An Invernessian in America: As Harry and Meghan announced this month that their daughter had been born, how can people respond negatively to the birth of a child?
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A baby being born surely is one of the greatest moments of pure and utter happiness. End of.
I am yet to experience that, but I turn to a mushy mess every time I see a newborn. Even a photo posted on Instagram!
It’s a moment that stops you during your frantic scrolling and prompts an “awwww” and a double-tap ‘like’.
And it continues to baffle me as to how someone can see such news and immediately jump online in an attempt to tarnish such an amazing occasion that really has nothing to do with them.
Harry and Meghan announced this month that their daughter had been born. Her name, a nod to Harry’s grandmother and mother: Lilibet (Lili) Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. It’s such a sad state of affairs when the news of a baby being born is met with mountains of replies, retweets and comments of a negative nature.
Lilibet was Queen Elizabeth’s childhood nickname, used when she couldn’t pronounce her own name. I’ve watched The Crown on Netflix (and then Googled to confirm…)! The nickname apparently stuck, and even at Prince Philip’s funeral in April, the Queen left a handwritten note signed “Lilibet”on his coffin. That’s just lovely.
But the naming of Harry and Meghan’s baby girl was not treated with the same sentiment. I first saw the news on Twitter (a welcome break from Sunday golf tweets) and honestly was shocked at the replies below the announcement post.
Congratulatory comments were massively outnumbered. NBC in the US went as far to say the choice of name was “tone deaf, at best”.
Had it not been for the public controversy surrounding the departure of Harry and Meghan from the monarchy in their move Stateside, they probably would’ve been applauded for the gesture to honour Harry’s grandmother.
The royal family is fascinating to Americans; there’s no such equivalent in the US, combined with the fact that an American actress married the prince!
The aforementioned Netflix show, The Crown, was obviously huge worldwide and gave audiences an inside glance behind the gates of Buckingham Palace, regardless of how blurred that line was between fact and fiction.
And the fallout from the Harry and Meghan sit-down with Oprah only added to the fascination with the British monarchy – family drama, we all have it. But I just can’t work out how people can take the time to post their negative opinions on the birth of a child, whatever it’s name is.
n In a few days’ time we hopefully won’t be directing our online rants and frustrations at our national side as the Euros 2020 get under way.
We’ve waited 23 long years for our countrymen to appear in a major tournament, and it’s just our luck that our opening game is on a Monday afternoon – 2pm. Well, 9am for me.
Safe to say productivity may be down that day, but at least a 4pm celebratory drink is acceptable. Not sure I’ll get away with the same.
