mother or politician? How three women master parliament and family

Josephine Ortleb holds her son in her arms and kisses his forehead. Then another. In Ortleb’s office there is a changing table, bottles and vegetable sticks on the filing cabinet, and a bed in one corner.

Her son is 15 months old, his caregiver puts him in the stroller, then he goes upstairs to one of the playrooms in the German Bundestag.

Ortleb has been a mother for 15 months. It was a turbulent time. Ortleb is one of the politicians who doesn’t hide the fact that she has a child. She has been a member of the Bundestag for Saarbrücken since 2017 and has been one of the parliamentary directors of the SPD parliamentary group since 2020.

She takes her son to Parliament, posts photos of herself with him in the baby carrier. You don’t see his face, you don’t read his name. But Ortleb’s son is there.