Jacinda Arden, a bit of honesty is a sweet thing

Thank you Jacinda Ardern for your near-six years as New Zealand prime minister and your honesty for admitting that it was a tough job and you have had enough. Better to be honest than struggle on trying to do a job while suffering more and more mental stress. But it took courage and not all political leaders are blessed with either honesty or courage. As a woman in her 30s when she was elected, as well as being the mother of a very young child, she must have faced often intolerable life/work choices, having to make decisions for the good of the country and its people while placing her family second. Not everyone I'm sure will look at her decision kindly, the more chauvinistic no doubt nodding their heads and thinking it was too tough for her because she is a woman. Well yah boo to them. I think this is about human, not male/female issues. This is purely about her coming to the realisation that she had reached a point where she needed to hand over to someone else. As she said, she had nothing left in the tank. The only difference between a man and a woman in this situation is probably that a man would not be able to concede that he couldn't go on while a woman, at least in the case of Jacinda Arden, knows that there are more important things in life. I can't envisage a man admitting that after nearly six years in the leadership chair they can't carry on any longer, but that doesn't make them better human beings. Often they stay on out of pride or obstinacy or because they refuse to accept reality. The late Pope Benedict resigned but then he was very old and knew it was time to hand over to a younger man. Boris Johnson resigned but he was forced into it and I'm sure he is plotting to make a comeback. I can think of no other political leader, man or woman, who has reached the end of their tether and admits to the world that they want, voluntarily, to step down. Good luck to her, I say, and who knows, perhaps at some pont in the future she might be back.