The Good Mother, and Modern Politician

BERLIN — What irritates conservatives in her conservative party about Ursula von der Leyen is that she possesses what in modern Europe pass for impeccable conservative credentials: She is married, says grace every evening and has seven children.

So when this popular minister subsidizes fathers to care for children, or taps her bottom when asked by the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung what body part she looks at first in a man, it is that much harder to attack her.

Peter Ramsauer from the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democrats tried, grumbling that men did not need “a diaper-changing internship.” Maria Eichhorn, a longtime Bavarian member of Parliament, warned that the minister threatened the institution of marriage.

But Ms. von der Leyen, 51, just breezed past the criticism and kept talking about her family: About how her Ph.D. in medicine and her career did not stop her from giving birth. About how her husband, a professor of medicine, worked part time for years to be with the children, now aged 10 to 22.

In a country where statistically women have 1.38 children and only 6 percent of mothers return to full-time work after their second child, Ms. von der Leyen — first family minister and now in charge of labor — beggars belief.