Born in Girls Can Do Anything decade, Jacinda showing how to do it
If anyone can cope with drastic changes in life, Ardern ...can.
You just need to look at the Twitter pictures of Jacinda Ardern on Christmas Day surrounded by kids to see she is going to be a great mother.
The question is whether she will be the best Prime Minister she can be, with the revelations she is having a surprise baby in June.
She is attempting to head off concerns that she has breached faith with voters, or concerns that Winston Peters will be in charge for too long, by announcing her intention to take only six weeks off work.
That in itself will be cause for concern by some that she has not given herself enough time to adjust to something more deeply mind-altering than becoming Prime Minister.
But if anyone can cope with drastic changes in life, Ardern has proven in a very short time that she can.
From the tumultuous moment she was thrust into the Labour leadership on August 1, through the election campaign, post-election negotiations and being installed as Prime Minister, she has been sure-footed. She has not shown a moment’s hesitation.
Ardern did not plan this pregnancy. But she didn’t exactly plan to become Prime Minister either.
But even if she had planned the baby, it would hard to argue she had breached any faith with voters. She has made it clear she wanted children, and at age 37, time is running out.
There is no suggestion that Ardern was under an obligation to declare her condition to Winston Peters before his party’s decision to go with Labour.
Besides it being too early in her pregnancy to share the news with others, it would have drawn unkind speculation that the reason Peters went with Labour was to give himself more time as Prime Minister.
Even if Ardern takes longer than the six weeks currently anticipated, New Zealand’s system of Government is set up to handle it easily.
She is Prime Minister, not President Ardern. Big decisions are taken collectively, not by a single person.
The Prime Minister sets the tone. It will be a great opportunity for Peters to show whether he is capable of demonstrating his finest qualities and not the nasty ones he falls back on under pressure.
Ardern will have a tonne of support from her partner, Clarke Gayford, family, friends, a Parliament more tolerant of new mothers and a society with changing views on the workplace.
She was born in the decade in which it was said: Girls Can Do Anything.
She is working in the decade in which girls are doing it.