There is, however, one very large group whose portrayal continues to follow the same stereotypical lines as always: fathers. The evolution of children’s literature didn’t end with “Goodnight Moon” and “Charlotte’s Web.” My local public library, for example, previews 203 new children’s picture books (for the under-5 set) each month. Many of these books make a very conscious effort to take women characters out of the kitchen and the nursery and give them professional jobs and responsibilities.
Despite this shift, mothers are by and large still shown as the primary caregivers and, more important, as the primary nurturers of their children. Men in these books-if they’re shown at all-still come home late after work and participate in the child rearing by bouncing baby around for five minutes before putting the child to bed.
In one of my 2-year-old daughter’s favorite books, “Mother Goose and the Sly Fox,” “retold” by Chris Conover, a single mother (Mother Goose) of seven tiny goslings is pitted against (and naturally outwits) the sly Fox. Fox, a neglectful and presumably unemployed single father, lives with his filthy, hungry pups in a grimy hovel littered with the bones of their previous meals. Mother Goose, a successful entrepreneur with a thriving lace business, still finds time to serve her goslings homemade soup in pretty porcelain cups. The story is funny and the illustrations marvelous, but the unwritten message is that women take better care of their kids and men have nothing else to do but hunt down and kill innocent, law-abiding geese.
The majority of other children’s classics perpetuate the same negative stereotypes of fathers. Once in a great while, people complain about “Babar’s” colonialist slant (little jungle-dweller finds happiness in the big city and brings civilization-and fine clothes-to his backward village). But I’ve never heard anyone ask why, after his mother is killed by the evil hunter, Babar is automatically an “orphan.” Why can he find comfort only in the arms of another female? Why do Arthur’s and Celeste’s mothers come alone to the city to fetch their children? Don’t the fathers care? Do they even have fathers? I need my answers ready for when my daughter asks.
I recently spent an entire day on the children’s floor of the local library trying to find out whether these same negative stereotypes are found in the more recent classics-to-be. The librarian gave me a list of the 20 most popular contemporary picture books and I read every one of them. Of the 20, seven don’t mention a parent at all. Of the remaining 13, four portray fathers as much less loving and caring than mothers. In “Little Gorilla,” we are told that the little gorilla’s “mother loves him” and we see Mama gorilla giving her little one a warm hug. On the next page we’re also told that his “father loves him,” but in the illustration, father and son aren’t even touching. Six of the remaining nine books mention or portray mothers as the only parent, and only three of the 20 have what could be considered “equal” treatment of mothers and fathers.
The same negative stereotypes also show up in literature aimed at the parents of small children. In “What to Expect the First Year,” the authors answer almost every question the parents of a newborn or toddler could have in the first year of their child’s life. They are meticulous in alternating between references to boys and girls. At the same time, they refer almost exclusively to “mother” or “mommy.” Men, and their feelings about parenting, are relegated to a nine-page chapter just before the recipe section.
Unfortunately, it’s still true that, in our society, women do the bulk of the child care, and that thanks to men abandoning their families, there are too many single mothers out there. Nevertheless, to say that portraying fathers as unnurturing or completely absent is simply “a reflection of reality” is unacceptable. If children’s literature only reflected reality, it would be like prime-time TV and we’d have books filled with child abusers, wife beaters and criminals.
Young children believe what they hear–especially from a parent figure. And since, for the first few years of a child’s life, adults select the reading material, children’s literature should be held to a high standard. Ignoring men who share equally in raising their children, and continuing to show nothing but part-time or no-time fathers is only going to create yet another generation of men who have been told since boyhood–albeit subtly–that mothers are the truer parents and that fathers play, at best, a secondary role in the home. We’ve taken major steps to root out discrimination in what our children read. Let’s finish the job.
