All the Terrible Op-Eds You're Going to Read Now Jacinda Is a Mum

It’s been a long road but finally we’ve made it: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her beloved fisherman beau Clarke Gayford have welcomed their much-awaited spawn into the world.

But alas, little miss Ardern-Gayford is not the only thing that’s been gestating during those nine long months: deep in the belly of evil, thoughts have been swirling; concerns have been raised; conclusions have been drawn; and now, ready to be birthed are hundreds, nay, thousands, of the worst opinion pieces imaginable.

The usual suspects will be lining up: Deborah Hill Cone recalling her own new motherhood; Duncan Garner fretting over the state of the nation; Mark Richardson screaming into the void as all his darkest fears come true; one can only imagine the monstrous Google doc of ideas shared between the likes of Mike Hosking and Kate Hawkesby.

When New Zealand media does a hot take, it goes all in. Analysis-schmalysis, here is a selection of all the terrible opinion pieces you will be reading now Jacinda is a mum.

“Jacinda is a Terrible Mum”

However much we may like to delude ourselves into thinking we live in the ‘modern’ era, there is nothing like a prominent working mother in the press to remind just how many people still think such a thing is basically oxymoronic. A mother?? Leaving her baby??? To go to work????? While we’ve had ample time to prepare for the fact that no, Jacinda will not be waiting for her child to sprout her first grey hair before going back to running the country, there will still be many shocked, scandalised and, frankly, appalled at this act of selfishness.

“Jacinda is a Terrible Prime Minister (Now She’s a Mum)”

Once Jacinda does do the unthinkable and returns to the glitz and glamour of public office, one can look forward to a different kind of concern from political pundits: has she been baby-brained? As science and history have taught us, once a woman has a baby several things happen: she understands love and devotion as never before; delicious milk starts seeping from her bosom; and her already limited capacity for logical thought disintegrates into a pile of very fine glitter. How will she navigate the reason and rationality of political life now that she is a vessel of biological chaos? Nappies will litter the Beehive. The economy will crash. Jacinda, knitting a pair of adorable tiny booties, will smile vacantly as Winston announces the new world order.

“I Respect Jacinda. I Admire Her. I Feel for Her."

There are few pettier ways to get one's point across that with a bit of condescending faux concern and, lucky us, New Zealand is home to some of the pettiest lifestyle columnists in the world. “Poor Jacinda! If I’d had to be away from little Banjo that much I don’t know how I would have coped! Good thing her unlikable husband is picking up the slack. Suppose they have childcare. Did I mention how much I admire her? Anyway when I was a new mother feeding my child only organic bulgur wheat and pulled jackfruit I would NEVER have vaccinated…”

“Clarke Gayford is a Saint For Participating in the Upbringing of His Own Child” (With a Side of “Jacinda is a Terrible Mum”)

Simultaneously emasculating and idolatry, the praise so often heaped on fathers who take a primary caregiver role will find a special target in Jacinda’s baby daddy and lovable everyman Clarke Gayford. “Gosh that Clarke’s really stepped up, hasn’t he?” these pieces will murmur, no doubt accompanied by an image of Gayford playfully holding his child up like a fish. “Raising his own child. What a guy”.

“Jacinda is a Feminist Icon Proving: Women Can Have it All”

Of course it will not be all doom and gloom—tucked in neatly between all that barely concealed gleeful misogyny, we can look forward to something a little more well-meaning but no less annoying. I can already barely hear myself think over the rallying cries of “yaaas kween!” echoing across the country.

Jacinda is a superwoman; Jacinda is a pioneer; Jacinda has smashed through the glass ceiling, baby in one arm, parliamentary bills in the other, uncut umbilical cord trailing behind like a rope for the next generation to climb. Lean in ladies: expectations just got even higher.

“You’re All Idiots for Caring so Much About this Stupid Baby”

For the true contrarian, of course, there is only one route—the radical and transgressive act of being loudly uninterested in the thing everybody else is interested in. “Woman has baby”, one might open up the paper to read—“Woop-di-doo”. As an event that occurs with a banal regularity we will be reminded, the miracle of new life is really rather more of a yawn—one that in this case has been lazily sensationalised by a celebrity-obsessed underclass more interested in trite, trivial ‘human interest’ than the thrilling minutiae of public policy. Keep your precious baby, plebs - the grownups have documents to read.

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