Harry and Meghan are just another ultra-rich, out-of-touch couple but even the most privileged face the ordinary suffering of growing up
In the inescapable story that is Harry v William, what is most striking is how petty some of the grievances sound.
Prince Harry is upset his brother didn’t like his beard.
Prince Harry is upset about the size of his digs at the palace.
Prince Harry is upset his brother didn’t want to hang out with him at school.
Getting paid to lament your older sibling refusing to hang out with you at school 15 years ago is an amazing grift, even by the diamond standard of grifting that is the royal family.
Hold the front page Daily Mail, I’m hearing a teenager didn’t want to hang out with his younger brother at school. Oh, you’re literally putting this family fight on the front page!
That Harry believes these to be genuine injustices, remembered over decades, that sound trivial to any third party, should be instantly familiar to anyone with a sibling.
There is nobody on Earth that can enrage you like your brother or your sister, and over the absolute mildest things possible.
When I was 16 and my youngest sister was 10 she once hid in a wardrobe in my room for two hours just so she could be close to me and my friends. She wasn’t eavesdropping, she just desperately wanted to feel part of my crew. When she tumbled out of the wardrobe the “red mist” as Harry has referred to it, descended. I screamed unprintable profanities that shocked one of my friends, an only child, so much that she still brings it up almost 20 years later.
At the time I just wanted to be left alone by this needy child who was OBSESSED with me. Now at 34 my heart aches for that little girl who wanted a little of my love. Sorry Alice!
Although that doesn’t stop me STILL behaving like a six-year-old again sometimes when in the presence of my brother and sisters. Behaving in ways I would never even think about in the presence of anyone else. They can get so under your skin that the way they decide to peel an orange, you just know is being done on purpose to irritate you.
Instead of having the promised maturing effect, having my own children has only transported me right back to the intense outrage that dogged me whenever I perceived a sibling to be getting different treatment to me. Never mind that you have to treat your children differently, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. (But also remember when I wasn’t allowed roll-ups in my lunchbox but when I left home my siblings got roll-ups in theirs!)
“You’re not allowed to hit him,” I reprimand my older son, while privately, deep inside my soul, I am actually on his side. “It’s so unfair when your little brother plays with your toy without asking!” I think to myself, but never say.
I witness the same playing out of childhood feuds when my little sister sees the exact same scenario between my sons. As a beloved aunt she doesn’t have to do the “grownup” thing a parent is forced into of “not taking a side” (cue eye-roll).
“Don’t hit your little brother!” she thunders at the older one.
“Now hug him!” she continues.
“Now tell him you love him!” She keeps going.
“He only wants to play with you! Just be nice to him!” she finally finishes. Leaving my five-year-old somewhat dumbfounded at the emotion he has provoked.
Your siblings are most likely the people you will have your longest relationship in life with. All things going as they should, your parents will die before you (but not too soon) and then the only person who has known you your entire life will be your brother and sisters.
They understand what it was like to watch dad throw a cricket bat into the river because we broke a window (exhilarating); to be brave enough to hide under the house in the dirt with the snakes to win a game of torch tag (exhilarating); to make up yet another game while waiting in the car for an hour for mum (mind numbingly boring).
They remember what it was like to be children together. To live in a world where adults were interlopers and we spoke a language they didn’t understand. (I was reminded of this when my younger son began talking and we had to ask his older brother to translate it for us. He always knows exactly what he’s saying. I vividly remember doing the same with my youngest sister for my parents.)
For William and Harry this must be felt deeply. The only other person who knew what it was like to lose your mum in horrific circumstances and then have what felt like the entire world express their grief more freely than you. But it’s clear, like everyone else in their childhoods, they have their own unique experiences of the same event.
I’m not doing something as ridiculous as choosing a prince’s side. (If you feel compelled to take a side, say the phrase out loud so you can hear how stupid it sounds: “I am on prince so-and-so’s side.”)
I do have sympathy for Harry and Meghan, particularly the disgusting way Meghan was treated by the tabloid media in the UK. But it is limited by the impression that they didn’t seem to see anything wrong with the institution, despite the human suffering it was built on, until they themselves suffered. Ultimately, they are just another ultra-rich, out-of-touch couple.
What is glaring to me from the Netflix documentary, the TV interviews Harry has done and the extracts from his book, is his ordinary suffering. You brawl with your brother, you miss your brother, you want your brother to understand you, nobody knows you like your brother.
Even in the most privileged lives, with true tragedy, there’s the ordinary suffering of growing up. Of having to share, of feeling left out, of games of favourites, banal fallings out, regrets, funerals, weddings, births, who is owed what, who suffered more and who is entitled to what (even when what you are feeling entitled to is a bigger room at the palace).
It’s all so familiar.