Prince Harry says he wants to ‘be better parent’ than King Charles | Royal | News

Prince Harry has said he wants to be a better parent than his father and revealed that “there were things from my past that I had to deal with” before having children with Meghan Markle. The Duke of Sussex made his personal comments at an event on fatherhood hosted by charity Movember on the second day of his visit to Australia with Meghan.

Although the Duke said he “doesn’t judge” his father, he alluded to his parents, the King and the late Princess Diana when talking about how every parent’s generation must be an “upgrade”.

Harry visited Melbourne’s Whitten Oval, the training and administrative headquarters of Australian rules football club Western Bulldogs, where he met with supporters of the men’s mental health charity.

He spoke about the changing roles of parents as he spoke about his own experiences of becoming a father to six-year-old Prince Archie and four-year-old Princess Lilibet. But he insisted he wasn’t “pointing the finger” at his own parents, but explained that even those with a perfect upbringing will want to improve on that with their own children.

He explained: “I see parenting improving over time. Our children are our superior. I’m not saying I improved my father or my children improved me, but in today’s world the children we raise need to be improved too.”

She added: “No judgment, no blame, no finger pointing. The truth is, no matter how you parent, it’s a personal experience for you and you’ll want to build on that.”

“Obviously, social media didn’t exist 40 years ago, so this is just one example of conversations that now occur in homes between kids and their parents that never existed between me and my family.”

He also discussed his experience of therapy before his children were born, and said: “Certainly from a therapy standpoint, you want to be the best version of yourself for your children.

“And I knew that there were things from the past that I needed to deal with, and so I prepared myself to basically cleanse myself of the past.”

The Duke said there could be a “disconnection” in the early days of fatherhood, adding: “I definitely felt a disconnect because it was my wife who created life and I was there to witness it.”

Harry said: “I think a lot of guys are trying to think about what service I can provide at this point because my job here is done to some extent.

“And then when it came up again, I think the biggest tip I was given from my therapist in the UK was to be aware of how you feel when the baby is born.

“Every time I would go to work and come back, if I was stressed, the moment I picked up Archie he would start crying.”

He added: “Fatherhood is the most important and transformative role a man can ever take on.”