I saw this today and thought the EXACT same thing. Think Megan is lovely and all that jazz but couldn't understand how she'd qualify. Then read some comments on the link on Facebook and saw all the "oh it's lovely that her mother wants to be close by to her" and "she's such a good mother wanting to be near by" and stuff like that and it just bothered me more than it should have because I thought about all the parents/children who would love to be able to close the gap in distance with these types of moves but can't. I think about if my husband and I were to have children and his mother is no longer with us and mine is in the US. Of course I would want my mother to be close by to us to help and give advice and support....but she has a timer set on her visit and my first gut instinct was to feel really crappy that - regardless of the link to the royal family - her mother seems to be able to just pack up and move over without qualifying but people that are settled over here cannot (at least not through family link to my knowledge - and I could be very wrong) get their young adult children who may need their support over because they aren't British.
I felt exactly the same when I read the story too.
Despite living in England 8.5 years and I qualified to become a UK Citizen in 1999 after three years, I didn’t because my oldest child from my first marriage did not receive permission from his American father to become a dual citizen. His father felt that our son should be 18 to make that decision. He was then seven-years-old in 1999 so I decided to wait until he turned 18 in 2010. Our circumstances changed and we left England in 2004.
My two younger children, ages 20 & 17, have already told me that they see a future back in England and want to return. It is the real reason why my husband and I are busting our butts to move back. It upset our kids to learn that if something happened to their father while we still lived in the US, I could never join them in England. It also upset them that they could never sponsor their brother either. It is difficult and unfair but it’s the rule of UK immigration and we have to accept that. So this particular story made me quite cross. Everyone should follow the rules no matter what!
