Sierra Leone’s education minister attends Zoom call with baby; activists, netizens laud him for doing a woman’s job!

Call it gender stereotyping or casual sexism, but women are often expected to take care of their children. Be it an Australian MP breastfeeding her baby while passing a motion at the senate, New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern taking her baby to the UN General Assembly or women in general taking their newborn to the office, rarely do we see people raising eyebrows when a woman displays her ‘motherly’ qualities.

However, a recent tweet by the education minister of Sierra Leone has sparked an important conversation about gender roles and how men are rarely talked about in the context of childcare.

David Moinina Sengeh, the education minister, happened to post a tweet with a picture which showed his child tied to his back as he attended a Zoom conference. Sengeh was in the kitchen at home, feeding his baby Peynina, when he joined a Zoom meeting. On seeing that the infant was feeling sleepy, he tied her to his back and continued with the call.


“How did u join your last zoom call? As Minister, I started my last call feeding my 10 month old, then carried her on my back for the rest of the call. The presentations helped her sleep,” wrote Sengeh in a tweet.

Sengeh’s tweet went viral on Twitter as several activists and netizens lauded him for setting a positive example for the men in Sierra Leone. Several fathers responded to Sengeh’s tweet showing their own childcare efforts.

In an interview with the BBC, Sengeh acknowledged that the tweet he posted wouldn’t have gone viral had he shared a photograph of his wife holding the kid - neither would it be met with raised eyebrows.

“Many women do this daily, but it is so normalised that we don't talk about it at all. If it was my wife who did it then this would not have been a viral tweet,” Sengeh told the BBC.

This image "forces men to think about themselves, it shows them that it is possible to take care of their child", Dr Sengeh said.

"I have friends who have never ever changed a diaper and they have several children, and they don't even understand how that is possible," he added.

Sengeh is also urging his fellow ministers, especially the male counterparts to share their family lives and believes that it will help them when it comes to policy making.

Needless to say, Sengeh has been a role model for men around the world by encouraging them to participate in childcare just as much as their significant others.