WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Friday she is expecting her first baby and is set to become the country’s first leader to give birth while in office, shadowing the footsteps of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto who was the first female head of government to give birth while in office
The 37-year-old, who was sworn in last October, made global headlines when she slapped down pre-election questions over whether she intended to start a family, insisting pregnancy had no bearing on a woman’s career opportunities.
Ardern was all smiles Friday as she appeared with partner Clarke Gayford at their home to announce the “unexpected but exciting” news of their first baby.
“Clark and I are really excited to share…that in June we are looking forward to welcoming our first child,” she told reporters.
“We still have to get used to saying that out loud because we’ve been keeping that to ourselves for quite a long time.”
The charismatic leader enjoyed a rapid rise to the top ranks of politics, winning office last year just months after taking the helm of the centre-left Labour Party.
“We thought 2017 was a big year!” she tweeted.
“This year we’ll join the many parents who wear two hats. I’ll be PM and a mum while Clarke will be ‘the first man of fishing’ and stay at home dad.”
We thought 2017 was a big year! This year we’ll join the many parents who wear two hats. I’ll be PM & a mum while Clarke will be “first man of fishing” & stay at home dad. There will be lots of questions (I can assure you we have a plan all ready to go!) but for now bring on 2018 pic.twitter.com/nowAYOhAbF
— Jacinda Ardern (@jacindaardern) January 18, 2018
Ardern said she would take a maternity leave of six weeks leaving maverick Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters in charge.
She said she aimed to be “contactable and available” during the period and would resume all leadership duties when it was over.
Ardern, who did not reveal whether she was expecting a boy or a girl, said she and Gayford previously had doubts they could conceive.
“Clarke and I have always been clear we wanted to be parents but had been told we would need help for that to happen,” she said.
“That’s made this news a fantastic surprise.”
She tweeted a picture of two large fishing hooks, one with a smaller hook inside it, in reference to Gayford´s career as a television fishing show presenter.
Sexism row
Ardern’s plans for a family sparked a sexism row during the election when a television host quizzed her on the issue, saying voters had a right to know before they cast their ballots.
She rejected the line of questioning as “unacceptable”, saying pregnancy and child-rearing should not hinder women’ s opportunities in the workplace.
“It is a woman’s decision about when they choose to have children and it should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job or have job opportunities,” she said.
While several male prime ministers have become parents in office, late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is believed to have been the first head of government to have given birth during her term, when she had a baby in 1990.
Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, her eldest daughter, and second child, was born just over a year after assuming office in December 1988. Her ascension to power was historic in itself, being not only the first woman elected prime minister of Pakistan but the first woman elected to head a Muslim country
At the time, Bhutto’s political opponents had been demanding an interim government be installed while she got on with having her baby. Bhutto, however, fiercely resisted as she was sure that her opponents would use it as an opportunity to oust her from power. Instead, she chose to keep the news that she had gone into labour under the radar, travelling incognito to a Karachi hospital to undergo a Caesarean.
And not only that, Bhutto went back to work, the day after giving birth.
“The next day I was back on the job, reading government papers and signing government files,” she recalled afterwards. “Only later did I learn that I was the only head of government in recorded history actually to give birth while in office. It was a defining moment, especially for young women, proving that a woman could work and have a baby in the highest and most challenging leadership positions.”
Seems like Ardern has borrowed a page from Bhutto’s book as she said, “there’s no doubt times have changed and it is definitely possible to juggle motherhood and a high-profile political career.”
“I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby,” she said. “There are plenty of women who carved a path incrementally to make it possible for people to look upon my time in leadership and think ‘yes I can do the job and be a mother’.”
