The Case of the Two Meghans

 The Case of the Two Meghans—One Entitled and One Entitled and Entitled

I never thought the day would come.  The day where I would feel the need to defend Meghan Markle.  But when I read Meghan McCain’s piece in the Daily Mail saying that Meghan Markle was delusional for thinking she could run for office, a flip switched.

Perhaps, if I had been born with incredible wealth and privilege, then I, too, would be as lacking in self-awareness as Meghan McCain.  In her article, McCain claims to better understand the needs of American voters.  Her ride along on her father’s ill-fated campaign makes her an expert on the difficulties that the rest of the population face on a daily basis.

McCain deigns to explain to Markle how she would have to eat “fried Oreos” at county fairs.  That she would not be able to wear designer clothes without being excoriated for the choices.  I am sure that she was clearly recollecting how Sarah Palin was castigated for wearing pretty outfits that were deemed to expensive.

Her closing thought is that Markle should stick to cocktail parties because that is where Meghan Markle belongs.

Poor Meghan McCain.  She is so victimized by others in her endeavors that she must go after other women.  She pens an angry article when Ann Coulter said Hillary Clinton was more conservative than John McCain.  She waxes on The View which is a vitriolic cesspool.  She cries about being termed a RINO—Republican In Name Only.

To read her rant regarding Meghan Markle—well, that is quite enough.

There are some similarities the two Meghans share.  They both attended private schools.  They both obtained university degrees.  McCain in art history and Markle in theater and international relations.

As for entitled backgrounds, their paths diverge greatly.

I do not recall reading about Meghan Markle’s debutante party.  I do not remember Markle having a mom who is an heiress to a vast fortune and a father who was a United States’ senator.

Meghan Markle’s father, I have no doubt earned a good living, but it appears he lives on the fringe of the Hollywood elite.  Markle attended private schools, yet until her father one the lottery, I am sure that he paid dearly to keep her enrolled.  And Meghan Markle’s parents were divorced.  Experiencing the end to a parent’s marriage is devastating to children no matter their age.  The instability created by that divorce hardens people.  It is a deep wound wherein you realize that you must fight to create your own life.  That nothing is permanent.

Unlike Meghan McCain, I can extend grace regarding Meghan Markle.

Like millions of people, I watched the Oprah train wreck interview.  I come from a generation where you may quietly swear at your parents’ foolishness, but you never air your dirty laundry.  I believe that someone did ask about the possible skin tone of the children.  Personally, I think that was Prince Charles.  It somehow sounds from the generation prior to my own where the argument against interracial marriages was a resounding, “What about the children?”  As in, other kids will be mean to your mixed race children.  

Furthermore, the speaker of the antiquated question most likely would not realize it was racist.  And Meghan Markle who had already had her own nuclear family fractured and who is sensitive to real and perceived threats of racism would feel even more isolated from the all white family she had married into.

As someone with an English degree and someone who parses every word ever spoken or written to me, I heard one extremely important detail that I did not read anyone address.

Meghan Markle said that Prince Harry’s family was saying that she should keep her job.  She should keep working.

Therein, lies the true problem.

The British Royal Family wanted Prince Harry to get out on his own and be financially independent.  Meghan Markle’s financial independence was the solution on to how to handle a problem like Prince Harry.

Unlike Meghan Markle, I do not think they were trying to get rid of her because of her race.  I think they were trying to get him off the British Royal Family dole.  This is evident from years earlier when Prince Charles made it clear that Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice were not going to receive security.

Royal families have been whittling down their numbers and trying to rein in their spending long before Meghan Markle came into the picture.

As an American, royalty is crazy to me.  Fascinating.  Fun to watch a royal wedding.  But a foolish waste of money supporting any of it.  It is old outdated and ridiculous.  I can’t believe any of it still exists in modern times, but here we are.

So, too, we now have American dynasties.  Senators’ children.  Presidents’ children.  Emmy-winning show lighting children.  And children who come from insane generational wealth.  There are those children. too.  

Those children, in the musings of Warren Buffett, won the uterine lottery.  

They haven’t done anything other than be born to people in better circumstances than the majority of the population.

Which brings us back to the two Meghans.  Unlike Meghan McCain, I don’t believe Meghan Markle’s circumstances preclude her from running for public office.  Unlike Meghan McCain, I don’t believe that having enriched herself greatly from her access to her father’s cronies and her mother’s personal fortune and networking relationships precludes her from running for public office.

I mean, be honest, Meghan McCain—would anyone have published your book after your father’s Presidential run if he wasn’t your father?  Would your husband have had the opportunities that he has been given if not for his father?

So what did Meghan Markle do?  She social climbed.  She gained access that she would never have had if not for her great education paid for by her father.  She may have gotten a crumb here or there by her father’s work on General Hospital.  Or who knows, maybe her first husband helped get her the briefcase job?  I don’t know.  I kind of doubt it.

