'Apron Mom' urged to cut strings to outdated image

Unwelcome cliches

Beijing mother Shao Chenting's epiphany on changing gender roles came one evening when she was reading a bedtime story to her two daughters, ages 8 and 5.

Dressed in her pink pajamas and nestled between the two girls she opened the pages of No, David!. The main character, a 5-year-old boy, misbehaves all the time and on every page it is the mother who admonishes him. The story starts with the line: "David's mother always said — No, David!"

Shao's question was: "Where's the dad in this family?"

This moment forced her to look at the broader world of children's media her daughters were consuming.

Her older girl's favorite picture book series from Japan, Butt Detective, talks about the protagonist's father, who is also a detective and often joins him in adventures. The mother is barely mentioned.

In many other children's books Shao has bought, mothers were invariably shown wearing an apron, doing chores, and looking after the children when the fathers are absent.

She also realized the same was true for cartoons. In the Japanese anime Crayon Shin-chan, the mother is portrayed as someone who "doesn't go to work and handles all kinds of housework every day".

"Moms wearing aprons seemed normal to me," said Shao. "Maybe deep down, I still think women should take on more housework."

Even though domestic chores and parenting are supposedly more equal today, Shao said, "if it's the dad wearing an apron, I might wonder if it's a single-parent household."

She had primarily purchased foreign picture books for her children, and largely relied on recommendations from parenting groups without closely scrutinizing the content.