Wednesday already happened in Australia, and it was a busy solo day for Prince Harry. He started the day in Melbourne with the Western Bulldogs, an Australian-rules football team. It was an event around Movember and men’s mental health. After he did some cute photo-ops with the team, he did a Q&A session at the team’s headquarters, all about mental health, fatherhood and healing. More on that in a moment. Following those events, he traveled to Canberra to pay his respects to Australian veterans and Australian’s fallen war heroes. He visited the Australian War Memorial, and placed a poppy at the Wall of Remembrance. He laid a wreath at the Pool of Reflection and watched the special Last Pool Ceremony. He met with the all-female honour guard after the Last Post Ceremony as well.
Going back to Harry’s Movember events, his Q&A session was very powerful. I’ve long believed – and I’ve said this before – that one of Harry’s greatest roles is an inspiration and role model to other men as someone who has accessed his own vulnerability and lived in pain without drowning himself in toxicity. He doesn’t perform his masculinity, he IS masculine while being open about needing therapy and the normal mixture of emotions that come with major life changes. Some highlights from Harry’s talk:
He went to therapy before becoming a father: Harry explained that before he and his wife, Meghan Markle, welcomed their two children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4, he attended therapy. “Certainly from a therapy standpoint, you want to be the best version of yourself for your kids,” he said during the discussion with Movember’s global director of men’s health research, Dr. Zac Seidler. “And I knew that I had stuff from the past that I needed to deal with and therefore, prepare myself to basically cleanse myself of the past.”
Disconnection: Before Archie’s birth, Harry’s therapist told him to “just be aware of how you feel once the baby is born.” The Duke noted that he felt a “disconnection” in the early days, saying, “My wife was the one creating life, and I was there to witness it.”
Dads are not alone: The prince concluded his appearance by reminding fathers that they are “not alone” as they navigate the realities of parenthood. “To the dads and soon-to-be dads: yes, it’s messy. You’ll have a rollercoaster of emotions — and don’t judge yourself,” he said.
Movember’s “revolutionary” work: With evidence of the statistics, he hopes it will “give anyone the confidence to know however you have been feeling, however you are feeling, is replicated in the vast majority of individuals….There’s an evolution happening here, and I think the more guys that come forward and talk about it, the higher those numbers will be because those numbers are remarkable and very telling in a culture where it’s not really talked about.”
The evolution of parenting: “I see parenting evolving over time,” the Duke said. “Our kids are our upgrade. Not to say that I upgraded my dad or that my kids upgraded me, but the kids that we bring up in today’s world need to be upgraded.” The Duke, who has previously spoken about breaking a cycle of “genetic pain”, added: “There’s no judgment, there’s no blame, there’s no pointing the finger. The reality is that – however you are parenting – that is a personal experience to you, you are going to want to improve on that. Obviously 40 years ago, there wasn’t social media, so that’s just one example of conversations that are now happening in households between kids and parents that never existed between me and my parents.”
[From People & The Telegraph]
I’ve already seen certain outlets frame this as “Harry criticizes King Charles.” I mean, he already did that in Spare. What was crazy about Spare is that Harry detailed many of the ways in which Charles was a dogsh-t father, but Harry also made it clear that he adored his father and that it meant the world to him whenever Charles did listen to him and help him. What Harry says here is how most parents think, which is that they want to be different and better than their own parents. Also notice how Harry is able to have conversations about men’s mental health without it descending into some tone-deaf catastrophe. I can hear plates being smashed in England as we speak.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
