And you want to be a princess?

Imagine you are Kate Middleton, Britain’s 42-year-old Princess of Wales. You have a busy professional schedule as a member of Britain’s trimmeddown monarchy, even as nasty stateside salvos from Harry and Meghan still are being sent in your direction, insults to which you cannot easily respond. You have three young kids. Your father-in-law is new to the throne. Hungry tabloids live to chronicle your every mistake. And now you’ve been told you need surgery.

Certainly, many privileges are embedded in your life. But it’s hardly an easy existence.

Off Kate went in mid-January to a London hospital, and word came from Kensington Palace that the princess was undergoing abdominal surgery to correct a noncancerous problem. As is customary in these situations, respect for privacy in the face of a medical condition was both requested and ignored.

Kate’s surgery is successful and, as Kensington Palace duly announces on Jan. 29, she goes home. She then—oh, the audacity!—takes time to recover at home as her husband, the Prince of Wales, takes over the school runs. Flash-forward to UK Mother’s Day. Kate decides to put out a happy picture with her kids, as if to say, “Yes, I am here with my family and alive.” Being an amateur photographer, she decides to do a little post-facto photoshopping of the image.

Her communications teams puts it out, savvy image specialists immediately spot the doctoring and score spots on morning TV, media organizations with policies against such tampering then pull the photo and, in a flash, a nonscandal scandal is made much worse for a woman still recovering from her abdominal surgery.

And you wanted to be a princess? Not in this brutal world.

Kate did nothing wrong. Let her recover with her family and then go back to her work. The world has plenty of real villains to worry about.