AS Brenda from Bristol might put it, “You’re joking! Not another one!”
Yes, hot on the heels of Monday’s shock news that a woman had given birth to a baby came the revelation yesterday that another one is pregnant.
There is either something in the air or women are merely doing what they have always done since Eve signed up for the first antenatal class and Adam bought “Childbirth for Dummies” on prehistoric Amazon.
But these two women, one joining the Eve’s pudding club, one leaving, are not just any women. They are the Duchess of Cambridge and the Empress of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson. While Kate Middleton, being a wife and mother of two already, is hardly blazing a trail, Ms Davidson has lit a beacon high on the hill for women political leaders, and lesbian couples, everywhere.
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson announces she is pregnant
Then again, Ms Davidson is not the first woman leader to be pregnant. Benazir Bhutto was pregnant while Prime Minister of Pakistan, and New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern announced in January that she was expecting.
Nor are Ms Davidson and her partner Jen the first high-profile, same-sex couple to have a baby.
That will not stop the fuss, though, as speculation begins on whether the baby news will help or hinder Ms Davidson’s chances of becoming Prime Minister.
On the upside, she will be spared the very public torture inflicted on a child-free Theresa May during the Conservative leadership contest when her opponent, Andrea Leadsom, said being a mother made her the better choice.
On the downside, the Scots Tory leader will be asked from now until her child leaves for university how she copes with juggling parenthood and politics, a question never asked of a man.
If that is not enough gum-banging to be going on with, there will be much chin stroking and self-congratulation among the commentariat about what this pregnancy says about modern Britain and how attitudes have changed.
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson announces she is pregnant
Here, though, is a radical thought. What if the surprise and delight expressed yesterday in Holyrood, Westminster, and many other places was just a normal, everyday reaction to the news that another little human was on the way to two parents who will love him or her to bits?
As Ms Davidson said: “I’m simply doing what thousands of working women do every year: having a child, taking some time off, and then returning to work soon after”.
Nothing to make a fuss about, then, but at the same time everything to cheer.
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