As he prepares to celebrate his 40th birthday on 15 September, Prince Harry will surely be full of gratitude for the life he has built for himself away from the Royal Family - a happy home with his wife and two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
And while Harry and Meghan's decision to step back from their roles as senior royals has not been plain sailing, a leading expert looks at why fatherhood has been the making of Harry. “I think he is relishing his role as a parent and playing the fullest part he can in the lives of his two tots,” former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond says. “He’s lucky enough to be able to share most of their lives so I’m sure Harry is a devoted dad and no stranger to nappy changing or school runs.
I think he finds the security and anchor in his little family that was sadly missing in his own broken childhood home.” It is true that his and Prince William’s upbringing was not always a happy one and was punctuated by a steady stream of emotional turmoil brought about by his parents’ messy separation and their very public take-downs of one another. “It’s hard to know exactly when the damage wrought by his parents’ broken marriage began to make its mark on Harry,” Jennie muses. “He was only eight when Charles and Diana officially separated, but he had witnessed the marital difficulties long before that.
I’m sure the insecurity of his own childhood has made him all the more determined to give his kids the perfect upbringing and to have them wrapped in a bubble of love and awareness of the love between their parents.” In breaking this cycle, the family’s departure has seen Archie and Lilibet spend very little time with relatives on both sides of their family — something made even more.
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