24 photos of royals being regular dads
- Royals' relationships with their parents aren't always easy, but they're still family.
- Prince Philip played polo with his son Prince Charles when he was a teenager.
- Prince William and Kate Middleton shared candid photos of their three children tackling their dad.
Prince Philip and the Queen had four children: Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward.
Prince Charles was born in 1948, four years before his mother, then Princess Elizabeth, became queen.
The Duke of Edinburgh still found moments of levity with his children amid a busy royal schedule.
Prince Philip pushed Prince Charles and Princess Anne on a swing at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
Philip played polo with Charles when he was a teenager.
Queen Elizabeth awarded them both trophies after a polo match in 1967.
Charles went on to become an avid polo player, with his father watching games in the stands.
Philip gave Charles his first polo mallet when he was 15.
Their father-son relationship wasn't always easy.
Philip sent Charles to his former school, Gordonstoun in Scotland, which was far from the family's home. Charles reportedly had a tough experience at the school.
In an authorized biography of Prince Charles, author Jonathan Dimbleby wrote that Charles was "inevitably separated from his parents more than they might have wished," causing him to feel that his parents were "emotionally distant" as well.
But their close bond remained.
Charles released a heartfelt statement when Philip, his "dear Papa," died at the age of 99 in April.
"As you can imagine, my family and I miss my father enormously," the statement read. "He was a much loved and appreciated figure and apart from anything else, I can imagine, he would be so deeply touched by the number of other people here and elsewhere around the world and the Commonwealth, who also I think, share our loss and our sorrow.
The statement continued: "My dear Papa was a very special person who I think above all else would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him and from that point of view we are, my family, deeply grateful for all that. It will sustain us in this particular loss and at this particularly sad time. Thank you."
When Charles became a father, he pushed Prince William on swings the way his father had for him.
Charles posed for photos in honor of William's second birthday in the gardens of Kensington Palace in 1984.
Charles had double the fun when Prince Harry came along.
He lifted Harry onto William's shoulders when the two were small.
He took his sons bike riding around the Queen's Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.
Harry sat in a bicycle seat behind Charles, while William rode on his own.
After Princess Diana's death, Prince Charles took his sons on vacations to get away from it all.
Charles took William and Harry on a father-son ski strip to Whistler, Canada, in 1998.
Like many families, his sons show him amusing memes on their phones.
William induced giggles when he showed Charles something on his phone at the Invictus Games in 2014.
He also bonds with his daughters-in-law.
Charles laughed with William and Kate Middleton on a visit to Scotland in 2013.
Charles walked Meghan Markle down the aisle at her and Harry's wedding.
Although their father-son relationship has become strained since Harry and Markle gave up their royal titles, Harry told Oprah Winfrey in March that he would "continue to try and make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship."
The Duke of Sussex said during his interview with Winfrey that Charles had refused to take his calls after he shared his plan in late 2019 to step back from royal life.
Prince William practiced using a baby car seat before the birth of his first child.
On a February 2020 episode of the podcast "Happy Mum, Happy Baby" hosted by Giovanna Fletcher, Middleton revealed how nervous she and William were about bringing Prince George home.
"The duke, when he put Prince George in the car, that was seamless," Fletcher said of the televised moment after George's birth, when William and Middleton were shown fastening their newborn into the car seat.
"We didn't think so at the time," Middleton said. "We even tried to practice with a little baby doll, but you know, it just never works out the way you planned it, so it was quite hard to do that on the world's stage."
As Prince George grew up, William coached him through public appearances.
William bent down to talk to his son during their official visit to Poland in 2017.
And occasionally let him stay up past his bedtime.
President Barack Obama said a quick good night to George, who was already in his pajamas, while visiting the UK in 2016. Obama later joked in his 2016 White House Correspondents' Dinner speech that George's pajamas were "a clear breach of protocol."
He gave Princess Charlotte a boost as they departed Germany in 2017.
He also watches YouTube tutorials to learn how to style his daughter's hair.
He took George and Charlotte to meet their new brother, Prince Louis, in 2018.
Middleton gave birth to Prince Louis at St Mary's Hospital in London, where his siblings were also born.
Like any dad, William chases after his kids.
William and Middleton shared a series of candid photos on the official Kensington Palace Instagram of their kids playing in the RHS Back to Nature Garden that Middleton designed for the Chelsea Flower Show in London.
Sometimes, they catch him.
For Father's Day and Prince William's birthday on June 21, 2020, the duke shared adorably candid photos of himself being tackled by George, Charlotte, and Louis.
For his first Father's Day as a dad in 2019, Harry and Markle shared a sweet photo of their son, Archie, holding Harry's hand.
The photo of 6-week-old Archie was posted to their now-inactive @SussexRoyal Instagram account.
Harry said hello to Markle and Archie after a polo match.
Harry and William competed in the King Power Royal Charity Polo Match in Wokingham, England, in 2019.
Harry made funny faces at Archie on a visit to South Africa.
The couple met with Archbishop Desmond Tutu during their royal tour of South Africa in 2019.
Harry and Archie had some father-son bonding in Canada during the 2020 holiday season before moving to Montecito, California.
On an episode of the podcast "Armchair Expert," Harry spoke about how he hoped to "break the cycle" of pain and suffering in his family.
"There is no blame," he told host Dax Shepard in the episode, which aired in May 2021. "I don't think we should be pointing the finger or blaming anybody, but certainly when it comes to parenting. If I've experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered, I'm going to make sure I break that cycle so that I don't pass it on, basically."
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