Sociology of Sport VI Essay
Leisure Sciences, 34: 377–394, 2012 Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0149-0400 print / 1521-0588 online DOI: 10.1080/01490400.2012.714699
Organized Youth Sport and Parenting in Public and Private Spaces
DAWN E. TRUSSELL
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies Brock University St. Catharines, ON, Canada
SUSAN M. SHAW
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada
This article examines the connection of organized youth sport to cultural beliefs, values and practices of contemporary parenting ideologies, specifically the idealization of intensive mothering and involved fathering. It explores how parenting ideologies are constructed by the discourses expressed by individuals in their everyday lives through their children’s sport participation. Moreover, the analysis of the parental discourse illustrates how parenting goes beyond the home environment and becomes a public act that is observed by other parents, with these observations creating the basis of what is deemed to be a good parent. Emphasis is also placed on the gendered dimensions of meeting the expectations for being a good parent.
Keywords children, father, gender, leisure, mother, parenthood, sport, youth
Introduction
The emergence of youth sport organizations during the past half century in North America resulted in new forms of socialization of children and the nature of their leisure. Further, with each new generation, the popularity of organized youth sport has continued to grow (Adler & Adler, 1994; Coakley, 2009), becoming a significant aspect of children’s and parents’ lives. This may reflect important generational ideological shifts and changing cultural and structural factors. Coakley theorizes that there are now important cultural connections between organized youth sport and ideologies of parenting and gender.
Grounded in a middle-upper class value system of postindustrial societies, a culture of involved fathering and intensive mothering parenting ideologies have emerged and may have important connections to organized youth sport. That is, a parent’s moral worth may be evaluated by their children’s successful participation in sport. Although this phenomenon has been relatively unexamined, the edited book Fathering through Sport and Leisure by
Received 29 November 2011; accepted 18 April 2012. The first author gratefully acknowledges the support of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Doctoral Fellowship and Sport Canada (the Sport Participation Research Initiative) for this project. Address correspondence to Dawn E. Trussell, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Avenue, St. Catharines, ON,
L2S 3A1, Canada. E-mail: dtrussell@brocku.ca
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Tess Kay (2009) provides some key insights related to why families are so willing to invest the vast amount of emotional, physical and financial support toward their children’s participation.
Moreover, changing parenthood ideologies may have important implications for gender research. On the surface the cultural expectations, beliefs and practices of involved fathering and intensive mothering ideologies seem to evoke notions of gender equity; however, these practices may also hide underlying inequality (Shaw, 2008). Organized youth sport may provide a setting where fathers can be actively involved in their children’s lives, while feeling comfortable, knowledgeable and able to share their sport expertise with their children (Marsiglio, Roy, & Fox, 2005). For fathers, children’s organized sport programs may also provide a context in which they can successfully avoid the dilemma of feminizing the fathering role.
The important connection of children’s sport participation to intensive mothering prac- tices in Westernized societies has also created an environment where a woman’s moral worth as a parent may be evaluated by her ability to foster her children’s sport participation (Coakley, 2009; Hays, 1996). That is, motherhood ideologies provide not only an idealiza- tion of childrearing practices but also a criterion by which mothers may be judged (Leisse de Lustgarten, 2006). To date, however, the broader social sciences literature as well as leisure studies literature on parenthood ideologies has, for the most part, examined the concepts of intensive mothering and involved fathering in isolation from one another, and research that examines both of the concepts at the same time may provide some important insights.
The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand the connection of organized youth sport to cultural beliefs, values and practices of contemporary parenting ideologies. More specifically, we wanted to explore if parents perceived that organized youth sport was important to their own parenting roles and responsibilities related to childrearing. Prior research on the social construction of involved fathering and intensive mothering as well as their potential connection to organized youth sport from several academic fields (e.g., leisure studies, sport studies, and the broader social sciences literature on fatherhood and motherhood) was used to help frame this study and to provide the sensitizing concepts.
