Working ‘moms’ of world set the pace
Oh god, the news of the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s pregnancy will no doubt overshadow even the pushing of a big red button to start World War III.
After reading other writers’ reactions to the news, it is hard not to sound cliche´d when writing about this.
However, I did somewhat jokingly theorise about the possibility of a pregnancy in my column just before the election last year; ‘‘Imagine the PMwith a baby on her hip’’. So now what?
Endless social media speculating, the knit for Jacinda campaign, and media attention to rival that of whatever royal has pushed out a posh baby lately.
And of course I don’t need to point out that if it was a bloke PM having a baby with his wife, only a very small ripple would have been made in the media pool. The news made me think about how women, or more specifically, working mothers, have been depicted on our screens.
The balance is such that the writers must decide on how much claireashton7@gmail.com
the ‘‘mother’’ part takes up. Drama is about conflict, with the characters overcoming obstacles, and in many cases the kids, albeit cute, are script fodder to be part of the obstacle to the woman achieving her goal.
This is usually balanced by a cute moment of course, the collective ‘‘Awww’’ as the baby does a totally adorable thing that makes everything worthwhile.
The poster for the movie Erin Brokovich, with sassy Julia Roberts in the lead, features her ‘‘on the case’’ with baby on hip.
As a solo mother, her kids are part of the juggling act, she tries to get and keep a job and provide childcare.
In the movie, the biker boyfriend hangs up his motorcycle jacket for a hiatus offroad.
She is too busy to be nice to him though, what with all her work commitments, so he eventually hits the road again. She wins, but loses the guy.
In the movie I Don’t Know How She does It, the super career ‘‘mom’’ played by Sarah Jessica Parker regularly has the title line served up to her. Apparently, she does it with sleepless nights and lists. In Bad Moms – the title of which kind of says it all – the answer to the stress of motherhood seems to be to get delinquent and boozed.
So with this representation of working mothers, where does the balance lie?
It seems somewhere between cooking gluten free cookies for a PTA stall at midnight after work emails, to downing tequila shots at a bar and throwing wild parties. In Bad Moms, I don’t think they are necessarily bad, it’s more that the moms have realized that striving for perfection is just too, exhausting.
Focusing on the role of being a working mumback in New Zealand, we should also consider just how long it’s been since the women suffragettes in New Zealand gained the vote.
It is just 125 years. That time span, in overall human evolutionary roles is not long.
A long history of evolution suggests that the child bearers are also the child-rearers. The mother-child bond is one of nurturing and attachment, particularly if breast-feeding.
Oh god, that’s coming next, isn’t it? Will the PMflash her boobs whilst breast-feeding?
How much will our national papers soon look like the cover of Hello magazine? And please, please, don’t let Trump see an image of that!
Although on second thoughts, who knows, it could improve trade relations.
-Waikato writer and filmmaker Claire Ashton grew up in Hamilton and now lives in Te Aroha. She can be contacted on: claireashton7@gmail.com