Harry’s anxiety in NY

[Makingwaves2]

What to make of the fact that he appeared without Meghan and looked quite anxious and stressed?

This is very true. It's a mind fuck.

And being the 'Spare' probably isn't easy either, especially when you are one of 2, ie the Queens father, Princess Margaret & Harry.

The York girls were never going to be a part of it, I should imagine their mother told them to marry money and jump ship. Which they did, at the earliest opportunity. And I don't blame them. Although I do begrudge the taxpayer ££££££ on raising and educating the useless articles.

Plus their public position is a bit awkward because their father is a sex offender.

Well they weren't but nobody would have guessed H jumping ship or Kate being ill for so long either at the same time as Charles is ill.
They weren't asked to do the Garden Party for the fun of it, they were asked because the Firm was kind of short staffed.

Imagine growing up knowing you are just a spare. There is no hiding away from that. Doesn't matter how best anyone would try to make it feel better it wouldn't.

I find it pretty hard to feel sorry for someone who has all the privileges of being royal without any of the responsibilities of being king.

I don't feel sorry for Andrew either, I guess Harry supporters might as they have sympathy for the spare.

I dont think anyone can claim that they are cancer free - my understanding is that you are in remission for a further 5 years until you are out of the woods.

Her statement doesnt indicate that to me?

“Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes."

Take away the money and privileges as you call it fundamentally knowing you were born as a spare, it doesn't matter how much someone would say i really wanted you, bottom line is he was born a spare. I don't think any amount of privilege can take away how a person would feel growing up knowing that. How would you handle if if if we're your children.

I think they need more people than they've currently got. Agree with a previous comment that technology means they are able to be visible much more easily, but people still like them turning up to open the new community "thing"/support charities, look at how (rightly) esteemed Anne is for doing this. For this you need bodies and even George VI had 2 brothers and a sister as working royals. It's some of their children (eg the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent) who are still working today, but that's time limited.

Really don't know what the answer is, especially until the Wales kids are adults, but I don't think Beatrice or Eugenie will be doing full time royal duties and eg Zara have built completely different lives with zero expectation they will have to.

Spectre8
Even the work William might eventually do is hardly taxing and stressful work tbh.

How do you know how stressful and taxing his work is/will be? None of us knows - but I can imagine, and I'd hate to do it.

And do you think teachers, for example, just work from 8.30 to 3.30?

Spectre8
Imagine growing up knowing you are just a spare. There is no hiding away from that.

I should think growing up as the spare in the RF would be the best of all possible worlds. All that luxury and security with none of the heavy responsibilities of your elder sibling.

What a twit Harry is - he didn't know when he was well-off!

What self indulgent twaddle. How many people are there in the world who were abandoned by parents, given up for fostering/adoption, literally told they weren't wanted. My mum was the fifth girl and it was often laughed about when she was growing up that at her birth her mum cried and her dad slammed the door and went down the pub! She doesnt have a chip on her shoulder about it. My grandmother told me once that her mother said to her that when she found out she was expecting her (her 9th child at age of 44), she drank a bottle of gin and threw herself down the stairs as she felt she couldn't cope.
Whinging about being a spare is pathetic, as is assuming that if you are royal than any second child is only conceived to be a spare, not genuinely wanted. What nonsense. I do think Harry has plenty in his childhood we can feel sorry for him about, but not his birth order, that is a 'just get over it' type thing. We all have things we have to get over, shame he's never been able to.

And being the 'Spare' probably isn't easy either, especially when you are one of 2, ie the Queens father, Princess Margaret & Harry.

The Queen’s father, George VI, was one of six children actually - five survived to adulthood, his older brother was Edward was King and then George (Bertie) became King. His two brothers and his sister were all working Royals.

I don't know what the answer is either. But Harry has left a bit of a gap.

Is it the Council of State (4 stand ins for the Monarch) ?
They wanted Andrew and Harry out of it. Who's in it now other than William and Camilla?

Next you'll be saying we should feel bad for him that he had a smaller bedroom than William in the Palace 😄

I'll stand corrected I thought there was just 2 of them.
But logically where else did the Queen get cousins from.
My daft moment of the day

But Harry had a real opportunity to remove himself from that fish bowl of being the spare if he had truly wanted to, he had found a corporate role with Better 'whatever', has a multi million pound trust fund, would probably have managed to find himself a few very well paid non exec board positions.

Yet here he is, doing a cringeworthy unfunny skit on a late night talk show, going on visits to countries with sketchy governments and military, on cheapskate budgets, being trailed by their personal photographer, a film crew, a magazine reporter and a magazine photographer, doing all the things he supposedly hated doing for the RF.

He and his wife wanted that larger than life public wedding watched by billions of people, where the streets were lined by thousands and thousands of supporters. i don't believe Harry thinks it is a mind fuck at all, I think the only mind fuck for him is not being in the RF fishbowl anymore and not having the prestige and Royal Family glow shining on him.

What about Edward and Sophie, they can't be that old yet and I know they've always done their share. Are their children adults yet?

You do realise there’s a difference between the Royal family as a constitutional organ and the Royal family as a family? Just because Harry wasn’t the first born son of the heir to the throne doesn’t mean he wasn’t very much loved and wanted by his parents and much loved by his wider family. And he hasn’t even been a “spare” since George was born. Plenty of time as an adult to make your peace with the (incredibly privileged) hand you’ve been dealt in life, even when compared to you cousins for example.

Ed is 60, Sophie maybe a little younger. But you think where they'll be in 5 years Anne, Camilla and Charles will all be about 80.

Lady Louise is at university (isn't she thinking about a Forces career?) and James is 16.

I think the Edinburghs are brilliant and hopefully will be doing what they are for a very long time.

What about Edward and Sophie, they can't be that old yet and I know they've always done their share. Are their children adults yet?

They're nearly 60, I think. Lady Louise is around 20 and just begun her third year at St Andrews (I remember that because she had just started there when the Queen died). James is still at school.

On the question of workload, the King and Queen are heading to Australia on 18 October, and then on to CHOGM. I imagine planning meetings for that have been going on for months, and briefing papers circulating - what engagements each of them will undertake, who they will meet, what speeches they will make, what they should say or not say. And for Camilla additionally the question of clothes - what outfits she will need, looking at designs and fabrics, having fittings, discussing hats, gloves, shoes, jewellery...

I never said working hard equates to a 9-5 job or certain hours. Why are you even bringing teachers into it? That's just silly.

However they have staff who will organise all their travel, organise their diaries and calls, people who will brief them, people who will help them with their styling, make up, speech writers, communicatios and so on. So no it's hardly stressful unless they were doing it all themselves.

I never said to feel bad for him. However i can understand that being a spare and knowing it can't have been as great as a the privileges he had.

Still better than the lives of 99% of other people.
He fails to grasp that most basic point.

He has no sense of perspective, does he?
He's just in the mindset that he's been hard done by. It's baffling. Although I suppose it's made him $$$$$.

You need to hit the history books. The Queen's father had more than one sibling. Some of this country's greatest/most impactful monarchs have been "spares".