Social Construction of Involved Fathering and Organized Youth Sport
From Breadwinner to Involved Fathering
The definition of fatherhood is changing. For most of the 20th century, a father’s employment status and ability to provide financially for his family underpinned strong ideological assumptions about masculinity and the fatherhood role (Brannen & Nilsen, 2006). Unlike previous generations, the emergence of new fatherhood ideologies means that the current generation of fathers’ moral worth is evaluated based upon the meaningful time spent with their children (Daly, 1996). As Coakley (2006) theorizes, the shift in contemporary fatherhood expectations is:
fueled by a combination of factors, including a conservative emphasis on tradi- tional family values and fathers as heads of households, a neoliberal emphasis on individualism and the need for fathers to take responsibility for the development of their children, a liberal feminist emphasis on gender equity in family life, and progressive ideas about the meaning of gender and sexuality. (p. 153)
In response to the fatherhood ideological shift, many fathers have expressed difficulty in attaining the involved ideal (Daly, 1996, 2001). This difficulty seems to stem from the
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expectation of having a greater involvement in their children’s lives, while at the same time continuing to be the primary breadwinner for their families. Kay (2009) defines these two conflicting cultural expectations as the central dilemma to the new fathering ideology. Consequently, many men have struggled to make sense of the competing images, and there has been a complex and diverse response to the practice of this new fatherhood ideology (Marsiglio, Amato, Day, & Lamb, 2000; Ranson, 2001). This struggle may be seen as a pull between the public and private spheres. In that, fathers are expected to contribute primarily in the public sphere of paid work, but they are also increasingly expected to contribute to what is often seen as the private sphere of family and home life. (See, e.g., Daly, 2001, and Brannen & Nilsen, 2006, for further discussion on the historical development of public and private spaces related to paid labor, family time and parenting.)
Reflecting on the previous generation of fathers, some men hold their own fathers accountable for not spending more time with them, although they themselves are “usually willing to excuse their own absenteeism on the basis of their own work demands” (Kazura, 2000, p. 44). Nonetheless, most fathers have the desire to provide an enriched childhood for their own children (Brannen & Nilsen, 2006) and leisure often provides an important context to do this.
Leisure-based Fathering as the Primary Context for Involvement
Compared to mothers, fathers devote less time to the emotional and physical care work of their children (Kay, 2009); rather, fathers spend time with their children in play and companionship activities outside the home such as sports, outdoor activities and hobbies (Brannen & Nilsen, 2006; Doucet, 2006; Yeung, Sandberg, & Davis-Kean, 2001). In recent years, the importance of father-child interactions spent in moments of play has heightened with the emergence of the involved fatherhood ideology. One of the reasons for this may be that leisure and sport activities are believed to strengthen and build the father-child relationship (Harrington, 2009; Such, 2009), although at times it may also have damaging consequences (Jeanes & Magee, 2011).
For many fathers, the opportunity to share the sport experience with their children brings warm and nostalgic memories from their own childhood, of time they spent with their father (Marsiglio et al., 2005). Many fathers want to ensure that they pass on what they have learned to their children, who will in turn do the same for future generations. Yet some fathers intentionally do things differently and in opposition to the memories that they have of their fathers. For example, men who had fathers who were overbearing, competitive and demanding of their sport excellence may be determined to provide a more positive sporting experience for their children (Brannen & Nilson, 2006; Harrington, 2009). Also, fathers who feel they were not encouraged to participate in youth sport may be highly motivated to support their children’s sport participation (Harrington).
A father’s (in)ability to support his children’s sport participation may also lead to feelings of inadequacy. Fathers have expressed feeling judged by their children for the amount of time they are able to share with them in the sport context (Brannen & Nilsen, 2006). Fathers have also expressed self-criticism and guilt related to the amount of emotional and physical support they can provide their children and the feeling that they can never meet their own expectations (Daly, 2001).
