Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry’s love for their children is driving their work in the realm of online safety and cyberbullying.
In a preview of the couple’s upcoming interview with CBS News Sunday Morning’s Jane Pauley, the Sussexes offer some rare insight into life with their kids—five-year-old Archie Harrison and three-year-old Lilibet Diana—and how parenthood is propelling the work the duke and duchess are doing.
“Our kids are young. They’re three and five. They’re amazing,” Meghan tells Pauley. “But all you wanna do as parents is protect them. So, as we can see what’s happening in the online space, we know that there’s a lot of work to be done there and we’re just happy to be able to be a part of change for good.”
Pauley suggests that parents are likely to feel naturally inclined to help their kids if they’re struggling, to which Harry adds, “If you know how to help.”
He continues, “At this point, we’ve got to the stage where almost every parent needs to be a first responder. And even the best first responders in the world wouldn’t be able to tell the signs of possible suicide.”
The Sussexes have long been proponents of cultivating a safer online environment for youth.
Last October, their Archewell Foundation hosted a mental health summit in New York City that focused on keeping children safe in the age of digital social media. The event invited families who have lost kids due to mental health struggles, some of which stemmed from overexposure to social media.
“The burden of this can’t solely be on the parents,” Meghan said at the summit. “A lot of the conversations we’ve had quietly behind the scenes with tech executives, they do feel that they’ve created parental controls and certain guardrails to curb this, but not all parents are tech-savvy and can navigate that, and there needs to be a better solution than that. You put in safeguards so when situations like this keep happening, you’re still working to keep people safe.”
The Sussexes will be continuing their work in this space during an upcoming trip to Colombia, which will take place ahead of the inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children this November.
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As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers’ rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset.