New Zealand prime minister determined to carry on as normal despite interest in pregnancy

It is business as usual for Jacinda Ardern. Seven days after the announcement of her pregnancy, the New Zealand prime minister is out and about under grey skies on a chilly morning in Dunedin to perform that staple of politicians – unveiling a plaque on a historic building.

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Addressing the re-opening of the city’s 115-year-old courthouse, Ardern speaks confidently about the priorities of her government – the need for it to protect the country’s heritage, its environment and the future of its children.

The prime minister affects a routine air. Nothing has changed, the government is getting on with the job. But for the country, it seems, a lot has has changed. New Zealand is in the grip of baby mania.

Since Ardern and her partner, Clarke Gayford, revealed they were expecting their first child, the announcement has dominated the news agenda, opinion pieces and talk radio. Some current affairs shows have even opened a bottle of bubbly to toast the news.

The Project NZ (@TheProject_NZ) Aw and he brought us bubbles to toast @jacindaardern and @NZClarke, a Project first! pic.twitter.com/Kho0OksHfN

First there was “Jacindamania” and “the Jacinda effect”; now there’s “Jacindababymania” .More than 800 newspapers and magazines around the world reported the pregnancy; in New Zealand the news has fascinated residents unlike any political story before, as many gossip and debate about what lies ahead.

Affectionately nicknamed “the royal baby”, political pundits are predicting a second term for the Labour party on the back of the jubilation sparked by the apparent salve to the turbulent global political climate.

Meanwhile, the PM has got on with the job: announcing an inquiry into mental health, a fleet of changes to employment laws aimed at improving conditions for workers, and discussing the resuscitation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.



Ardern appears slightly taken aback by the interest in her pending motherhood. “I’m just pregnant, not incapacitated,” she said. “Like everyone else who has found themselves pregnant before, I’m just keeping on going.

“Certainly when I walk around and step outside my house … I get a few honks and hollers and everyone has been very warm. But again, I don’t take that to mean absolutely everyone in New Zealand is happy. I’ve got work to do to prove that I can fulfil the responsibilities I have, and I absolutely intend to do that and so does the government.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacinda Ardern with the Vietnamese president, Tran Dai Quang, at a gathering of world leaders and senior business figures in Danang. Photograph: Jorge Silva/AFP/Getty

But she will have her work cut out if she hopes to dampen the national interest in her baby.

Observers point out that voters who may have previously felt shut out of the sometimes elitist realm of political life and decision-making may feel they finally have something in common with their leader – especially as she is going to be using hand-me-down baby clothes.

“In this day and age, parents are quite capable of working and having a family, I’m happy for her,” said Casey Bosscher, an apprentice builder who explained the court house renovation to Ardern.

“My wife and I have worked the whole way through [having our family]. Anyone who is concerned about the prime minister’s pregnancy is old-fashioned – you just do the best you can..”

In addition to being the country’s third female prime minister and the first to be sworn in while pregnant, Ardern’s government is implementing a swath of legislation to ease the burden for working families, such as increasing paid parental leave.



“Politics can seem very distant from many people’s everyday lives, but Ardern’s pregnancy has reflected that politics is a real-life exercise and that enables people to feel a connection with the political world,” said Jennifer Curtin, a professor of politics, and the director of the public policy institute at Auckland University.

“Ardern has been in politics for a long time. We know from research that there’s no perfect time to have a baby [in politics], and women are more likely than male colleagues to be childless, which suggests it hasn’t been a mother-friendly profession. So she is absolutely breaking norms and doing gender equality a huge public service, unwittingly or otherwise.”

Though the news was largely greeted with warm congratulations (one person left a box of doughnuts outside Ardern’s Auckland home) a trickle of angst and criticism has appeared.



Some writers have urged Ardern take six months off rather than six weeks, suggesting she will not be able to cope; others have said the “nationwide fertility festival” has provoked “pain and heartache” for those who struggle to conceive.

Even film stars have weighed in, with the French actor Marion Cotillard urging New Zealanders to “keep” their prime minister.

Ardern and Gayford celebrated their news with hamburgers, and flowers from the corner shop. Their relaxed approach to trampling gender norms and shaking up parliament is proving a winning formula for many New Zealanders who have navigated the same demands since women began entering the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s.

“We’ve come a long way from the time when it was thought women should stay at home to be barefoot and pregnant,” said Gill Greer, the chief executive of the National Council of Women of New Zealand.

“[The former prime minister] Helen Clark was criticised and it was said: ‘How can you decide what is good for families when you don’t have any children?’ Now we have another [female] prime minister and, of course, she can’t win either with a few people, though I would say they are in the minority.

“There’s that old saying: if girls can see it, girls can do it. And Ardern is proving that.”