"It's A Love Story" Meghan Shares Inspiration Behind The Bench For Father's Day

In her only interview following the release of The Bench, the Duchess of Sussex joined illustrator Christian Robinson for a conversation with Samantha Balaban, on independent, non profit media organisation NPR. The brief interview coincided with Father's Day. In fact, The Bench was inspired by a gift Meghan gave Harry to mark his first Father's Day two years ago. "As most of us do, you go, what am I going to get them as a gift? And I thought I just wanted something sentimental and a place for him to have as a bit of a home base with our son", the Duchess said. Meghan revealed she included a plaque on the bench inscribed with the poem "This is your bench. Where life will begin/For you and our son/Our baby, our kin." Click here to listen to the full piece.

NPR reports:

'Now, two years later, Meghan and Harry have added a second child to their family — daughter Lilibet Diana was born in early June — and that poem is a children's book. The Duchess of Sussex spoke to NPR about the book shortly before the birth of her daughter.

The Bench is a series of vignettes — fathers and their sons share a bench while they drink apple juice, wait for the bus, look at the stars, and put on their shoes. The bench is where they cry, celebrate, and mend their scraped knees and broken hearts.'

Meghan was inspired by watching Harry and Archie together, she recalled, "I often find, and especially in this past year, I think so many of us realized how much happens in the quiet. It was definitely moments like that, watching them from out of the window and watching my husband just, you know, rock him to sleep or carry him or, you know - those lived experiences, from my observation, are the things that I infused in this poem." Inclusivity was very much a key objective for the book. Meghan said "Growing up, I remember so much how it felt to not see yourself represented. Any child or any family hopefully can open this book and see themselves in it, whether that means glasses or freckled or a different body shape or a different ethnicity or religion." 

When it was time to choose an illustrator the incredibly talented Christian Robinson was delighted to jump on board. "Would you want to work with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex?' And I'm like, in complete disbelief and excited and then I read the manuscript and I fell in love even more. For me it was a no brainer." Christian added "What makes creativity fun is when things are improvised. When you kind of have to explore and play and experiment. I really think it was just the right note." For Christian "inclusivity" and "representing as many families as we could" is the "heart of the book".

Listening to the conversation, it was clear Meghan and Christian developed a wonderful working relationship and aligned vision for the book. The Duchess, who had long been a fan of Christian's work, said: "I wanted him to just try something a little bit new and work in watercolor. That was specifically because I just felt that when you talk about masculinity and you talk about fatherhood, it can often not come across with the same softness that I was really after for this book. And I just wanted this to feel almost ethereal and light and Christian was able to use that medium and create the most beautiful images." 

Meghan added: "We both started to explore what diversity means when you look at it through illustration. It's not just black and white." The decision to feature a military family not only stemmed from Harry's life but a family she met when she was on a USO tour with a sergeant from Texas. "He had told me the story about how he wasn't able to teach his son how to play catch because he was away," Meghan recalled. "He and his son would mail this baseball back and forth to each other from Texas to Afghanistan and write the date on it."

Indeed, Meghan was thrilled to share news "Archie loves the book". The two-year-old has a "voracious appetite for books" and when they read the Bench, Meghan said it feels "amazing" to say "Mummy wrote this for you". Meghan added "a lot of special detail and love" went into the book. 

It was particularly touching to hear Christian say, as he worked on the book, he did so whilst visualizing "the father he wished he had" and "the father he hopes to be someday".

The book is filled with "small moments" familiar to the Sussex family including Meghan's favourite flower, her late mother-in-laws favourite flower and rescue chickens. It is ultimately a "love story", the Duchess says. "It's really just about growing with someone and having this deep connection and this trust so that, be it good times or bad, you know that you had this person and you can go back to this place you shared together. I really hope that people can see this as a love story that transcends the story of my family."

The Bench is now a number one New York Times Bestseller for children’s picture books. It remains available at countless online retailers including Amazon. 

In a special message published on Archewell, Meghan wrote: "When I first wrote these words — as a Father’s Day poem to my husband shortly after the birth of our first child, Archie — I never anticipated they would become something enjoyed in the homes of families around the world. My words echoed what I was witnessing at the time — the love I watched blossom between my husband and our baby boy, and the both simple and sacrosanct moments I imagined they would have for years to come. As I put pen to paper then, I felt it was uniquely our story that I was capturing. It became clear to me that the story of The Bench may have been for my husband and son, but it wasn’t simply about them; it was reflective of what so many other mothers and partners see in their other halves; the growing bond that I was in privileged observation of was universal. The tenderness of the relationship between Harry and Archie, also role-modeled by millions of other families around the world, reveals, in its subtle quietude, that the moments of being as much as in doing, matter. They illustrate that when we teach our sons that there is strength in vulnerability, power in kindness, and beauty in showing emotion, that we create the basis for a more equitable world for everyone — not simply for boys and men but for women and girls." 

Meghan concluded: "On this Father’s Day, we celebrate you: those who lead by example, who lead with love, and who recognize that the dad you are for your son today, defines the man he becomes tomorrow".