For Tammy Duckworth, one of the first Asian-American women in the US Senate, it was yet another first. In April, the Illinois senator who lost both legs in Iraq in 2004, will become the first US senator to give birth while holding office. Her news followed a similar announcement by New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who will give birth to a child this summer and take six weeks of maternity leave before returning to run the country.
In interviews, both women have insisted they are not exceptional. As Ms Ardern put it: “I am not the first woman to multitask.”
Their comments and stories are striking a chord. Having blitzed through the wedding years, my millennial friends and peers are now starting to navigate the ins and outs of co-parenting and family leave. For many of them, as for our parents before us, it is not necessarily turning out how they expected.