Jacinda Ardern was in the middle of addressing the nation with updates to Covid-19 restrictions on a Facebook live briefing when an urgent little voice quietly interrupted: ‘Mummy?’
‘You’re meant to be in bed, darling,’ the 41-year-old PM told her daughter. ‘No,’ came the reply from Neve, Ardern’s daughter. ‘It’s bedtime, darling. Pop back to bed. I’ll come and see you in a second. I’ll come and see you in a minute. Okay... Sorry, everybody,’ Ardern says with a smile familiar to working mums everywhere. ‘Thankfully, my mum’s here, so she can help out,’ she says.
She goes on to say that was a ‘bedtime fail’ and asks if anyone else has children that ‘escape’ three or four times a night after bedtime.
Then just when she’s about to begin her announcement again Neve’s little voice pipes up once more; ‘What’s taking so long?’, at which the Prime Minister admits defeat and gives up. ‘Okay. I’m sorry, everyone. I’m going to just go and put Neve back to bed. Because this is well past her bedtime. Thanks for joining me.’
It’s hard to know which part of the video is more relatable; the interruption, trying to decide whether to prioritise work (in Ardern’s case, running the country) or your children, the bedtime fail, kids repeatedly escaping from bed after you’ve tried to gently wrestle them into it for the last hour, or roping in a grandparent to help so you can work.
Practically every working mother I know has found themselves in a similar situation over the last 20 months since the pandemic started. I'm not a Prime Minister, of course, and my Zoom calls mainly just feature one or two interviewees rather than a whole nation but I've lost count of the number of times I've had these sorts of interruptions.
I’ve been working from home for the past decade. Throw in three kids, a dog, two needy cats and two lockdowns and it sometimes feels like a miracle I’ve managed to maintain a job and continue WFH at all.
One high (or low) light was a then potty training toddler proudly bringing in the contents of their potty while I was interviewing a CEO. I was so mortified I shut down my laptop. Another time, my son came in to show me a Lego Transformer he had made while I was interviewing a university lecturer. They ended up having a ten minute chat about Transformers while I looked on. I was grateful the interviewee, who had a child the same age, was so gracious and took it all in his stride.
In fact, I would say one of the few silver linings of lockdown has been that WFH has been such a great leveller. Our professional and personal lives have merged and it’s allowed us all a glimpse into the lives of those we usually only see in the office. It’s been humbling and humanising for us all.
Ardern in particular has often been authentically honest about the challenges of juggling multiple roles at home and work. Pre-pandemic, she made history in 2018 by being the first world leader to bring her baby to a United Nations meeting.
Here in the UK, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson became the first female MP to bring her baby into parliament in the same year. And Labour MP Stella Creasy, who has had two babies while in office, has brought her children into the House of Commons numerous times while campaigning for better support for new mums.
And who could forget that famous BBC interview back in 2017 with Professor Robert Kelly, an expert on Korean politics, whose conversation was marvellously interrupted by his sassy daughter, then three, strolling in, swiftly followed by her little brother in his baby walker and then, finally, his panic-stricken wife.
Ardern and many other high-profile figures like her show the reality of being a working parent; trying to manage the expectations of a small person with a job. She handled it like a pro, of course, and I hope that seeing leaders like her juggling the demands of parenthood and work gives us all a little more leeway to do the same without having to apologise for it.