What she did was get a part on Suits.  For seven seasons.  All of us in the work world know that someone else might get you in the door, but they won’t keep you there.

Make no mistake, I have hated what Meghan Markle has said about the British Royal Family.  I am not a fan of using victimhood as a platform.  But not for the delusional reason that Meghan McCain seems to think.  As a feminist, I believe that painting oneself as a victim is exactly how women fail to move forward.  Unlike Meghan McCain, I want all women to succeed.

Meghan Markle has learned from the Rahm Emmanuel playbook that any crisis may be used in her favor.  That all press—even bad press is better than no press.  

As an older woman, I can feel sorry for Meghan Markle.  She is in the position of trying to teach an unemployed and unemployable man how to make a living.  That sounds exhausting.  

Here’s Meghan Markle trying to get something going while her husband is playing polo.  A sport that screams privilege. And on the other hand we have Meghan McCain with her mother as an ambassador—a position you only hold if you have extreme wealth—telling a woman that she’s not worthy for consideration to run for office.

For both of you as possible candidates—here are my questions:

How will you help women attain financial independence?  How will you help single mothers support their children?  Because I know from personal experience, that the Clinton administration kicked me off of any benefits while I was in my senior year of college.  I was told I would either have to work a full time job even though I would only get minimum wage or lose those benefits to stay in school.  Why are both parties ok with forcing women who often suffered domestic violence from now absent fathers to seek child support from men who have disappeared?  Why after a bachelor’s and a master’s degree am I still making a pittance of what my husband makes for fixing things?  Why is it ok that middle-aged women have a higher level of unemployment and never again attain the salaries they need for future retirement?  Why are women continually told that they need an education to get ahead instead of learning to be entrepreneurs where the most personal wealth is possible?  Why are women not receiving subsidized housing and daycare for their children when we know that they will always make less than men?  Or why after twenty years of public service in education that I left my final year of teaching under a principal who had never taught, without a pension, without tenure, and most assuredly, less social security than my husband because I always made a pittance of his salary?  That’s if I receive any social security as my statements have a note that by 2030 the fund will be gone—which, by the way, is the year I would be retiring.  And student loans?  I paid student loans as an educator for over twenty years and never qualified for any loan forgiveness even though I taught struggling readers who would not have graduated unless I helped them pass a state test.  I paid for student loans and private school tuition when my children struggled in school.  That amounted to $750 a month—one of my two paychecks for the month.

I could go on and on about the disappointments from both parties’ lack of care.  By all means, keep on banging on about Roe V. Wade or extended paid time off for parents after having children.  Getting folks enraged obfuscates bigger systemic problems.

The question in the case of the two Meghans is do either of them understand what the average American is dealing with on a daily basis?  I don’t know.  Maybe they will try to empathize.  But truly understand it—I don’t know.  Like many other Americans, I would need to see a lifetime of work, and even then, our politicians have done little to solve the bigger issues.

What I do know is how to extend grace.  In one of my teaching positions, the school superintendent graciously allowed me to resign and made sure I had health insurance benefits until the end of the school year.  Evidently, you can’t run a cafe and work as a teacher simultaneously to avert complete financial devastation when your husband has his own crisis while trying to support his family.

See, that superintendent is a woman.  A woman who is now a state school superintendent.  She was a woman who could look objectively at the mess I was dealing with, trying to hold onto my home and working seven days a week to try to hold it all together.

She extended grace.  So, now, do I extend grace to both Meghans.  Do I think that either could do the job?  Actually, I do.  But for that matter, I could do the job.  Or any of the farmers around me.  Or any of the women I know working for pennies on the dollar of what men make.  And both Meghans have far better connections than I do.  I would have to be like Meghan Markle and social climbing to get things changed because I can’t be like Meghan McCain with Joe Biden on speed dial.

Whatever the case, I can extend grace to both of them.  I can support them and wish them well in their endeavors.  I can assure you that I would not tell them to stick to cocktail parties nor think they are incapable of leading because of having well-connected, wealthy families.

I am not that kind of woman.  But I am a woman who votes.  And one day, if I have to cast a ballot between the two—I will vote on what they will do for Americans.  I will vote on their body of work, not on who their family is nor who they are married to at the time.

So both Meghans—I encourage you to extend grace.  To your families.  To the public.  To your critics.  To other women.  Just like that cheese cracker commercial that says, “Not ready yet.”  Neither of you are quite ready yet.  But like many other women, I will be here waiting and watching, and most important of all—

I will extend you grace on your journey, and I will be here cheering you on and hoping you do wonderful things with the possibilities that were either earned or unearned by the two of you.  That’s what great women do.  They uplift women whether they are home baking cookies or pounding the pavement to work their way up the corporate ladder.  Extend grace to others.  Especially other women who are most deserving of support.

For that woman is who will get my vote.  The one who values those at work or at home with equitable compassion.