Different sets of issues also arise when considering fathers’ involvement in their chil- dren’s sport participation. The cultural expectation for fathers to increase the amount of time they spend with their children challenges hegemonic forms of masculinity, and some fathers may use youth sport as a vehicle to fulfill new involved fatherhood cultural expec- tations without challenging the dominant masculine discourse (Coakley, 2009; Gavanas,
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2003). That is, children’s organized sport programs may provide a context in which they can successfully avoid the dilemma of feminizing the fathering role. In fact, Coakley (2009) argues that organized sport reproduces and strengthens the preservation of hegemonic masculinity in domestic life, as it provides fathers with the opportunity to “reaffirm tradi- tional gender ideology at the same time as they meet expectations for father involvement” (p. 44).
However, this idea has come under criticism as privileging men who now claim to share parenting responsibilities, yet women continue to fill the bulk of childcare and household related responsibilities (Coakley, 2009). This critique is also consistent with Such’s (2009) research that fathers spend time “being with” children in leisure type activities that do not challenge hegemonic forms of masculinity, while mothers spend time “being there” for their children in more feminine and domesticated work-related contexts.
Social Construction of Intensive Mothering and Organized Youth Sport
The Idealization of Intensive Mothering
As the ideology of involved fathering has emerged, so has a culture of intensive mothering. For women, “the character of mothering has intensified. Contemporary mothering arguably entails more involved and deliberate practices” (Arendell, 2001, p. 168). Mothers are expected to be child-centered and direct their children’s lives (Arendell, 2001). Motherhood is also generally entwined with notions of femininity, nurturing and caring. In fact, in most cultures, “feminine and mother are combined to form a single representation of WOMAN – and for most women in the world this is still their only self-representation” (Lax, 2006, p. 1). Moreover, unlike men’s expected contributions to the public sphere of paid work, women’s primary contributions to home and family may be traditionally thought of within the private or domestic sphere of life.
However, mothering as a natural and biological function has been deconstructed to reveal many different definitions of mothering that are in a constant state of renegotia- tion situated in temporal, cultural, and political value systems (Arendell, 2000). Further, motherhood ideologies reflect both “hegemonic institutional discourses and the discourses expressed by women themselves in their everyday interactions” (Guendouzi, 2006, p. 902). Motherhood ideologies provide not only an idealization of childrearing practices but also a set of criteria by which mothers may be judged (Leisse de Lustgarten, 2006).
In North American scholarship, the social construct of intensive mothering has been one of the most important and influential conceptualizations during the past two decades in the social sciences literature (e.g., Arendell, 2000; Hays, 1996; Johnston & Swanson, 2006). What is considered the dominant ideology of intensive mothering is actually one that is rooted in a white, middle-class value system based on the nuclear family model that promotes women who can afford and/or desire to stay at home with their children (Guendouzi, 2006). Yet the ideal of motherhood is universalized and does not embrace the diversity of mothers’ lived-experiences structured by the status of employment, marital, (dis)-ability, race and ethnicity. Despite the diversity of women’s lives, all mothers are subject to judgment and censure by society if they are not able to live up to the universalized ideal (Leisse de Lustgarten, 2006).
For most women, feelings of tension, conflict and guilt are experienced as they try to meet the ideological expectations of intensive mothering practices while real- izing their individual needs (Cowdery & Knudson-Martin, 2005). Despite significant
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social, cultural and economic changes in Western societies, and the ways in which women practice mothering, traditional gender ideologies of parenting roles still exist (Maher & Saugeres, 2007; Shaw, 2010). Women’s increase in paid employment in the public sphere (Harsch, 2006; Hattery, 2001), the rise of single-parent families (Daly, 2004), and the shift in government policies to a neo-liberal emphasis (Caragata, 2003) all contribute to a widening gap between the intensive mothering ideology and the reality of mothers’ lived experiences.
