Prince Harry on diaper duty: God save the Queen, or England could goto the men!
Prince Harry tried his hand at changing a diaper recently and found one hand wasn't enough to do the job well — just look at his facial expression.
Prince Harry was put on diaper duty and, though there was no poop and the baby was a plastic doll, the Army Air Corps captain seemed out of his element.
Chris Jackson, Pool/Reuters
Britain’s Prince Harry has really changed — a diaper. The monarchy may often be in anarchy but it’s moments like this, seeing a bad boy turned war hero change an imaginary poo-poo, that unties the UK with the world in a shared snicker.
According to ABC, the prince experienced how to change a baby doll's diaper with one hand, while holding a weighted dumbbell in the other, during his visit at Headway in Nottingham, England. Headway is a charity organization that supports brain injury survivors. It was a charity his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, often favored with her time.
As a mom who struggles to balance time between my own kids and volunteering to run a non-paying, non-profit children’s charity, I had a feel-good moment from this news story.
My boys have trailed me to chess events and volunteer sessions on evenings, after school, and weekends for the past four years. I would be very proud if, after I died, even one of my four sons were to pick up that torch, even if only to shine for a few hours. Of course, I’d also hope they didn’t show such a face of utter discomfort to the cameras of the world, but then there’s not any poo or bare bottoms involved in playing chess — at least not the way we play it.
However, the prince gave the paparazzi a field day with his visible chagrin when coming face to bottom with a baby doll.
Changing diapers at a brain injury center one-handed while holding a dumbbell in the other may have been to demonstrate the inability of one with a brain injury hampering the use of one side, but in my world the weight represents the other child the parent is juggling.
The 28-year-old prince is preparing to be an uncle after all and may (in some fantasy situation left on the Disney cutting room floor) be in the trenches changing a wet nappy someday soon.
Back in the real world, it’s always nice to see a man who was recently dubbed the once “quintessential bad boy of the royal family” by OK Magazine in a spot of bother over a baby doll. As OK pointed out, “The young prince has made countless headlines, getting caught with marijuana, accused of cheating, and most famously dawning a Nazi costume.” However, the risk-taker, faced the diaper danger with a look on his face that said, “Isn’t there a war I could be fighting somewhere?”
It seems we will never lose our love of watching males struggle in traditional feminine roles such as diapering. The amount of praise they get for it is always tantamount to having taken a terrorist stronghold single-handed while rescuing three orphans and a cat.
Had it been an actual baby and real poo-poo he’d have merited the Nobel Prize for Poop Patrol.
I now know why they say, “God save the Queen” and that’s because if anything were to happen to her the monarchy would be left to the men.
Prince Harry's Nottingham visit included activities that didn’t make as many headlines because they are stereotyped as more normal and male-appropriate, such as an appearance at the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies where he tried video gaming, sparring with some young boys at the KK Boxing Club ring and even becoming a DJ for the day, according to International Business Times of Austrailia.
According to ABC, “This visit is one of the several charity-focused public activities that the prince has undertaken since returning from a four-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.”
Next month, he will be visiting the US, where he’ll be attending public events to support veterans. The prince may be diapering in a city near you as well, since he will make six stops around the country, including Colorado, New York, Washington DC, and New Jersey.
I am bereft that he isn’t coming to Norfolk, Va. We have NATO and the whole Joint Forces Command here, plus more than 300 life-size mermaid sculptures. We even have a battleship.
Still, a mom who runs a children’s charity can dream of the possibilities. I would really put his bravery to the test giving him a six-year-old named Ka’Lil to face across a chess board in the wardroom aboard the Battleship Wisconsin with 40 other inner-city kids ages 4-12, all clamoring for help in slicing and buttering bagels, while arguing at full voice over chess moves.
Kidding aside, I am happy to see gender role boundaries being assaulted by the prince. If I were his mother, Diana, I would be pleased to see that my son was “mom enough” to try and make a difference by sacrificing his tough guy image for the charity I myself had so strongly supported during my life.