Mostly an anime trope: One good way to show how sweet and caring a mother is, is to depict her with her hair tied in a loose plait and put on her shoulder. For some reason, this detail immediately tells the audience, "Hey, this mom has to be nice and gentle!"
This can be explained by the fact that mothers have less time to spend on their appearance than other women. Since the makers of a show probably don't want to make their characters ugly, one way to demonstrate motherhood is to give her a low-maintenance hairstyle.
Housewives (most likely to be the mothers of young children) also need a hairstyle that's going to stay out of the way when they're doing housework and cleaning up. This may or may not come with an apron to further emphasize their motherhood. Since the hair is only tied up loosely, it creates a soft, relaxed, gentle appearance.
A
Sub Trope of
Long Hair Is Feminine,
Expository Hairstyle.
Compare
Ojou Ringlets,
Regal Ringlets and
Girlish Pigtails.
Contrast
Braids of Action,
Tomboyish Ponytail,
Tomboyish Sidetails, and
Prim and Proper Bun.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Video Game
Visual Novel
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni: Akasaka's wife, Yukie, has one of these, and quite an impressive one.
- In Matsuribayashi, Takano's mother has a smaller variant.
- Natsumi's mother in the manga-only Onisarashi arc is a textbook example... until she looses her plait as she starts to go insane. Or rather, as we see her go insane through Natsumi's eyes.
- Keiichi's mom also sports one in the live action adaptation.
- Natsuhi Ushiromiya has a sort of high ponytail variant in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni. She is more stern than most examples but she does treasure her family.
- In Kanon, Akiko Minase also wears her hair in such a fashion.
Webcomic
- Nei'kalsa of Drowtales is shown with this
, which serves to emphasize her role as a mother figure to Sarnel (who's actually her brother). Especially since Word Of God clarifies that she's pregnant in that scene so will soon be a mother for real.
