I know what you are thinking, what awful things are you going to say about the little baby?
Wrong.
You wound me with your cynicism. Naughty naughty Guru-ites.
My message for today is about childhood and growing up, though it does seem that some us manage to grow up and yet retain a certain childlike quality and innocence.
Just a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to find a baby arrive in our lives, a wonderful little creature called Polly.
Polly is the daughter of Miss Twillets, or should that be Ms. Twillets now? I get confused by social gender politics. Anyway, Polly is being groomed by her mother to become perfect marriage material for the new Prince George and I think he'd be lucky to get her...even though she does suck her thumb.
In reality we don't know what Polly will achieve in her life, she's too young yet to express any hopes and dreams for the future but those around her can dream and do I'm sure hope for a long and happy life for this little girl, Princess Polly of Mansfield.
Polly might not have a real title, and she will not have access to all the things George will have - but she does have one thing he will never have - the freedom to grow up and become what she wants to be.
Longevity seems to be a family trait in the Windsor household, it may well be that the Queen will carry on for another 10 years or more, then King Charles and Queen Camilla will have their shot and that may take us on another 20 or so years, making George 30 when his dad becomes King William.
If his dad manages 30 or so years on the throne then by the time Prince George becomes King George, he might be as old as his grandfather is now.
60 plus years waiting for the job you never asked for.
By the time she is 60, Polly could be retired to her villa in Tuscany. She will sit by her pool reflecting on a long and happy career as an actress, a dancer, a business woman, a hired killer, a flower arranger, a champion Beagle breeder, the scientist who discovered a cure for the common cold, a teacher, a journalist, a fashion designer etc etc. She might have been a wife, mother, grandmother, she might even have been spotted by a dashing young Prince George at Pushy Fit classes.
Polly is a Thursday's Child - she has far to go and where she goes will be pretty much up to her.
George is a Monday's Child - fair of face he may be, and he may get to travel far and wide but he will never have the freedom to be what he wants to be. By the time he is old enough to realise he is trapped, it will be too late to escape - unless he makes the sacrifice of giving up on the throne to pursue happiness in whatever form happiness takes for plain George Cambridge.
I think Polly is the lucky one, and the fact that the world is not clamouring for her picture now doesn't mean a thing.
Her story will be written on blank pages, she will be the author of her story.
You know as I write this I find myself hoping that George manages to escape the shackles of the court, and the expectations of a Royalist driven agenda, the supporters of St Diana who think of this baby as some sort of second coming. If by some chance he wants to be a potter or a bee keeper or a ballet dancer or just live with his 'friend' Gerald in a quiet village in Cambridgeshire and write books on needlecraft, then we should all let him be who he wants to be...it's not going to happen though. The brainwashing will already have begun.
It's all a matter of luck - where we are born. For every child complaining to his parents that the X-Box is broken, there is another child somewhere in the world living in a box, being nibbled by rats as they try and sleep.
For every child throwing a tantrum because they didn't want sauce on their chicken, there is another child who is on the verge of starvation.
For every child who is complaining that they NEED the latest fashionable trainers there is a child whose feet are blistered from the miles they walk to find water.
Mansfield isn't glamorous at the side of Kensington but Polly's home is a palace compared to a cardboard box.
Yes, Polly is lucky. She will be surrounded by love and by people who want her to be happy in her life and to become all she wants to be.
So, George Alexander Louis; I wish you a long and happy life but in my heart I wish you had the freedom to be just George.
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