The Centrality of Organized Youth Sport to Intensive Mothering Practices
The ideology of intensive mothering embodies motherhood as child-centered, emotionally absorbing, self-sacrificing, labor intensive, with mothers as active managers of their chil- dren’s time and activities (Hays, 1996). Compared with previous generations, mothering now extends beyond the provision of children’s safety and well-being and involves an enrichment process to ensure the children’s time is well-managed and highly productive in terms of their ongoing growth and development (Arendell, 2001; Hays).
The enrichment aspect of intensive mothering is similar to Lareau’s (2002) concept of “concerted cultivation” (p. 748). Mothers seek out opportunities to foster their chil- dren’s talents, skills and abilities through organized leisure activities. This ideology is rooted in middle-class values that expect parents to “enroll their children in numerous age-specific organized activities that dominate family life and create enormous labor, particularly for mothers. The parents view these activities as transmitting important life skills to children” (p. 748). Other research has also supported the purposive and all- encompassing nature of mothers’ labor in the organization of children’s activities and often at the expense of the mothers’ own leisure experiences (Shaw, 2008, 2010; Such, 2009). As mothers seek out organized activities to meet the cultural expectations of being a good mother, children’s organized sport participation may become an important con- text in the provision of such opportunities. Although sport is widely assumed to be a central context for fathering (Marsiglio et al., 2005), little research has investigated the important role of mothers and motherhood ideologies in children’s sport practices. No- table exceptions are Thompson (1999) and Chafetz and Kotarba’s (1999) research on the gender differentiation of parenting responsibilities and expectations in facilitating chil- dren’s sport participation. These authors challenge “the perception that it is fathers rather than mothers who are predominately involved in their children’s sport” (Harrington, 2009, p. 58).
Moreover, as noted earlier, leisure-based activities may be important to the development and growth of the father-child relationship. To date, the fatherhood literature in the family, sport and leisure fields has failed to examine “the social and cultural processes entailed in shared father-child leisure activities [and] the subjective meanings these activities have for fathers” (Harrington, 2009, p. 55). The context of children’s sport, therefore, may provide important future research directions in understanding the father-child relationship in relation to the meanings, interactions and experiences of their time spent together.
This begs the question, of whether the framework and philosophy of children’s sport has contributed to and/or perpetuated the dominant ideologies of intensive mothering as well as involved fathering. Although children’s sport participation may be for the benefit of the child, it may have important implications (both positive and negative) in terms of the parents’ lives and family life in general.
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Project Design
Theoretical Framework
Feminist scholarship is central to the understanding of contemporary motherhood ide- ologies, cultural beliefs, and practices (Allen, 2004; Arendell, 2000). Feminism has also advanced contemporary men’s studies and the growing body of literature on new father- hood expectations and values (Allen). General concepts or principles of feminism also provided the guiding framework for this study. Feminism is a philosophical and theoretical framework that embodies “aspects of equity, empowerment, and social change for women and men” (Henderson, Bialeschki, Shaw, & Freysinger, 1996, p. 13).
West and Zimmerman’s (1987) landmark article was instrumental in the development of gender scholarship in the social sciences. Rather than a social role or set of biological traits, West and Zimmerman argued that gender is embedded and created in doing everyday social interactions. Gender is a powerful ideological device, reinforcing hierarchical relations between men and women, operating at both structural (macro) and interactional (micro) levels. Masculine and feminine behaviors are arguably socially constructed rather than socially modeled, and individuals are consequently judged by these normative standards. The significance of the doing gender thesis (West & Zimmerman) is the notion that gender behavior is dynamic and could transform over time, responding to changing contemporary norms (Deutsch, 2007).
Methods
With the exploratory nature of the study and the focus on the subjective experiences of the participants, an inductive qualitative approach was appropriate. Specifically, the guiding principles of grounded theory were used to inform and emphasize a systematic gathering and analysis of the data, while allowing for creativity and openness to emerging concepts and themes. A grounded theory design is open-ended allowing for the development of emerging themes that are co-constructed by the participants’ experiences and the researcher’s inter- pretations of those experiences (Cresswell, 2003). We were guided by Charmaz’s (2005, 2006) constructivist approach to grounded theory. In a constructivist framework, “we con- struct our grounded theories through our past and present involvements and interactions with people, perspectives, and research practices” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 10, emphasis in orig- inal). Consistent with our feminist theoretical framework, a constructivist grounded theory approach emphasizes the interactive nature of the researcher-participant relationship in the creation of knowledge.
