Recently several fans have asked why Mama is wearing a vest in recent Berenstain Bears’ stories. Mike Berenstain provided the following answer:
My mother, Jan, began putting the vest on Mama in about year 2000. She said she was fed up with painting all those white polka dots on Mama’s dress in every book and wanted to reduce the number by covering up some of them with the vest. We’ve kept the vest ever since as a standard part of Mama’s costume.
And now you know why Mama wears a vest!
The Berenstain Bears Blog 
love sharing these tidbits with my daughter as we read this series together. 🙂
Thanks, Melanie ❤
I have always wondered this since I started reading these for my daughter since there was no vest to my memory so it’s always odd to me to see it now.
🙂
I love the reason! Exceptionally practical! Thank you for sharing 🙂
You are welcome, Melissa! 😀
One of my favourite series of books. And my favourite TV show. Who choose the names for the family?
First – huge apologies for taking so long to answer your question! It just showed up in our comments this morning – not sure how that happened!
It was Dr. Seuss who name chose the names for the books and with his help the names for the family. You can read the whole story in our first post: https://berenstainbears.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/how-it-all-started/ and our last post “We get questions” addresses it also. Thanks for being such a fan!
I didn’t even know, now I do. :–)