The idiom “precious cargo” refers to valuable items carried in various containers, often referring to children. It can also be used for anything of value in transit. The term is used in maternity stores and shops selling baby items. “Baon board” signs on cars indicate the presence of children and a request for drivers to be careful.
Valuable means expensive, important, valuable or irreplaceable, and cargo is the items carried in various containers such as ships, trucks and cars. Together the idiom precious cargo has come to mean very dear things that are carried or moved, and usually refers specifically to children. The “baon board” sign that appears on many cars is another way of saying that the car is carrying valuable cargo.
The term has been used for many other things that have nothing to do with babies or children. There is also a 2002 Star Trek: Enterprise episode called Precious Cargo which has to do with the Enterprise carrying a rude but beautiful woman, played by the famous actress and TV host, Padma Lakshmi. There are a number of references to the idiom that precede it, and cargo that is precious can be defined in many ways. Anything of value being transported or in transit could fit this description.
Sometimes, when women are pregnant, they also refer to themselves as carrying a precious load. Being pregnant means acting as a container and carrier for a fetus until birth. It’s more used in a joking way in that sense, and some women might be sensitive to any comparisons to large transportation mechanisms like a cargo ship. However, the term, in this sense, is used quite frequently, as evidenced by the number of maternity stores that carry the Precious Cargo name and are dedicated to selling clothing.
There are also many shops that sell baby and children’s items with this name. They may specialize in the types of things that carry and hold babies, such as strollers, car seats, and the like. It appears that precious cargo has a broad enough definition that it can be adapted for a number of uses, most of which have to do with children.
People may wonder why parents would want to openly report that they have children present in their car with “baon board” signs. Some parents may find these signals important and hope that other drivers, seeing them, will drive more carefully around them. It’s a reminder to other drivers that there’s a child in a car nearby, and a request for drivers to stay safe around precious cargo on the road. Whether such a signal works is hard to say, since car deaths are still a leading cause of infant and toddler mortality.
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