WILLOW-JEAN'S NEXT STEP 'I'M BEING THE BEST MP & MUMICAN BE'

Well-known for breastfeeding in Parliament and battling period poverty, the Northland MP is a prime example of balancing politics and motherhood

Most people will be aware of Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime because she breastfed her three-month-old baby Heeni in Parliament.

She was one of the first MPs to benefit from the changes in 2017 allowing parents to bring their babies into the debating chamber. Willow-Jean had only been an MP for two months and suddenly she was in the media spotlight.

At the time, she said, "Parliament is trying to accommodate me and other parents so we don't have to choose between careers and families. I see it as role-modelling and setting an example.

Six years later, Willow-Jean, 40, continues to set an example for how a woman MP can do her stressful job and raise a family.

"I wouldn't be able to be a mum and have an impact without the support of my whānau," she says. "Obviously there's my amazing husband Dion, who works full-time as a teacher but is also the main caregiver when I'm away in Wellington."

As if on cue, there's a knock on the door behind her. "Won't be a minute," she laughs.

She opens the door and has a quick conversation with now almost six-year-old Heeni about how Māmā is doing an interview and she needs to stay with Pāpā.

It's a conversation working mothers all have had at some point as they do a day's work.

But this working mum is also lucky to have her own mother, Adrieanne Downs, living three paddocks away. "We created a pā harakeke, which is intergenerational living," she says. "My mum has her house and my sister Season-Mary, who has a 16-month-old baby, has her space there as well."

Willow-Jean says both her name and her sister's were created by her parents in a rather democratic process.

"My dad loved the name Willow and my mum named me after Norma Jean - Marilyn Monroe," she chuckles.

"Mum has joked that Season was conceived in the kiwifruit season, so that has something to do with her name, but I think it was actually a reference to the four seasons."