Abide by the Standards

Regarding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, written April 2021.

She describes how she resided in a cottage, dated but beautiful, on the outskirts of London in a vast garden near a lake.

As she reports, she was unable to leave without permission. Meghan was unallowed to go somewhere to get help and left to perform. She was desperate. Very desperate. She knows she needs some support and help. She cannot be left alone for fear she will kill herself.

I watched alongside the world as she rose to this point. She was a woman free to chart her own path, successful in myriad ways, and strong in her convictions. Until she was not. She did not anticipate the confinement her new life would bring. Her husband didn't know anything different. She was learning how to be of royalty while still being herself until the realization smacked her: the Institution and encircling society expected much. She found herself engulfed in the scripts and prescriptions for outward appearances designed to portray an unflinchingly upright and composed mainstay of the Commonwealth.

The British Monarchy scandal of the 21st century ensued.

Her life partner was well-versed in the effects of this imposition of standards. He lived and breathed the socially prescribed perfectionism. He didn't know anything else, really, until he met her. The levels of dysfunction within such a system were not fully seen nor understood. It was just normal, as all our childhoods seem to be. It's the only life we know. It's our norm. But then he fell in love with someone outside the regularly and rigidly maintained bubble. It clicked: the discrepancy between what was imposed on him versus what his own agency could do or be.

The headlines called her a narcissistic shank.

I was called emotionally abusive and manipulative.

Failing to live up expectations and standards resulted in mental health dilemmas and detrimental labels slung in our direction.

Both Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's mother, Princess Diana, were enticing to their fans because they grasped the right of humans to be seen, heard, and understood. They also both struggled to maintain their facades and withstand the pressure of expectations forced on them. Values colliding, pressure and demands of performance began the slope to the death of Diana as well as the move of Harry and Meghan. His mother's death was why Harry understood the dangers of the precipice he saw his wife teetering on and, at a significant loss (or gain?), moved his wife, on the brink of fatal mental instability, out of the Institution of the Monarchy. Since then, he has been tripping (happily?) through a life he's never known.

And upon the news of Prince Philip's passing this April of 2021, I can't help but think about how he was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's "strength and stay" through 73 years of marriage. He loved her as she was before she was Queen. And although begrudgingly at first, Philip (eventually) chose to put aside himself (and much of his freedom). He became the role of "help mate" despite being a man. However, the Institution's expectations were not his primary guidelines. At first, he battled the rules and then, of his own volition, abided by those he saw fit to abide by and left the rest. For her part, Elizabeth extended the benefit of the doubt and extreme tolerance to Philip. She got that some of the expectations were absurd. The Royals were consistent, sure, and seemingly almost inhuman. At times, they had to be. But also, at some point, Elizabeth opted for connection with her husband, as a human being, over forcing him to fulfill the absurd expectations placed on family members in the Royal Institution. She brought him in as Prince (gasp!) and did not demand of him as much as she could have given her power as Queen.

I keep thinking about them: the Institution and surrounding culture of this planet's most considerable and recent colonizing force. I live in a Commonwealth country. My mind pictures the rules for life, guidelines for behaviour, praise for performance, and fear of being influenced "too much" by the rapidly shifting views of the world (or by any other culture outside one's own). Shoulders back, ankles crossed, proper. Otherwise unworthy. While isolated with Covid, I binge-watch "Bridgerton" and am struck with how many socially appropriate ways of acting from this Regency Era are still in play today.

The message that a person is not worthy of consideration nor being looked at, known, loved, approved of, or accepted unless they meet specific standards of behaviour flowed through the generations of Europeans and into the colonization of North America. One group's maintenance of image, status quo, and denial of any possible weakness in themselves ultimately destroyed the Indigenous peoples of Canada (and elsewhere). It began through the marketing and production of the coveted beaver pelt hat - the marker of status, and therefore a person's worth - accepted by the elite in London. It extended to cutting hair, refusing a language, and forcing submission in horrific ways.

Elitism, rampant across my Instagram feed, to even the celebrity endorsement of products and literature, is rife with imposing standards. These marks of value are absurd: the layer of beaver fur in the hat, the name on the tag of the fabric, the lushness of the front lawn, the cuteness of the outfit on the infant, or the name and style of the stroller. They're in the cute messy bun or the truly messy bun.

These are the things I think about when my body can't stand up, weakened by this virus that does not pick and choose us based on our status and metaphorical masks we wear (or do not wear) to project ourselves in a way we think we will be accepted and loved.

Only a little later, in a break between waves of Covid, I enter the local delicatessen, where the fabulous families with babies in Ergo carriers meet for coffee. I enter, holding my 6-year-old's hand and my 8-year-old just behind. I watch as a man, likely close to my age, whose pants won't stay up, drop 60 cents of change on the counter and ask for a coffee (clearly not understanding that the coffee is $6.00 at this kitschy coffee shop). Once he understands he won't be served coffee, he leaves. I see him rummage in the garbage can outside.

What makes this human, who exists in some sort of stringy-haired dirty mess and red underwear, any less valuable than me (who has money to pay for both of our coffees)? What makes him "less-than" or "unloveable" than the other people in the store? The fact is, he isn't. And while I purchase this week's bagels, I observe enough to know he isn't violent. Annoyed, perhaps, but not dangerous. So as we walk out the door, I tell my kids to wait, and I walk over to him. I ask him how he's doing and if he's hungry. He looks at me suspiciously. I offer him a bagel, explaining it's not in its own package because I just took it from the sleeve of bagels I bought for my family, but I made sure to sanitize my hands. He took it and thanked me, hiking up the side of his pants.

I want my children to understand that all people are worthy of love and care no matter who they are, how they smell, or if, from our view, they're doing something out of the ordinary. People are worthy of dignity and care regardless of how well they perform. This was what Diana stood for and the aim of Meghan and Harry.

If a human believes their worthiness is bound to abiding by the beckoning standards and expectations that whirl around them, there is no peace. This is true in a castle, a royal cottage, a modest home, or on the streets.