After joining other members of the Royal Family to say farewell to Her Majesty – who sadly passed away on 8 September at the age of 96 – at last week's state funeral, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle returned to their home in California to be reunited with their two children, three-year-old Archie Harrison and one-year-old Lilibet Diana.
With their return home comes the return of their somewhat civilian lives, and there's no doubt that after the pomp and ceremony of the last two weeks, they'll be keen to get back to the humdrum of their daily routine. And part of that routine has recently been revealed, with Meghan sharing with The Cut that she and Archie have the most wholesome after-school ritual.
"If he forgets to say please or thank you, Meghan reminds him of the manners that make the man," the interviewer says as she recalls a car ride home from school that she shared with the pair. "At a stoplight, she reaches into the trunk and produces a brand-new black backpack and hands it to her security detail to give to an unhoused man on the corner."
The writer went on: "They are teaching Archie that some people live in big houses, some in small, and that some are in between homes. They made kits to pass out with water and peanut-butter crackers and granola bars."
It's a routine they're keen to stick with, as Meghan – who stepped down as a senior working royal in 2020 – goes on to reveal that having the freedom to pick Archie up from school is precious. "She’d remarked upon how, if Archie were in school in the UK, she’d never be able to do school pickup and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures," The Cut's Allison P. Davis says.
"Sorry, I have a problem with that. That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child," the Duchess of Sussex commented, adding that although some parents at Archie's school "[stop mid-chat to do a double-take", they let her son get on with being the "cheerful kid who brings a week’s worth of freshly picked fruit for his fellow classmates and enjoys playing a 'roaring' game at recess."
