A Royal Change Of Mind

Unless you completely were devoid of media yesterday, you probably know the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcomed in a new baby boy into the Royal Family.

I’m not an Englishman. I’m not a natural parent. I’m not one who holds the Royal Family in any higher esteem than the family next door. All those things being said, I guess I just don’t get it. And, I guess I’m not the only one.

Yesterday, I saw posts from friends concerning the new addition to the Royal Family. These went from folks ecstatic about the new little prince all the way to disdain over the hype and media coverage. I don’t have any disdain, but for we non English folks, it doesn’t really have a bearing on our lives. One friend even went so far as to point out that there are 350,000+ babies born in the world every day. Many of these children will die in poverty or of disease or starvation in third world countries. Every baby born is precious, so why is such a big deal being made over one child who enters a world of wealth and privledge? Interesting point.

A friend from Texas retweeted a blurb I shared with my Facebook friends: “It’s a boy! Now, get the hell back to work.”

To me, this says it’s cool and enjoy the moment…but it doesn’t change anything in any of our American lives. Celebrate it, but keep it in perspective. Then, I got a commen that made me think.

My favorite nurse from my days at Barnes Jewish Hospital, Barb, commented, “I think it’s kind of fun, especially with all the doom and gloom in the news.” And, of course, she’s right. Over the last couple months, we’ve gone from all the drama around the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case to the Asiana jet crash to earthquakes killing hundreds of people to the deaths of the firefighters in Arizona…and that doesn’t even take into account what my cynical friend said about the babies born into poverty, pestilence, disease and starvation. So, yeah, I guess when we always complain the news is only full of tragedy, having the lead story about the birth of a child might be a good thing for the American news cycle.