Butt out of parent advice for Ardern, urges Shipley
An Australian author urging Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to “lead like a woman” and scale her job down to part time when she returns to work, has drawn criticism.
Sydney-based writer Natalie Ritchie is challenging Ardern to reject the “timetable and conditions designed for a man with a 24/7 wife at home” and reshape her leadership role to suit the demands of motherhood.
But former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley says people needed to “butt out” of others’ parenting decisions.
Addressing Ritchie’s article, Shipley said New Zealand was “a long way further ahead” in terms of respecting women’s career expectations and accepting their capability.
“There is no question of parttime or fulltime, it’s about respecting Jacinda’s determination to lead and her choices,” Shipley said.
In an interview with the
Weekend Herald Ritchie said the decision for Ardern’s partner Clarke Gayford to stay at home was “not the solution”. Ritchie, a former features editor at Child magazine and author of
Roar Like a Woman, said just switching the gender roles kept “the old patriarchy firmly in place, while pretending to do away with it”.
On a recent job-hunt in Australia Ritchie, a mum of two teenage sons, said she struggled to find something with hours that valued family life.
A part time PM sounded “wacky”, Ritchie said, but it would make a “school hour economy” more acceptable — “I believe she is brave enough to do this.”
Shipley said the issue wasn’t about hours worked.
“In New Zealand women decide on their leadership identity and pathway and Jacinda is our Prime Minister — just as Helen Clark was and just as I was.”
“How lucky are we to have three role models at different stages,” Shipley said. “Women who are leading, and exercising choice and having partners who support you in different ways.”
Relationship coach at family support organisation The Parenting Place Jo Batts said what mattered was that babies had time, love and attention from a special person. “Women don’t have the exclusive mandate for caring for kids, just like men don’t have the exclusive mandate for leading the country.”
Ardern was approached for comment but staff said she was not able to be contacted because “she was on maternity leave”.