The Buzz Cut: New Zealand’s Pregnant PM Is Our New Girl Crush
In The Buzz Cut, we give our take on all of the intellectual and Internet-famous, celebrity and bizarre, buzzy and overlooked family and parenting news we gossiped about all week. Girl crush. Jacinda Ardern, New Ze...
In The Buzz Cut, we give our take on all of the intellectual and Internet-famous, celebrity and bizarre, buzzy and overlooked family and parenting news we gossiped about all week.
Girl crush. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, just announced she’s expecting her first child. When asked whether it was acceptable for a sitting prime minister to take maternity leave, Ardern replied, “It is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace.” And later, at a press conference: “I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby. We are going to make this work, and New Zealand is going to help us raise our first child.” Slay.
Welcome to the world. Congrats to Kim Kardashian-West, who just had her third child, via surrogate! (We hope she’s read this amazing take-down of the baby advice-book industry.) The Internet is now open for bets as to the little girl’s name. (Some were guessing ‘Louis Vuitton West’ based on a cryptic Instagram post, but Kim has denied it.) We would like to submit for the Kardashian-West Klan’s Konsideration: Knight West. It continues in the grand tradition of her mother’s house, while satisfying the grandeur delusion of her father’s.
What’s in a name? Speaking of baby names, the popularity of ‘Donald’ (as in, Trump) has plummeted, whereas all of the baby name experts (which is… a thing?) are predicting a big surge of tiny Meghan Markle-namesakes in 2018. What are the chances of Knight Meghan West? Probably none, right? (Three names is too off-brand.)
Mama drama. Singer Selena Gomez’s mother is apparently not happy about her daughter getting back together with ex Justin Bieber. And now Bieber’s mother has waded into the fray in defense of her son. We’re just going to leave this New York Times piece here: “Resolutions for Parents of Grown Children.” Seems like it might be useful…
Still tastes sweet. Speaking of moms-and-daughters, this duo keeps in touch by making and sharing photos of failed cakes. So refreshing in an era of picture-perfect bake feeds.
In memory of. Sadly and infuriatingly, a mother-and-daughter duo were shot dead in Quetta, Pakistan while immunizing children against polio. The news is doubly disheartening in light of National Geographic‘s recent investigation into how badly vaccines are needed in South Asia, and how many children they could save.
Francis in the sky with diamonds. Pope Francis, mid-flight between the Chilean cities of Santiago and Iquique, conducted an impromptu marriage for two members of the LATAM Airlines crew. Everything about this story is lovely.
Speaking of sweet stories. Your moment of happiness for the week: Two long-lost siblings, separated after the deaths of their parents a decade ago, have been reunited. Which makes us side-eye Maneka Gandhi’s announcement that children over 5 can be split from their siblings for adoption. One one hand, it’s tough to place all children together, so in theory this means more children get homes; on the other hand, splitting up children can be traumatizing, and rarely lead to stories as touching as the one above.
Bollywood home life. We’re satisfying our inner voyeurs this weekend by watching some of these films, which were filmed in the homes of their actors.
#MeToo update. Speaking of Bollywood, the industry has spoken volumes in its silence around sexual harassment and predation, even as its Western counterpart comes apart at the seams. Kalki Koechlin spoke this week on why that is: “Every woman has been harassed in one way or the other. We are just so numb to it. … People don’t listen to you if you are a nobody, but if you are a celebrity it only becomes a shocking headline.” That is both awful and unsurprising. Meanwhile, in New York: In case you missed it here on The Swaddle, Indian-American comedian Aziz Ansari is being accused of sexual assault, but the debate rages as to whether it was actually just a bad date.