Prince William got real about the hard parts of fatherhood — and why he and Princess Kate Middleton didn’t hide her health battle from kids Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
“Every family has its own difficulties and its own challenges, and I think it’s very individual as to how you deal with those problems,” William, 43, told a local Brazilian outlet during his recent trip. “We choose to communicate a lot more with our children.”
William said there are “good things” and “bad things” about this parenting style — especially when it came to revealing details about Kate’s 2024 cancer diagnosis.
“Sometimes you feel you’re oversharing with the children when you probably shouldn’t,” he added. “But most of the time hiding stuff from them doesn’t work, and so explaining to them how they feel, why that’s happening, giving them other viewpoints as to why they might be feeling the way like they are, sometimes helps give them a bigger picture and they can relax more into it, rather than being really anxious about what you’re hiding from them.”
The Prince of Wales added, “There can be a lot more questions than answers. It’s always a balancing act, every parent knows that. It’s about how much do I say? There’s no manual for being a parent; you’ve just got to go with it. It’s a bit of instinct.”
Kate, also 43, announced in March 2024 that she had started chemotherapy after being diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer. By that September, she had completed her treatment. Kate announced this past January that she was officially in remission.
William further discussed his parenting duties during the same interview in Brazil. He noted that Kate does most of the heavy lifting.
“Playdates, taxi driver, sports days, matches, playing in the garden when I can,” he said. “School run most days. I mean, Catherine and I share it, but she probably does the bulk of it.”
William chatted more about allowing their kids to have phones — which he first discussed in an interview last month.
“It is really hard. Our children don’t have phones,” William added. “When George moves onto secondary school, maybe he’ll have one with limited access. We talk to him and explain why we don’t think it’s right.”
William’s fear with giving “full access” is the kids “seeing things on the internet that they shouldn’t.” However, he and Kate are looking into “restricted access” for their 12-year-old son.
“I think it’s good for messaging,” he added.
William said that he and Kate are adamant about their phone rules during an October appearance on Eugene Levy’s Apple TV series, The Reluctant Traveler.
“Louis loves the trampoline, so he’s obsessed with trampolining and, actually, Charlotte does a lot as well,” William said. “As far as I can tell, they just end up jumping up and down on the trampoline, beating each other up, most of the time. Apparently, there is an art to it.”
He added, “Charlotte does her netball as well and her ballet, and so keeping them busy with sports and being outdoors is really important. They’re trying to learn musical instruments. I’m not sure how successful we’re being with that. George loves his football and his hockey.”
