The royal family celebrated Father’s Day by releasing a sweet new photo of Prince William with his and Princess Kate‘s three kids.
Wearing matching blue outfits, William was flanked by Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince George, 9, who both smiled at him, while Prince Louis, 5, embraced his dad from behind.
Though it was released on Saturday, June 17, just ahead of Father’s Day, the photo was taken by Millie Pilkington on the Windsor Estate earlier this year. The photographer also snapped the sweet photos of Louis released for his birthday in April, in which he wore the same sweater and was pushed in a wheelbarrow by his mother.
The children are absolutely beaming, as is their dad, but that doesn’t mean they shy away from the serious topics. The Prince of Wales, 40, revealed that he is trying to help his children understand homelessness, a cause close to his heart.
“When I left this morning, one of the things I was thinking was, ‘When is the right time to bring George or Charlotte or Louis to a homeless organisation?’ I think when I can balance it with their schooling, they will definitely be exposed to it,” William told London’s The Times in an interview published on Saturday. “On the school run, we talk about what we see. When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside supermarkets and we’d talk about it.”
He continued: “I’d say to the children, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’ I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding. They [will] grow up knowing that actually, do you know what, some of us are very fortunate, some of us need a little bit of a helping hand, some of us need to do a bit more where we can to help others improve their lives.”
William has made ending homelessness one of his lifelong mission’s and will unveil The Royal Foundation’s new longterm project aimed at helping the issue later this month.
“In my job, I get to meet these people, I get to hear the stories, I get to feel it, I get to see it. That for me — and I’ve heard from them themselves — matters an awful lot,” the heir to the throne explained. “They’ve become invisible. It’s really important that society acknowledges that there is somebody there and they’re having a tough time. It shouldn’t happen but it’s right there. You can’t ignore it.”