I’m not OK with all this sharing

We live in an age of opening up and sharing our private griefs, sorrows and tragedies so others might feel better about theirs. A trouble shared is apparently a trouble halved.

So why do I feel a little uncomfortable about a comment the Duchess of Sussex made while opening up and divulging to the press that she had amiscarriage earlier this year?

Of course it is tremendously sad that Meghan had amiscarriage two months after Archie, her first-born, had his first birthday. She wanted to highlight the grief and sorrow she and Harry went through so that other women and their partners experiencing amiscarriage wouldn’t feel so alone.

To say that there is a lot of pressure on pregnant royals is an understatement. We know this from reading history and watching endless television programmes and films about the pressure on monarchs to produce amale heir, and the terrible fate of wives who were infertile and had miscarriages.

Bearing an heir and a spare was the No 1 job of the wife, and if you had the good fortune to be fecund, your position was safe.

One couldn’t help but spare a thought for the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William, who may not have been privy to Meghan and Harry’s sad news before reading about it in a newspaper editorial. The bond between Princes William and Harry was previously so close that the sharing of the loss between the brotherswould surely have swept all grievances aside and bridges may have been mended.

The response from Buckingham Palace, that it was a deeply personal matter and it had no comment to make, sounded formal and cold. If this was the first the royals had heard of it, they may have been extremely upset that they had been closed out and were unable to be there for Meghan and Harry in their hour of need. If this was a deliberate strategy to hurt the royal family, it would have worked.

How can you help and be sympathetic if you don’t know what’s going on when communication lines are down? Or maybe they did know and have been privately supportive, or indifferent, to the Sussexes’ loss.

When the duchess revealed her miscarriage, she referenced an ITV interview she did with a journalist in the 2019 documentary, An African Journey. In it she thanked the journalist for asking her if she was OK, ‘‘because not many people have asked if I’m OK’’.

The inferencewas that not many in the royal family had asked her how she was when she was struggling with her new life as a royal.

The duchess has now urged ‘‘people to ask one another, ‘Are you OK?’ as the world heals from the loss and pain of 2020’’. If we, the world, follow her rather Californian entreaty to continually ask the question, ‘‘Are you OK?’’, the question would quickly lose its sincerity.

When people I don’t know very well ask me if I’m OK, my immediate reaction is one of defensiveness. The very nature of the question gets hackles up as you do a quick ‘‘why wouldn’t I be?’’ self-check to see if you’ve been exhibiting sad, mad or bad behaviour.

‘‘Are you OK?’’ is radically different from asking our Kiwi pleasantries, ‘‘How yer going?’’, or the polite, ‘‘How are you?’’

‘‘Are you OK?’’ uttered from the wrong lips could be interpreted as a pseudo-psychological nosey inquiry masquerading as a put-down. The perfect Kiwi response would be a sunny ‘‘I can’t complain’’, or a none-of-your-business ‘‘I’m afraid that’s classified information.’’