Is This What Princess Diana Was Really Like As A Mother To William And Harry?

Today, we love and remember Princess Diana of Wales for her heart, her humanity, and her unwillingness to bend to a system that never fully supported her. 

She was the same caring, independent spirit as a parent. She loved her sons, princes William and Harry, with her entire heart and would have done anything to protect them. We'll never forget Princess Diana's Disney trip with her princes or how royal experts still recall Princess Diana's bond with them.

Diana wasn't born as a royal, and, as such, she wanted to raise her boys to be "normal" — or, at least, as normal as one can be as a member of the royal family (via Insider). She wanted to raise William and Harry to be good, kind-hearted members of society. She, herself, used her celebrity status for good, leading by example for her sons. 

She caused a stir once when she brought baby William on a nine-month tour with her, despite royal protocol declaring that children should remain in the UK while royals are on tour, per Insider. Diana understood that spending time with her son in his infancy was essential in bonding with him and raising him the way she wanted.

Let's take a closer look at how Princess Diana eschewed royal protocols to raise William and Harry in her own way.

Princess Diana wanted to be involved in her children's lives as much as possible, and she hoped to dismantle the royal protocols that attempted to prohibit this closeness. According to CNN, Diana was raised with "distant" parents, and she was, therefore, lonely as a child. Thus, she didn't want William and Harry to experience that distance, and, if she had gone along with royal protocol, they very well might have. 

So she created special moments for the three of them — special in the sense that they were everyday things that royals didn't usually experience, like eating McDonald's or binge-watching reality TV together in her room (per Hello!). She even rearranged her royal duties to align with the boys' schedules so she could see them more, per Insider.

Diana died in 1997, but her legacy has endured, especially through her sons. Harry has said that she was "the best mum in the world" and that "she smothered us with love" (via Elle). "She would just engulf you and squeeze you as tight as possible," Harry said in the documentary "Diana, Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy." "And being as short as I was then, there was no escape, you were there and you were there for as long as she wanted to hold you." He added: "All I can hear is her laugh in my head and that sort of crazy laugh of where there was just pure happiness shown on her face."

Ultimately, Diana did everything in her power to be with her boys as much as possible. There's no telling what kind of men Harry and William would've grown up to be without Diana's special style of parenting, but — looking at them now — we must say she did a smashing job.