Routledge International Handbook of Sport Psychology (Routledge International Handbooks) by

Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317692317
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Research on recreational athlete mothers

Although the present chapter is focused on elite athlete mothers, a small body of literature has explored athlete mothers in recreational sport. Given that the literature shows that women’s physical activity participation decreases once becoming mothers, exploring recreational athlete mothers’ sport participation is a fruitful avenue of research for sport psychology. The studies that follow have all qualitatively explored athlete mothers’ identities within the context of cultural norms concerning motherhood and sport.

Two of these studies come from the leisure and cultural studies literature on snowboarding mothers (Spowart, Hughson & Shaw, 2008) and mothers who surf (Spowart, Burrows & Shaw, 2010). Spowart et al.’s work is unique as the discourses of both snowboarding and surfing tend to represent freedom, hedonism and irresponsibility in contrast to meanings associated with traditional gender ideologies and good mother ideals. Using a feminist post-structuralist approach to investigate taken-for-granted truths and power issues surrounding motherhood and sport, Spowart et al., (2008) interviewed five New Zealand snowboarding mothers, revealing that through snowboarding, these women resisted good mother ideals that constrain women’s identities and behavioral practices as mothers. Such resistance was possible through literally “exercising” agency via snowboarding, along with support from partners and family, which resulted in the women’s happiness in both family and sporting spheres. Similarly Spowart et al. (2010) also interviewed six surfing mothers in New Zealand to explore the discourses drawn upon to construct their athlete mother identities and the implications. As with the snowboarding study, it was found that surfing served as a way to gain agency and both resist and reconfigure traditional expectations and status quo concerning what is “acceptable” concerning motherhood and sport. The women in both of these studies were also shown to be fully aware of good mother ideals and wanted to live up to them, yet snowboarding and surfing allowed them some freedom to express themselves as individuals, demonstrate athletic freedom, and escape the pressures of traditional motherhood.

The final two studies on recreational athlete mothers are from sport psychology, with both drawing upon more traditional forms of theorizing against the cultural backdrop of an ethic of care and good mother ideals within their analyses. The first of these studies explored recreational runners and the implications for running mothers’ self-esteem and exerciser schemata (i.e., whether or not one views one’s self as an exerciser and internalizes this view) (Bond & Batey, 2005). Sixteen mother runners who had participated in races of at least 10 kilometer distances were interviewed in depth. Findings showed that while these women’s self-related views (e.g., self-esteem, physical self, exercise self-schemata) were strengthened through running, as noted with some of the research findings on elite athletes, the majority of these women had trouble negotiating time for their running due to family responsibilities and/or prevailing guilt linked to an ethic of care. Other mother runners were able to position their running and recreational race training as a “time out” from motherhood and family responsibilities, allowing space for self-exploration and the expansion of self-identity into the athletic realm.

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