When Sadiq Khan was doing the rounds in his mayoral campaign he would, every so often, include some reference to his two daughters. He didn’t make a big deal of it; this wasn’t creepy or boastful in a Donald Trump way but the message was clear: he was an ordinary bloke and having a couple of daughters meant he had skin in the game when it came to issues such as law and order and schools. It also helped make the point that he was a Muslim feminist. He showed that it was quite possible for parenthood to be an asset in politics without its converse, an inability to have children, being a disadvantage. It’s one of those things that’s a plus but not a minus the other way.
But you’d never think it to judge from the tsunami of sheer hatred that engulfed poor Andrea Leadsom after her imprudent comment to the Times about how having children gives you a very real stake in society, which was, I am certain, the real reason she withdrew prematurely from the race.
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