Prince Harry has opened up about his experience of therapy, saying he knew he “had stuff from the past that I needed to deal with” before having children.
The Duke of Sussex made the comments while giving a talk on stage at an event about fatherhood hosted by Movember on Wednesday morning during his visit to Australia.
The duke met with supporters of the men’s health charity at the Whitten Oval, which is the training and administrative headquarters of Australian rules football club Western Bulldogs.
Harry was presented with personalised Western Bulldogs miniature shirts with Archie and Lilibet’s names printed on the back after arriving at the stadium.
While discussing his experience of therapy before his children were born, Harry said: “Certainly from a therapy standpoint, you want to be the best version of yourself for your kids.
“And I knew that I had stuff from the past that I needed to deal with, and therefore prepare myself to basically cleanse myself of the past.”
In a discussion on stage with Movember’s global director of men’s health research Dr Zac Seidler, the duke said there were “conversations that are now happening in households between kids and parents that never existed between me and my parents”.
He spoke about the evolving roles of parents, telling the guests: “From my perspective, our kids are our upgrade.
“That’s not how I was taught but that was my take on it – not to say I was an upgrade of my dad or that my kids are an upgrade of me.
“That’s the approach that I take, to know that with the world the way that it goes, the kids that we bring up in today’s world need to be an upgrade.”
The duke said there could be a “disconnection” in the early days of fatherhood, adding “certainly I felt a disconnection because my wife was the one creating life, and I was there to witness it”.
Wearing a taupe shirt and jeans, Harry said: “I think for many guys, you try to think about what service can I provide at this point, because my work here is done to some extent.
“And then when it comes back around again, I think the biggest tip that I was given, actually, from my therapist in the UK, was just be aware of how you feel once the baby is born.”
“Every single time I went to work and I came back – if I was stressed, the moment that I held Archie, he would start crying.”
He added: “Fatherhood is the most important and sort of transformational role that a guy can ever, can ever move into.”
Harry also told the audience of Movember supporters and their children that “I’m fortunate enough to be able to work from home”.
Giving a talk at a function room of the stadium, he said: “During Covid, it was like, well, this working from home thing is really not great when you have like small kids running around, jumping into your meetings.”
Harry then took to the Aussie rules football pitch and had a kickabout with Western Bulldogs players Tom Liberatore, Adam Treloar and Matthew Kennedy in his Chelsea boots, while discussing the differences between the sport and rugby.
The duke looked delighted and beamed as he ran across the pitch to have a kickabout with children, telling one boy: “Good kick man” and “it’s a slippery ball that”.
He also posed for photographs while holding a Western Bulldogs scarf.
Harry also witnessed John Pearce (John Wiggle) and Lachlan Gillespie (Lachy Wiggle) from Australian children’s music group The Wiggles perform on the pitch and gave a little wiggle of his own in response.
The Movember movement, founded in Melbourne in 2003, is a global charity focused on improving men’s health, particularly in relation to mental health, suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
The campaign, which involves men growing moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness, has raised hundreds of millions of pounds across more than 20 countries – with “Mo” commonly used in Australia as slang for moustache.
In the afternoon, Harry was welcomed by Indigenous veterans upon arriving at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
The duke attended a Last Post Ceremony at the memorial in the Australian capital.
Held each evening since 2013, the ceremony commemorates an individual serviceperson through storytelling, reflection and the sounding of the Last Post.
