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Lilibet just celebrated her fifth birthday, and her proud parents, Harry and Meghan, shared a couple of delightful photos to commemorate the occasion. It seems like a perfectly sweet gesture, right?
In one picture, Lilibet is captured barefoot on the Montecito grass, wearing a light summer dress. Her vibrant red hair cascades freely as she reaches out to touch a sprig of agapanthus in the garden. In another shot, she playfully squirms in Harry’s arms, her hair playfully obscuring her face, while Meghan leans in beside them. The images radiate charm and warmth.
However, a significant portion of the online royal enthusiasts appear to be in an uproar. Comments on social media criticize, “Why can’t she comb her daughter’s hair or put shoes on her? The poor child always looks disheveled.” Another critic adds, “Her clothes seem like they’ve been pulled from a trash bin.” Yet another voice claims, “It’s not laid-back or bohemian; it’s neglect and bad parenting,” expressing concerns about Lilibet’s bare feet being exposed to athlete’s foot, fungus, and parasites.
Let’s take a step back, shall we?
Although I’ve shared my fair share of opinions on Harry and Meghan’s choices over the years and likely will again, not every decision they make warrants critique. I’m not here to defend all their actions—be it the books, the Netflix series, or their apparent penchant for airing grievances. Yet, none of this is Lilibet’s doing. She’s a five-year-old enjoying the simple joys of childhood: running around barefoot and curious about the world around her. Let her be a child, and I, for one, am absolutely thrilled to see it.
Meghan posted a photo of her daughter Lilibet to mark her fifth birthday. She is barefoot on the grass in Montecito, in a light summer dress, her glorious flame-red hair flying loose and unbrushed as she reaches out to touch a sprig of agapanthus in the garden
I bet that many of the people criticising these photographs would also lament the pressures placed upon modern children in other contexts. We worry that childhood is disappearing. We complain that today’s young grow up too quickly. We fret about social media, image consciousness and impossible standards of perfection. But the moment we see a child – even more so a famous one – blissfully unaware of all that, we criticise her for not looking polished enough.
If Lilibet’s parents had stayed as working members of the Royal Family, what would her fifth birthday photograph have looked like? I can tell you exactly. A formal portrait, taken in some well-appointed room at Kensington or Windsor. Lilibet in a smocked Liberty-print dress, probably pale blue, with a white Peter Pan collar.
Her feet encased in white ankle socks and round-toed leather shoes from the high-end children’s shop Trotters, almost certainly, as they have been for every royal child for the past four decades. Her red hair brushed to within an inch of its life, pulled back in neat plaits tied with ribbon to match the dress. Positioned by a royal photographer. Told to smile – and smiling, no matter what she was actually feeling.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. It’s what happens when you are born into one of the most famous families in the world, and we all hoover up the adorable photographs of George, Charlotte and Louis – their side partings and shiny shoes and general air of being characters in a children’s book from another era brought to life. It’s tradition, and tradition matters.
But there is no getting away from the fact that it’s also a performance, carrying with it the full weight of royal expectation. Even poor Louis chafes at the bit sometimes. I’d wager he’d rather be barefoot in a garden than standing to attention on a palace balcony.
Lilibet, by contrast, looks as if she is having a rather more normal childhood – and, dare I say it, a happier one.
In another photo Lilibet is squirming in Harry’s arms, her hair obscuring her face, Meghan leaning in beside them both. It is entirely charming, writes Vanessa Tait
I brought up my own three children largely barefoot in our garden in the Cotswolds. When they had wellies on, they quickly ruined their clothes in puddles; I learned not to bother dressing them in anything adorable. Bonpoint descended very rapidly to Primark.
My middle one’s particular superpower was climbing trees – a skill I was told she could have parlayed into a career, had I been willing to put the hours in at the indoor climbing wall. She also cut her own red hair into a wonky fringe once, when I wasn’t looking, and got scouted for an ‘edgy’ photoshoot shortly afterwards. Perfection, it turns out, is not always what it’s made out to be.
Some of the most beloved photographs in any family album are the imperfect ones: the gap-toothed smiles, the windswept hair, the ice cream down a T-shirt, the look of complete absorption in whatever adventure happens to be unfolding. Those pictures are real and unscripted.
Lilibet’s hair is a mess because she’s been having a childhood. There are far worse things to be accused of.
And I say: Happy birthday to her.