KEY POINTS:
Five-year-old Rich is grumpy. She wants her mum to read Captain Underpants and watch the Disney Channel. But newly resigned National MP Katherine Rich is distracted, explaining to the Herald on Sunday why she won't be contesting her seat in this year's election.
It was the long, long
hours away from her two young children that made her decision, in the end, an easy one.
Sure, she says, she kept in touch by phone, and, yes, husband Andy, who runs a scaffolding business, has been an amazing support and house dad to Georgia and 6-year-old Jonathan. But, she says, there is nothing like being there.
Calling them each day from her Wellington apartment is not the same as "sharing a meal with your family at the end of the day. I haven't regretted my decision for leaving for a second".
Rich told John Key on Waitangi Day that her nine-year career in politics was coming to an end. Her resignation came as a shock to onlookers who assumed she had a post as a cabinet minister within her grasp.
Her leader was disappointed but understood, she says.
"When I first formed my political dreams (at 31), I didn't have children."
Now the two Rich children are looking forward to having their mum around a lot more.
However, son Jonathan looked a little anxious when she told him she was quitting her job.
"I said to him, "What's the matter?' And he just said, 'Have you told Helen Clark?' I said, 'No, we're on a different team.' Anyway, I told Helen Clark this and she cracked up laughing."
But seductive as a cabinet posting might have been, Rich is under no allusions that there would have been a high price to pay.
... "I would have liked to have had the honour and privilege to sit around a Cabinet table chaired by John Key, but, as time wore on, it became clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to do that without it severely impacting upon the lives of my kids."
Anyone who understands politics and the work load of a politician will realise what's behind the decision.
"I've had lots of correspondence from people who have had a ministerial role and each one of them has said I've made the right call given my family circumstances.
"One in particular, an ex-cabinet minister, said he didn't regret for a second not working hard enough, but he regretted every day not spending more time with his kids. You see politics is not a normal job."
Rich says she always tried to block out parts of her diary, switch off her phone for periods, volunteer at school and make sure she was there for events such as birthdays.
"But it just became clear to me that any post-government role meant you lose the ability to block out areas like that. You don't have the ability to say 'no' to things and neither should you because it is a public service in the purest sense and you have to be there all the time."
Rich's plan, once she leaves politics later this year, is to strike more of a balance. Yes, she'll have a career, but she won't be working long hours.
There'll be time to catch Desperate Housewives, go to the Big Day Out and the odd 80s punk band. And there'll be time for low-key weekends, watching TV in bed with the kids, taking Jonathan to Tee-ball and Georgia to ballet. Lunch at a cafe and visiting her nana's retirement village. Normal stuff.
Will she miss politics?
She'll miss her mates, she says. And she'll miss those cases she took on which were in the "too hard basket". Like the woman who was handcuffed during childbirth.
"She was an inmate and few people had any compassion for her. She held up one of our local pharmacies, but no one deserves to be handcuffed during childbirth because where are you going to go?"
And what about future challenges? Would she have a crack at Dancing with the Stars if asked?
"Um, not in your lifetime or my lifetime. I don't do sequins. I'm from Dunedin... We don't dance. I only move my head. It's the Dunedin swivel."
