Lockdown gave us a lot of good family time, Meghan tells Malala
THE Duchess of Sussex yesterday told how lockdown allowed her to enjoy ‘a lot of really good family time’ with Prince Harry and their son Archie.
Meghan, 39, made the comments in an interview with Malala Yousafzai in which Harry shared his delight the couple ‘were both there’ for their son’s first steps.
The couple were speaking to women’s education activist Miss Yousafzai, 23, in a discussion on YouTube highlighting the importance of schooling for girls.
Talking about the unexpected benefit of the pandemic giving them more time with 17-month-old Archie, Meghan said: ‘In so many ways we have this time to watch him grow. In the absence of Covid we would be travelling and working more externally and we would miss a lot of those moments. So I think it’s been a lot of really good family time.’
Harry, 36 said: ‘We were both there for his first steps, his first run, his first fall – his first everything. These are really special moments.
But at the same time... we completely understand and get how challenging this is for absolutely everyone.’ The Sussexes left Britain for Canada last year before moving to a mansion in California.
During the interview, Miss Yousafzai, who is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, asked the couple what role education took in their lives. Harry said ‘you do take it for granted’, but added that ‘every single child, every single young person across the world needs an education’.
The prince left Eton College with two A-Levels – a B in art and a D in geography – before going to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and later joining the Army. He said: ‘I’m hugely grateful for the education I was lucky enough to have... I’m very, very blessed with having such amazing options.’
The duchess said the couple were raising Archie ‘in a way where everything about his nourishment is about educational substance and how you can learn and how you can grow’.
The interview took place to mark International Day of the Girl. Miss Yousafzai, who graduated from Oxford University this summer, was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman at the age of 15 in her native Pakistan.