Former New Zealand prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern has revealed that Queen Elizabeth II advised her to “just get on with it” when she asked for guidance on raising a child in the public eye.
Dame Jacinda, 44, shares the anecdote in her newly released memoir, recalling a private meeting with the late monarch at the 2018 Commonwealth summit while she was seven months pregnant.
At the time, she was only the second sitting head of government in history to give birth while in office — the first being the late Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.
On the summit’s opening day, Dame Jacinda was one of four leaders granted a private 20-minute audience with the Queen.
She writes in her memoir A Different Kind of Power: “She had, of course, raised children in the public eye, so in our private meeting I asked if she had any advice.
“You just get on with it,” she said. “She sounded so matter of fact, just as my grandma Margaret might have.”
She was pictured at the international event wearing a mustard-coloured gown specially designed by New Zealand designer Juliette Hogan to fit over her growing baby bump.
In homage to the traditional culture of New Zealand, she also sported a Māori cloak of flax topped with feathers.
During her meeting with the late Monarch, Dame Jacinda presented her with a framed picture taken of the Queen during her royal visit to New Zealand in 1953, showing her with “her head back in a full relaxed laugh”.
The former prime minister gave birth to her daughter Neve Te Aroha on June 21, 2018, before returning to work in early Autumn.
At the time of the Queens death in 2022, Dame Jacinda paid heartfelt tribute to the late head of state, emphasising the courage she gave her to be a woman in a position of power.
Speaking to ITV news, she said: “I feel very lucky in the sense that I have grown up never knowing anything other than a Queen - and also in New Zealand's case, having not one but two female prime ministers that have gone before me.
"There was nothing ever that suggested to me that I couldn't be a woman in leadership because I was a woman.
"And I do put that down collectively to the fact that there were all those role models around me, some at a further distance than others, but nonetheless role models."
She added that she could not imagine the massive sacrifices Queen Elizabeth II must have made when balancing being a mother and a monarch frequently travelling all over the world for her work.
Dame Jacinda attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey on September 19, 2022, with her husband by her side.
She stated that she was not surprised by the huge public response to the Queens death.
Talking to Laura Kuenssberg she said: “I've seen what London looks like day-to-day, and what it feels like day-to-day, the hustle and bustle.
“And to see it just stand still, but to do so so poetically, is a very moving thing to witness. the Queen was here for her people, and now her people are there for her.”
