Jacinda Ardern: ‘New Zealand will help us raise our child
Having found herself in the midst of tough coalition negotiations after a closely fought election, Jacinda Ardern was facing far more than her political colleagues could have guessed.
Six days before becoming New Zealand’s PM-elect, the Labour leader discovered she was pregnant, but was desperate to keep it, and the accompanying morning sickness, a secret during the post-election maelstrom.
Asked how she managed, Ms Ardern replied: “It’s just what ladies do”, evoking the sympathy of women the world over who just get on with it while struggling with first-trimester nausea.
The 37-year-old worried her staff might notice she was eating constantly, and only the same foods. “But no,” she revealed, “apparently people thought I was just a woman of odd habits,” she said.
No one, it seems, rumbled her. “None of them noticed I had pretty bad morning sickness while negotiating our government,” she said. News that MsArdern will give birth in June – shortly after which her television producer partner, Clarke Gayford, will become the primary caregiver – has been hailed as a thrilling landmark.
“Exciting news!” tweeted Labour’s Harriet Harman, the UK’s longest-serving female MP and the first pregnant candidate to win an election in 1982. “Pregnant PM & stay at home dad! New Zealand leads the way! Congrats all round.”
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said the announcement, though foremost a personal moment for Ms Ardern, “also helps demonstrate to young women that holding leadership positions needn’t be a barrier to having children (if you want to)”. And the former UK Green party leader Natalie Bennett saw it as “another landmark passed for women in politics”.
Ms Arder n said she did not think her position was that different to others’.
“I’m not a trailblazer,” she said. “I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby. I know these are special circumstances but there will be many women who will have done this well before I have.
“And, New Zealand is going to help us raise our first child … I think it’s fair to say that this will be a wee one that a village will raise, but we couldn’t be more excited.”