Prince Harry has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to parent in the same way as King Charles III did. During a 2021 appearance on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, the Duke of Sussex acknowledged that he had a lot of complex emotions surrounding his dad’s parenting decisions, which Harry believed stemmed from generational trauma. While the prince empathized with Charles’ struggles, he still sought to do better with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, the two children he shares with wife Meghan Markle. So, they decided to take the first step towards “breaking the cycle” by moving across the pond to the U.S.

While speaking to The Cut in 2022, Meghan explained that the couple was simply trying to raise their kids to be as down-to-earth as possible by consistently reminding them to remember their manners. The royal defectors were evidently leading by example since the “Suits” alum accompanied Archie to one of his classmate’s birthday parties, catching the other parents off guard in the process. 

Additionally, Meghan and Harry also help Lilibet and Archie to find a semblance of normalcy in their lives by keeping them off social media. A confidant informed Us Weekly that the Sussexes also wanted to prioritize their children’s safety because they obviously don’t enjoy the comforts of royal security, adding, “They know the world wants to see [them but] I would expect them to live smaller lives until that gets sorted, if it ever does.” Unfortunately, when Harry and Meghan shared a rare snap of their children on social media, they were shamed for bad parenting. 

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were labeled irresponsible

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s rare snap of Harry and Princess Lilibet had everyone calling them out. In honor of International Women’s Day 2025, the Duchess of Sussex posted an Instagram carousel, which included a sweet shot of her husband holding their daughter on a boat. However, the photo failed to have the intended impact since all anybody paid attention to was that Lilibet didn’t have a life vest on while they were apparently out at sea. Meghan turned off the comments on her post but that didn’t stop people from taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, to voice their concerns. 

Most commentators couldn’t believe that the Sussexes would forgo such a simple safety step that could potentially save their children’s lives. “Either they’re shockingly careless, or there’s something they’re not telling us,” one critic remarked. Meanwhile, lots of others proclaimed that the decision wasn’t just negligent but also illegal since California law requires every child under 13 to wear a lifejacket aboard any vehicle that travels over water. 

It also left many thinking back to a photo of Meghan holding Prince Archie in her lap where neither of them was wearing a seatbelt. Even then, social media commentators called the royal defectors out for supposedly failing to prioritize their son’s safety. Some Redditors went as far as to wonder how Harry didn’t learn from the tragic loss of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who passed away in a car accident when she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

Royal fans once believed that Harry was using their kids to blackmail the royal family

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been consistently criticized for letting their issues with the royal family get in the way of Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie’s relationship with them. In September 2024, a confidant disclosed to The Mirror that although King Charles III occasionally got to see his grandkids over video calls, he hadn’t ever really been given a chance to properly get to know them since he had only met Lilibet once and her brother a few times. The monarch desperately wanted to create a bond with his grandkids in the wake of his cancer diagnosis. 

Although there was a glimmer of hope for reconciliation in early 2025, when Harry was scheduled to visit the UK for a court trial, it was quickly squashed once a source confirmed to Hello! magazine that he didn’t want to bring his children along even though, “Safe visits would enable his children to know his home country and enable him to better support his charities.” Many royal fans on Reddit weren’t too pleased about the move, viewing it as yet “Another iteration of, ‘Don’t you want to see your grandchildren?’. Dangling the children as bait in his extortion scheme.” 

Another user shared a similar sentiment, criticizing the prince for supposedly attempting to use his kids to dig into taxpayers’ money to fund his security detail. However, despite all the criticism, there are several signs that Archie and Lilibet might not be estranged from certain royal family members after all.

Some have found that their parenting choices contradict their beliefs

In 2024, reports suggested that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wanted to send Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to an expensive private school in their affluent California neighborhood. The couple’s decision was met with intense criticism because it not only went against their idea of raising their kids as normally as possible but also apparently contradicted another of their core beliefs. As royal commentator Lee Cohen argued in an interview with GB News, it made them hypocrites since the inherently elitist nature of a private school goes against the Sussexes’ fight for social equality.

“Sending their children to such a prestigious institution completely exposes the frauds that Harry and Meghan are,” Cohen stated firmly. “By perpetuating the very systems of privilege that they claim to expose.” However, that wasn’t the only time people found that the royal defectors’ preferred lifestyle and parenting beliefs seemingly conflicted with each other. In the 2024 documentary, “Harry — The Lost Prince,” their neighbor, Richard Mineards, criticized the “Suits” alum for not mingling with the locals enough. 

And yet, although they generally saw more of Harry, he also kept to himself for the most part. In a chat with the Mirror, royal commentator Duncan Larcombe professed that the former working royals’ need for privacy greatly contradicted their desire for normalcy since it prevented them from being involved in regular community events. As he wondered aloud, “But when you have young children, they all mix with other young children at schools or nurseries. Are they going to play the role of just another parent?”

Meghan has been mom-shamed several times

In 2019, Meghan Markle was mom-shamed for supposedly improperly carrying then-2-month-old Archie at a family outing. X commentators took issue with the fact that the former actor wasn’t supporting her infant son’s head or neck in the photos. According to EveryMum, one critic questioned, “Is it just me or that’s NOT how you’re supposed to hold a newborn? I get anxious simply looking at these pictures.” They continued, “It’s sad that Meghan Markle seems so awkward and uncomfortable around her own son.” Likewise, another commentator claimed that Meghan’s supposedly poor technique revealed that she was overly reliant on nannies. 

Likewise, plenty of others were dismayed that she hadn’t put a hat on her little one for the outdoor event. One Redditor even wrote that they couldn’t understand why the duchess opted to carry her child when she could have easily used a pram. The former “Suits” star endured similar criticism in 2020 when she was papped walking her dogs with then-8-month-old Archie in a baby carrier. Social media commentators slammed Meghan for putting Archie in harm’s way by supposedly not securing the carrier’s straps properly. 

Similarly, they argued that the Netflix star couldn’t safely carry her son while walking two dogs. Meanwhile, another user pointed out that the duchess had failed to properly tie Archie’s mittens too. As the Sussexes’ children got older, people only found more things to criticize. In 2024, Grant Harrold, a former royal staffer, confessed to the New York Post that he found it quite strange that Meghan stayed home with their kids in California while Prince Harry traveled to the UK for the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games.

The duchess was called insensitive because of her parenting choices

When Meghan Markle appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in 2021, the host inquired about how Prince Archie was adjusting to having a little sister. In response, the Duchess of Sussex recalled how people had told her: “When you have one kid, it’s a hobby and two children is parenting.” But statements like those often overlooked how a second child impacted the eldest kid. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to convince people that Meghan hadn’t undermined the work that went into raising one child with her initial statement. 

One Redditor argued that while someone who had unlimited resources and a full support system at her disposal might think of the responsibility of raising a kid as a hobby, regular people struggled to accomplish the task. Another commentator sniped that they could always walk away from a hobby when they were tired of it or had more pressing matters at hand, noting, “That’s not quite the same attitude I take towards my child, but if that’s the attitude others take towards their child then they can go ahead and call it a hobby.” 

Of course, many parents of an only child were also offended. While some defended the remark by clarifying that it wasn’t necessarily how she personally felt, others reckoned that Meghan shouldn’t have publicly said it regardless. Another commentator pointed out that the former actor had been similarly insensitive in the past too since she had announced her first pregnancy on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

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