taught how to curtsey properly and will spend a lot of time at fundraisers. Which actually sounds worse than being stuck at a desk all day, in some respects.
Study hard
It looks unlikely that Charlotte will be sent to her local comprehensive, so it might be in her interests to try and become as brainy as possible.
Despite being sent straight through the public school system, Harry left Eton with two A-levels, a B in art and a D in geography. Sending a child to Eton currently costs over £32,000 a year.
So, Charlotte might want to study up if the family don't want to make it look like hundreds of thousands of pounds are being poured away.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments