Many children dream of being royalty. From the outside it looks great — living in a castle, attending swanky parties, wearing fabulous clothing, and having a large staff of people at one’s constant beck and call. But for the children who actually do grow up royal, it’s not quite as fun or glamorous as it seems. For one, royal children have to follow insane rules, like having to greet their blood relatives with certain gestures depending on their rank and accepting but not keeping any gifts given to them by people they’ve never met before (the latter of which is a wild notion to begin with). Many movies make being a prince or a princess look very appealing, but it might be the darker depictions that are more accurate.

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Compounding these difficulties, everyone has an idea of how members of the royal family should behave, especially those who have a higher chance of becoming a monarch. As if the rules imposed by their own family weren’t enough, the young royals also have to contend with the opinions of billions of people they’ve never met before. On top of that, they have to navigate regular human experiences and emotions. All in all, it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. Here’s the tragic truth about growing up as a royal.

It’s natural to compare siblings to one another. They come from the same family and grow up in the same house — logically there should be similarities. However, siblings are often quite different from each other, and the same goes for those born into the royal family. Unfortunately for those who grow up royal, the comparisons made between those siblings are often made public, and it can have an effect on them as individuals and their relationships. Multiple royal siblings have been compared to each other, including Prince William and Prince Harry. “William and Harry are very much their mother’s boys in so many ways, even though there are differences between them,” Ken Wharfe, Princess Diana’s former bodyguard said in an interview, as reported by Newsweek.

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Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth II also faced comparisons while growing up. The sisters were close in age and to each other, giving them the same social circle, and their friends were not immune to making unfair comparisons to the princesses, either. A friend of Elizabeth and Maraget’s, Alathea Fitzalan Howard, kept a diary of her time growing up with the famous siblings, and excerpts show her thoughts about the duo. “[Margaret] was quite unmanageable while we were out — in some ways she is so [very] young and childish, quite unlike [Elizabeth],” Howard wrote, per the Daily Mail. “[Margaret] is more friendly and I nearly always go to her room to tidy, which to me is [very] strange, but I know [Elizabeth] too well now to be hurt by it … I think, were it not for the difference in our ages, I could make a greater friend of [Margaret], though I shall always be deeply devoted to [Elizabeth],” she said.

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Getting a good education is of great importance to the royal family. But even the best of the best schools sometimes have students who struggle, and that has included members of the royal family. King Charles III, for example, attended Gordonstoun, a Scottish all-boys school, for his secondary years. The royal struggled at school when he first arrived — he faced bullies and found the physical demands challenging. As it turns out, Charles’ father, Prince Philip, attended the school as a young man, too, and he also found it difficult at the beginning. Philip hoped that the challenges would be positive for Charles. “Philip has been depicted as cruel for sending him to the school, but Philip did it the best of motives,” biographer Robert Lacey told People. “He thought it would be the making of Charles, but the school had changed … By the time Charles was there, the school has become a much more conventional private school.”

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Philip wasn’t entirely off base, though. While Charles did reportedly refer to Gordonstoun as “absolute hell” when he began, he eventually rose to the occasion, and he is grateful for his time at the school. “It was only tough in the sense that it demanded more of you as an individual than most other schools did — mentally or physically. I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative,” Charles said of the school to Observer Magazine, per People.

The thing about having royal parents is that they’re usually busy, especially those closest to the monarchy. Senior members of the royal family are tied up with public engagements, traveling to different countries, and advocating for causes close to their hearts. This bizarre and busy life has made many royals with young children unavailable to parent, leaving that task up to hired help. Such was the case for the stunning Queen Elizbeth II and Princess Margaret. While their father, George VI, was in power, the young girls were primarily raised by their nannies, Clara Knight and Margaret MacDonald.

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This issue appears to be generational. Because of George’s premature death, Elizabeth ascended to power at a young age, making her a powerful world leader during her childbearing years. The commitment Elizabeth’s county required left her children, particularly King Charles III, spending more time with nannies and their grandparents than Elizabeth and Prince Philip. “My grandmother was the person who taught me to look at things,” Charles once said about his exposure to art and music as a child (via Vanity Fair). 

Unfortunately, Charles paid the same level of attention to his own children. Prince William and Prince Harry — according to Katie Nicholl, author of “The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown” — were left alone much of the time, especially after Diana left. “The boys wanted their independence and they probably had too much of it,” Nicholl wrote, per Insider. “Often when they wanted to speak to their father, he wasn’t around … If they needed him they’d end up calling his protection officers so they could talk to him, which wasn’t ideal.”

