Queen Elizabeth II, The Crown Mom: World News Watched Her Royal Parenting

When Queen Elizabeth II became the official crown royal, she was already a mother of two children, and would have two more after she ascended the throne.

Of course, at the age of 26, when Queen Elizabeth took the crown, the world was watching her in the post-world War II era.

For this reason, when she had her other two children, Queen Elizabeth continued to be at the center of this worldwide focus on her royal parenting skills.

During World War II, media in America and the U.K. developed a stronger connection, and it was not uncommon to have British royals on the front of American magazines. For example, Queen Elizabeth was Time‘s “Person of the Year” for 1953 after she gained the crown.

However, in the write up that Time did about Queen Elizabeth II, they focused a great deal on her role as a young person — and how she was “an omen of a great future.”

They also said Queen Elizabeth being crowned was also seen as a reminder of the great history of the U.K. at a time when the British were “as weary and discouraged as the rest of the world in 1952.”

With this type of fascination with Queen Elizabeth after a devastating war and dreary rebuilding period, Queen Elizabeth expanded her family by two children under a watchful world media eye.

For example, the Royal Christening of Prince Charles in 1948 took place 10 days before Christmas and captured worldwide attention, according to BBC.

Although most of her doting public enjoyed seeing every spare paparazzi photo of Queen Elizabeth and her children, they also gave their approval when she followed the antiquated system of raising royal children.

After her coronation in June, 1953, Queen Elizabeth left her two small children behind to go on a six-month coronation world tour of her empire.

At the time, the media did not publish headlines about Queen Elizabeth being a neglectful mother, according to USA Today.

Instead, it was not until Princess Diana had her children that she rejected the idea that “royal moms were supposed to be more ornamental and leave it all up to nannies.”

Despite this, as a mother and grandmother, Queen Elizabeth was not only a unique type of career woman with an extensive list of royal duties, but she was also a warm and nurturing maternal figure behind closed doors, according to Mirror.

According to Telegraph, other evidence that Queen Elizabeth excelled at being a good mother is included in home movies from the childhoods of each of Queen Elizabeth’s children.

The home movies are now open for public viewing and depict behind-the-scenes life of Queen Elizabeth’s world that is similar to the television show The Crown on Netflix.

After her highly publicized tour in Canada in 1959, the pregnancy and birth of Queen Elizabeth’s third child, Prince Andrew, in 1960 was at the top of celebrity headlines.

At this time, Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for almost seven years, and continued to watch as she gave birth to her fourth and final child, Prince Edward, in 1964.

Unlike her older children that were born before she inherited the crown, the press followed every slip of gossip about what Queen Elizabeth was like as a mother to baby Andrew and Edward.

Daily Mail reported that Queen Elizabeth and her two youngest sons had a “maternal closeness” that has “never changed,” according to a former lady-in-waiting.

Of course, Queen Elizabeth getting constant media coverage is nothing new, and her marriage to Prince Philip on November 20, 1947, was heavily covered in the media following World War II.

Almost a year after getting married, Prince Charles of Wales was born on November 14, 1948. A couple of years later, Princess Anne was born on August 15, 1950.

When Prince Charles and Princess Anne were still barely old enough to start schooling, Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI,died on February 6, 1952, and she inherited the crown. The date of Queen Elizabeth’s official coronation ceremony was June 2, 1953.

Interestingly, even though Queen Elizabeth had her first two children in rapid succession, her third and fourth were born long after she was sitting on the throne.

Prince Andrew was not born until she was ruling the U.K. for almost seven years. Prince Andrew’s birth on February 19, 1960, was followed by the birth of Prince Edward on March 10, 1964.

This means when Prince Edward was born in 1964, his eldest sibling, Prince Charles, was 16-years-old and his only sister, Princess Anne, was 14. Queen Elizabeth had her eldest child when she was around 22 years old and she was almost 38 when she had her youngest.

One other sideline in history is how Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip almost did not get married to have their four children in the first place.

While television shows like Netflix’s The Crown tend to focus on Queen Elizabeth’s friendship with Lord Porchester, aka “Porchey” as if it was a real romantic situation — in real life there was a scandal surrounding Princess Elizabeth and a young man named Philip Mountbatten.

Namely, some of Queen Elizabeth’s family “objected” to her being involved with the young Royal Navy officer Philip Mountbatten — but they decided to get married anyway.

One of the cherished moments in the press was Philip Mountbatten’s public declaration of love for Queen Elizabeth when officially announcing their engagement that reads as follows, according to Express.

“To have been spared in the war and seen victory, to have been given the chance to rest and to re-adjust myself, to have fallen in love completely and unreservedly, makes all one’s personal and even the world’s troubles seem small and petty.”

[Feature Image by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]