Meghan Markle’s attempt to show she’s one of us falls flat

Meghan Markle’s miscarriage account is heartbreaking but her attempts to show she’s just like one of us falls a little flat.

I want to like Duchess Meghan more because she’s shared her story about suffering a miscarriage back in July.

Miscarriage is not always well understood or talked about, so first-hand accounts are always valuable.

Losing a child under such circumstances, while common, is always heartbreaking.

And yet, the collective “we” Meghan uses throughout her opinion piece, published in the New York Times, doesn’t ring true.

We may share losses like miscarriage with the Duchess, but that’s the extent of our common bond.

The Duchess of Sussex in South Africa.

She’s trying to show she’s one of us, but still uses the title of The Duchess of Sussex for the piece.

Meghan turned her back on a life of unimaginable privilege, all the while bemoaning how hard she’s got it, so I don’t see how she’s earned the right to call herself a duchess.

The people of the Commonwealth are getting little back in return for her use of this title.

Perhaps that’s why Meghan’s attempt to bind with us through her every day experiences don’t quite ring true.

She starts the piece with a description of her ordinary morning in July -feed the dogs, take vitamins, find that missing sock, throw hair in ponytail before grabbing her son from his cot.

And yet nothing about her life is normal.

She and her exiled prince are living in a $20 million mansion in the US.

They’ve also just signed a $150 million deal to make TV content, including a series about their charity efforts.

They moved away from the UK to escape media scrutiny, but here she is, sharing one of the most intimate experiences possible.

Markle and son Archie.

The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry. Picture: Michele Spatari/AFP

She and her husband, Prince Harry, have also spoken out about how they want to only have one child to reduce the global population footprint, and yet there’s no discussion about this in this piece.

Have they changed their mind on this vital detail? It would seem so, and yet it’s conveniently skated over.

The sharing of such intimate moments such as lying in hospital after the miscarriage and kissing her husband’s hand through her tears, also belies Meghan’s insistence on privacy.

At the moment she’s suing a British newspaper for publishing a letter written to her father. But she has just admitted that she fed information to the authors of Finding Freedom, a recent book about her and her husband leaving the royal family – something she’s long denied doing.

In the piece Meghan describes herself as a “mother, feminist and advocate” – more humblebragging. She is a mother and a feminist, but advocate? Surely not.

And yet Meghan clearly believes she has a public role in helping the rest of us work through our issues – just as she wanted to help a woman crying on a New York street many years ago.

I could do with a little less Saint Meghan in my life – cherry picking moments to pop her head up and unite us with her humility and lessons in life.

Again, although touched by her grief, I don’t feel like I need someone like her to help the rest of us process our losses as a result of the covid pandemic.

She again mentions the moment when a journalist asked her if she was OK during a trip to South Africa – reminding us once again that she made a trip about the suffering of others into a moment about her own suffering.

The standfirst of the New York Times piece reads: “Perhaps the path to healing begins with three simple words. Are you OK”.

Perhaps the path to healing for this young woman is to say nothing at all.