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Being a female in the royal family comes with a unique set of challenges that the men don’t necessarily have to face. Multiple Windsor women have been scrutinized for their looks, and it’s been happening for decades. Anne, Princess Royal, for example, Queen Elizabeth II’s daughter, was mocked by the media as a teenager for her body. “She was put under so much scrutiny — in particular about her physically when she was a teenager,” British actor Erin Doherty said to Vanity Fair of the princess. “Because she’s in the royal family, everyone just thinks they’re allowed to comment. She would’ve been this really young, fragile teenager and people would write things in the newspaper about her being frumpy.” This scrutiny led her to develop a thick skin. “That’s where the armor came from — because she was subject to this pressurized environment of people commenting on her,” Doherty said of Anne.

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Time hasn’t made the mass media any kinder. Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, Anne’s nieces, have also been made fun of for their looks. The two were ridiculed after Prince William’s wedding and compared to the ugly stepsisters from “Cinderella.” “Being role models has always been a hard one for them to deal with, and being criticized for their weight, fashion and work lives has always been hard for them to swallow,” a source told People of the royal sisters. The royals haven’t let the negativity get them down, though. As the insider noted, Eugenie and Beatrice have both realized that they can do a lot of good in their positions, and Anne has developed strength through adversity. 

Some of the darkest days in the royal family over the past decades have been in the wake of death. While all members of the royal family have to grieve their loved ones publicly, it’s been particularly difficult for the young royals. In August 1997, the stunning Princess Diana died in a car accident, leaving behind her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. William was just 15 years old and Harry was 12, and the brothers had to mourn their mother in front of the world. “My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances,” Harry said to Newsweek of losing Diana.

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Though William was a bit older than Harry, losing their mother wasn’t any easier for him. The future monarch said he and Harry tried to be there for each other, but it was hard for them to emote and communicate because of their young ages. William also wrestled with the bizarre experience of people around the world actively grieving his mother despite not knowing Diana personally. “It was very, very strange after her death, you know, the sort of outpouring of love and emotion from so many people that had never even met her. And I was thinking to myself, how is it that so many people that never even met this woman, my mother, can be crying and showing more emotion than I actually am feeling?” William said in the documentary “Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy,” as reported by Express.

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As younger generations have opened up the conversation about mental health on a societal level, younger members of the royal family have spoken about their mental health, too. Prince Harry has been particularly candid about the struggles he’s had with his mental health, much of which stems from his mother’s unexpected death when he was a child. “Losing my mum at such a young age was trauma that I had that I was never really aware of. It was never discussed, I didn’t talk about it and I’ve suppressed it like most youngsters would have done,” Harry said of the experience in the documentary “Heart of Invictus,” as reported by BBC. It wasn’t until Harry served in Afghanistan as part of the British military that he realized he needed to work through the emotions he was carrying from Princess Diana’s tragic death.

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While losing his mother at such a young age was certainly traumatic and impactful, Harry has since realized that other factors of life as a royal child affected him, too. The prince shared on an episode of the podcast “Armchair Expert” that he’s been impacted by some generational trauma. “Certainly when it comes to parenting, if I’ve experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered,” Harry said. But Harry doesn’t want his children to grow up that way. “It’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway so we as parents should be doing the most we can to try and say, ‘You know what, that happened to me, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you,'” Harry added.

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The new generation of working royals haven’t just discussed mental health with the press — they’ve made changes in their own lives to ensure their children aren’t affected by the negative side of being royal the way they were. Both Prince William and Prince Harry have expressed the worries they have for their children because of their circumstances. “His childhood in front of the media was quite difficult at times,” former royal aide Jason Knauf said of William on an episode of “60 Minutes Australia,” as reported by Hello!. “And then he knew that he was going to be raising his kids to deal with social media and mobile phones and all of that stuff.” Keeping his children safe in the digital age is still something William is working out. “It’s quite difficult, it’s still a very fluid dynamic. We’re going to have that discussion with our family, how on earth are we going to police,” William said of the challenge while speaking on the news in Britain, as reported by Hello!.

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Harry, on the other hand, made some more drastic decisions concerning his children’s well-being. He and his wife famously stepped down as senior members of the royal family to move to the United States. As Harry said, he didn’t want what happened to his mother to happen to his family. “How am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and family when I know it’s going to happen again? I’ve seen behind the curtain, I’ve seen the business model and seen how this whole thing works and I don’t want to be part of this,” Harry said on an episode of “Armchair Expert” of the leaving the royal family.