IN THE CHILLY, early hours of October 15, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, offered their joyous country not only a new heir to the throne, but the promise of a fresh approach to royal baby raising. The couple’s intention to be hands-on parents was underlined within seconds of their son’s birth when Frederik cut the umbilical cord.
The Crown Prince had been present throughout Mary’s 10-hour labour, gently holding his wife’s hand, cooling her brow and reading to her. All this was pointedly in breach of tradition, but it barely hinted at the scale of the couple’s determination to give their son and the children they hope will follow him a happy, wholesome start in life.
Mary and Frederik are agreed that their much wanted baby will grow up as free as possible from the constraints of royal life and that, while the child will be taught to respect and honour his special role, he will be loved above all for who he is. In this binding parental pact are echoes of his parents’ own very different childhoods; hers warm, easygoing and characteristically Australian, his austere, formal and shaped by the obligations of duty. While Frederik is careful never to criticise his own parents, Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik, whom he reveres, it is in Mary’s exceptionally close family background that he sees a better model.
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