Mothers with mandate: would Klöckner allow a speech to breastfeed?

Today a column from the category “Did you actually know?”. Before the summer break, I followed a Bundestag debate. MP Hanna Steinmüller from the Greens asked a speaker an approved intermediate question – with her baby strapped in front of her stomach. It was probably the first interim question in the German Bundestag – albeit very quiet – participation of a baby. The child, half a year old, slept.

That was also a remarkable event because Bundestag president Julia Klöckner had not announced two hours in advance: “We are not in kindergarten here; I want to say that very clearly now.” This explanation was meant in a figurative sense and went to the address of the left faction, which had behaved naughty.

But because Ms. Klöckner has so far broadcast little natural authority in office, she often makes very strict announcements and a dark face, which is why it seems advisable to take her to the word. When Mrs. Steinmüller, Vice President Bodo Ramelow already headed the meeting.

This in turn was also a remarkable coincidence, because the Thuringian state parliament, many years of work in Ramelow, in 2018 did not go into the headlines in 2018 not because of strange political constellations, but because one of the MPs with a child had been banned to access the plenary hall. The State Constitutional Court was switched on and suggested that children go into the hall for up to one year as long as they do not disturb the session. Sometimes life is so easy.

But now: Did you actually know who made a name for himself for MPs with a child? That was a woman who sits in the government today and often looks a bit dark: Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche was once one of the mothers who were not intended in the Bundestag. For example, the parliamentary daycare center only recorded young people, but not children from MPs. This changed the Bundestag in 2000 to the initiative of some mothers, led by Reiche. But the thing remained difficult.

In the Reichstag building there was a still room in a storage room, about which the rich said: “You can find more hygienic conditions at every rest area.” She preferred to breastfeed her daughter on the toilet.

The first baby in the plenary was the child of FDP MP Judith Skdoschoschney. When she brought her daughter to the meeting in 2009, she rejected a Saaldiener. FDP boss Guido Westerwelle intervened, mother and child were embedded. To rescue the Saaldien, it should be said correctly, because the plenary area may only enter the elected MPs. The girl did not enter the hall, of course, she was worn.

The Bundestag only introduced maternity leave of several weeks ago. Until then, mothers with a mandate that gave birth to children had to pay for failed meetings around the birth.

Other countries are – not surprisingly – continue to reconcile family and work in politics. In Australia and Spain and in the European Parliament, babies were already breastfed in the plenary hall, even in Iceland, while the mother gave a speech. I guess Julia Klöckner allowed that too. Or?