does turn out to be a
By Barbara Ellen
Having never had much interest in the royals, I find myself hoping for a baby boy, almost fretting about it. The Duchess of Cambridge has undertaken her final public engagements: a ship-naming ceremony in Southampton docks and the Trooping the Colour.
Now she will rest before the birth, in around a month’s time. As I said, I’m not much of royalist (I’m not even interested enough to be anti-monarchy), but purely on a human level, let’s hope that the child is healthy and happy. On the same human level, let’s also hope that it’s a boy.
Outside the royal family, few know the sex of the baby, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation. Prince Harry was rumoured to have said that it was a boy. The duchess was thought to have almost blurted the word “daughter” on a walkabout, though this was explained away as a misunderstanding.
Of course, if the baby does turn out to be a girl, it would be history in the making. A first-born girl would succeed to the throne. Imagine the succession blether – it would never (ever) end. It would swirl around that child’s head in the manner of a bad fairy from a storybook bringing along a cursed gift to a christening.
But that wouldn’t be all. A first-born girl is one thing, but a daughter born to William and Kate at any point would still have to contend with the thorny legacy of Diana.
William and Harry were fortunate in their gender — lucky to be boys. It was bad enough to be the sons of Diana. Could you imagine the feeding frenzy over the daughter of Diana — then, tragically, the bereaved daughter?
Even so, there have been times when William has seemed barely able to contain his contempt and rage for an outside world that wouldn’t stop scrutinising him. You know those people you deal with where you end up wanting to say sarcastically: “So, what makes you love your job so much?” At times, that’s been my feeling about William.
So imagine if he’d been “Diana’s girl”, the sole female repository of a nation’s love and grief, but also of its insatiable hunger for gossip and drama. The endless mawkish comparisons, wailing headlines and maudlin snippets. “Walking among landmines, continuing her mother’s work”; “Looking just like her mother”; “The tilt of her head reminding everyone of her mother”; “Developing bulimia like her mother”. Well, let us hope not the last one. The point is that whatever the princes suffered in terms of unwanted attention and irrational comparisons, a princess could only have endured infinitely worse.
That other princess, Anne, never seemed to make an impact in the same way – she made damn sure of that. Not only was it different back then, but Anne managed to turn herself and, to an extent, her daughter into low-key stable hands. Clever, stubborn Anne! Maybe it was partly because of Anne’s determined non-starriness, the fashion sense endearingly reminiscent of a docker, that Diana became such a powerful emotional figurehead for the nation and beyond.
The People’s Princess or the people’s spittoon? During Diana’s short lifetime it was never fully clear. However, even Diana enjoyed a couple of decades growing up in relative normality, peace, and privacy, before the relentless judgment began.
This is why the arrival of a girl would be troubling. On top of the succession, that child would be the first direct female link to not only the heaving emotional tsunami that was Diana, but also the cloying sense of public ownership of Diana.
It’s hard to envision how she and her parents could fail to be engulfed by it. So, health and happiness to that baby, just as one would extend to any newborn. Still, it might be better all round if the poor little mite were a boy.
The Guardian
By Barbara Ellen
Having never had much interest in the royals, I find myself hoping for a baby boy, almost fretting about it. The Duchess of Cambridge has undertaken her final public engagements: a ship-naming ceremony in Southampton docks and the Trooping the Colour.
Now she will rest before the birth, in around a month’s time. As I said, I’m not much of royalist (I’m not even interested enough to be anti-monarchy), but purely on a human level, let’s hope that the child is healthy and happy. On the same human level, let’s also hope that it’s a boy.
Outside the royal family, few know the sex of the baby, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation. Prince Harry was rumoured to have said that it was a boy. The duchess was thought to have almost blurted the word “daughter” on a walkabout, though this was explained away as a misunderstanding.
Of course, if the baby does turn out to be a girl, it would be history in the making. A first-born girl would succeed to the throne. Imagine the succession blether – it would never (ever) end. It would swirl around that child’s head in the manner of a bad fairy from a storybook bringing along a cursed gift to a christening.
But that wouldn’t be all. A first-born girl is one thing, but a daughter born to William and Kate at any point would still have to contend with the thorny legacy of Diana.
William and Harry were fortunate in their gender — lucky to be boys. It was bad enough to be the sons of Diana. Could you imagine the feeding frenzy over the daughter of Diana — then, tragically, the bereaved daughter?
Even so, there have been times when William has seemed barely able to contain his contempt and rage for an outside world that wouldn’t stop scrutinising him. You know those people you deal with where you end up wanting to say sarcastically: “So, what makes you love your job so much?” At times, that’s been my feeling about William.
So imagine if he’d been “Diana’s girl”, the sole female repository of a nation’s love and grief, but also of its insatiable hunger for gossip and drama. The endless mawkish comparisons, wailing headlines and maudlin snippets. “Walking among landmines, continuing her mother’s work”; “Looking just like her mother”; “The tilt of her head reminding everyone of her mother”; “Developing bulimia like her mother”. Well, let us hope not the last one. The point is that whatever the princes suffered in terms of unwanted attention and irrational comparisons, a princess could only have endured infinitely worse.
That other princess, Anne, never seemed to make an impact in the same way – she made damn sure of that. Not only was it different back then, but Anne managed to turn herself and, to an extent, her daughter into low-key stable hands. Clever, stubborn Anne! Maybe it was partly because of Anne’s determined non-starriness, the fashion sense endearingly reminiscent of a docker, that Diana became such a powerful emotional figurehead for the nation and beyond.
The People’s Princess or the people’s spittoon? During Diana’s short lifetime it was never fully clear. However, even Diana enjoyed a couple of decades growing up in relative normality, peace, and privacy, before the relentless judgment began.
This is why the arrival of a girl would be troubling. On top of the succession, that child would be the first direct female link to not only the heaving emotional tsunami that was Diana, but also the cloying sense of public ownership of Diana.
It’s hard to envision how she and her parents could fail to be engulfed by it. So, health and happiness to that baby, just as one would extend to any newborn. Still, it might be better all round if the poor little mite were a boy.
The Guardian
