Genter is pregnant with her first child, due in early August. She plans to take three months out of Parliament, and her economist partner Peter Nunns will care for the baby for nine months after that.
She is pregnant at the same time as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and ministers in the Canadian, Australian and United States governments.
"What we would like to do is make it normal, because politics should represent everyone."
She's felt nauseous at times during discussions at the Beehive, but said her situation was easier than being a sole wage earner with children in Auckland, facing high rental and transport costs.
Closing the gender pay gap will start with the core public service, she said, and move to the public sector. At the moment women earn 9.4 per cent less than men in equivalent jobs.
For Māori women it's 22 per cent less, and for Pasifika women 26 per cent less. People in female-dominated industries are paid less overall, she said, because of discrimination.
She wants more women in leadership, and said that would help end the kind of sexual harassment recently exposed in the legal profession.
In New Zealand women have made up 50 per cent of law graduates for the past 20 years, she said. But they make up only 20 per cent of senior law partners, and 30 per cent of judges.
Men have 81 per cent of the seats on the boards of private businesses, and 55 per cent of the seats on public boards - and they keep those positions a long time.
"There's no way women and minorities can go for those jobs if vacancies don't exist."
She suggests men seek out and mentor replacements, then step away.
There is only one female CEO among New Zealand's top companies, and women make up just 40 per cent of Parliament.
"We have made some progress but there's still so much progress to make and it feels like 2018 is the time."
