As I read more and more excerpts from Finding Freedom, I’m struck by a larger counter-narrative: Prince Harry is very opinionated and organized and he knows his own mind. This runs counter to the British press’s convenient talking point that Harry was and is weak, that Meghan controls him, that Meghan is so opinionated and Harry just goes along with what she wants. More often than not, Harry was the one driving their decisions as a couple and then as a family. It seemed like Harry was the one who wanted to move to Windsor, and he was the one who wanted physical and psychological distance from William and Kate. It also feels like Harry had very specific ideas about what their home life should be like, especially after they welcomed Archie. FF has a section where they talk about the first months after Archie was born, and how Harry didn’t want a house full of live-in staff, like he had seen with the Cambridges.

Although Harry and Meghan had initially chosen to forgo a full-time nanny, Doria had just flown back to LA, and so they decided to hire a night nurse to establish a sleep schedule and be an extra pair of helping hands. But their time with the couple was brief. Meghan and Harry were forced to let the nurse go in the middle of her second night of work for being unprofessional and irresponsible.

The new parents went on to hire a second night nurse, who did a fine job, but because of the incident with the first nurse, neither found themselves comfortable sleeping through the night without going to check on Archie regularly. After a few weeks, they decided to take on the nights themselves and went without a night nurse entirely. Instead, they hired a nanny to work weekdays. The nanny joined Harry and Meghan’s Frogmore staff, which consisted of an assistant and a housekeeper, neither of whom were live-in.

Harry and Meghan had agreed they didn’t want their home filled with staff. Harry had seen that situation at William’s home (the Cambridges had a live-in housekeeper and a full-time, live-in nanny), and didn’t want the same for his own family. He and Meghan liked the idea that when they went to bed at night, it was just the three of them in the house. Cozy and private.

In the mornings, Harry usually made his own coffee. When they had meetings at the large kitchen table with staff members, it was often Meghan who made a pot of tea and put chocolates or energy balls on a plate for nibbling.

[From Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan, and the Making of a Modern Royal Family]

One of the consistently funny things about the Cambridges is that they tried for years to make it sound like they didn’t have any household staff and barely had any office staff. It was this completely bizarre “normal” cosplay. Anyway, yes, of course Will and Kate have live-in staff at Anmer Hall and Kensington Palace. That’s how Harry grew up too, surrounded by staff. It must have been so exotic to him, this idea that he and Meghan and Archie could go to sleep in the same house without anyone else around.

I don’t even want to speculate about what happened with the first night nurse. I also feel like it would not have been the end of the world if they wanted a part-time cook!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red, Backgrid.