"You Just Get On With It"

Advice from the Queen

I’m only partway through Jacinda Ardern’s memoir, A Different Kind of Power, but a couple passages seem relevant today, No Kings Day.

Ardern, the measured, empathetic former PM of New Zealand during some of the country’s most difficult days in recent history, writes about a state visit to London. She had a private moment with Queen Elizabeth, and Ardern took the opportunity to ask the (very measured) Queen if she had any advice about motherhood.

“You just get on with it,” replied Elizabeth.

That’s not terribly surprising coming from the stoic—if not distant—mother figure and monarch.

But it seemed to help Ardern as she navigated those early days of balancing motherhood with her national role, often made famous in videos and even memes of her holding her baby on the floor of the United Nations.

Another moment came just after the shootings at two mosques that killed 51 people in Christchurch on March 15th, 2019. President Trump, then in his first term, called Ardern and asked what the United States could do.

There was a brief pause, and Ardern gathered her strength and said, “You can show sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.”

My jaw dropped as I read and re-read this passage.

But it’s simple. Ardern was simply speaking truth to power. And she did so directly and without mincing words. She called Trump out, and asked for what she needed.

Ever the politician, Ardern ends her paragraph ends there. I’d love to know what he said (or didn’t say) to that, or what she thought about the exchange, or what she thinks now that Trump’s power is even more unchecked than it was then — as he essentially banishes refugees, immigrants, and others who don’t fit his bill.

But she let her line hang in the air.

Implicitly, she’s saying that you simply do what you need to do, and you just get on with it.

May we do the same.