Meghan Markle, 39, and Prince Harry, 36, confirmed their son Archie, 1, has taken his first steps! The couple joined activist Malala Yousafzai, 23, for a live chat in celebration of International Day of the Girl on Sunday, Oct. 11. “We were both there for his first steps. His first run, his first fall, his first everything…special moments,” Meghan said in response to how they’ve been spending time in quarantine. Since the pandemic began, Harry and Meghan have settled into a home in Montecito, California, joking that they’ve spent a lot of time on Zoom.
“It’s just so fantastic — in so many ways we are fortunate to be able to have this time to watch him grow, and in the absence of COVID, we would be traveling and working more. We would miss a lot of those moments,” the former Suits star also said. “To be able to raise our son in a way where everything about his nourishment is about educational substance and how he can learn, how he can grow,” she said earlier in the discussion, which focused on the importance of access to education for women.
“When young girls have access to education everyone wins and everyone succeeds. It just opens the door for societal success at the highest level,” the Los Angeles native — who has been advocate for the issue — shared. “It’s not just robbing a society of the cultural richness that comes with educating young girls…It’s also robbing these young girls of childhood,” she said to Malala, who wrote the book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban about her own terrifying experience. The 23-year-old has since gone on to earn a Nobel Peace Prize and a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the prestigious Oxford University.
Harry also spoke candidly about the state of the world. “This has been so challenging for absolutely every body. The longer it goes on the more it’s going to [affect], especially from the mental health aspect. This has been a traumatic experience for absolutely everybody. This is a unifying moment to bring everybody together…wherever you are in the world,” he said.