The data draw on a purposive sample of 13 participants (seven sets of parents; seven mothers and six fathers, with one father who declined participation). To ensure elements of homogeneity, all families had at least one child in the 12–15-year-old age group who was currently participating in organized sport. Participants were recruited through contacting several volunteer organizations (e.g., Kinsmen Club and Seniors Club) in a small community in Ontario, Canada, who helped identify potential participants in their community. Snowball or chain sampling strategies were then used to find additional information rich participants who met the criterion as outlined above (Cresswell, 2003). In all instances it was the mother of the family who was the first point of contact and who organized the interview date. All participants received a $10 gift certificate to a local sporting store.
Individual semi-structured interviews occurred in the family home. The family home provided an ideal context as it could facilitate a greater sense of comfort and security for the participants (Manderson, Bennett, & Andajani-Sutjahjo, 2006). It also provided “witness to the class and social status of the interviewee through the location and kind of housing
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and its contents, and to clues to identity and history through personal artifacts (such as photographs), which, in turn, are open to comment” (Manderson et al., p. 1318).
Separate interviews were conducted with each parent in the belief that it would provide a composite story of family life that would be richer than joint interviews which may privilege one dominant voice over another. Hertz (1995) argues that although interviewing a couple together may elicit the advantage of a shared and collective story, it is often difficult to detect differences and discrepancies in individual experiences with most couples wanting to show a unified front and/or avoid confrontation. Traditional gender ideology is also reinforced in joint interview settings, with wives being more likely to agree with their spouses’ answers. As Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller (2004) explain in their methodological paper on interviewing couples: “True to gender theory, men used the interview situation to assert their dominance by largely ignoring their wives’ answers, even on matters in which women have traditionally held sway or in situations in which they themselves were the junior partner” (p. 952). Further, Zipp et al. found that women were “doing gender” in the interview by agreeing with their husbands answers and indirectly deferring power to their husband, regardless of the “women’s financial, cultural, and political capital” (p. 953).
While the topics were wide-ranging, participants were asked questions related to their expectations, hopes and values of youth sport participation. For example: What do you hope s/he will gain from taking part in youth sport? Is there a connection to youth sport and your role as a parent? How do you and your spouse work out the various responsibilities (physical and emotional work) that need to be done to support your child(ren)’s participation?
Charmaz’s (2006) principles of constructivist grounded theory, which requires initial, focused and theoretical coding procedures, were used for data analysis. Initial coding involved the review of interview transcripts and journal entries line-by-line, examining and exploring concepts that seemed to fit the data. In this coding process, data were compared with data rather than applying “preexisting categories to the data” (p. 47). This initial stage was seen as tentative, its primary purpose being to invoke thinking and engage in creativity and conceptual exploration. Through the lengthy process of initial coding, codes were discarded, modified, reworded and expanded with the goal of saturation and placing them in relationship to other codes.
The second major phase in the coding process was focused coding. Charmaz (2006) defines focused coding as “using the most significant and/or frequent earlier codes to sift through large amounts of data. Focused coding requires decisions about which initial codes make the most analytic sense to categorize your data incisively and completely” (p. 57). However, moving to the focused coding stage was not a linear process; rather, it involved working back and forth through the initial and focused coding procedures. Furthermore, the focused coding process works across interviews while comparing “people’s experiences, actions, and interpretations” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 59).
The final phase is the process of theoretical coding. Charmaz defines theoretical coding as a “sophisticated level of coding that follows the codes you have selected during focused coding” and identifies “possible relationships between categories you have developed in your focused coding” (p. 63). As the early coding stages fractured and separated the data, this process brought it back together again in a “coherent story” and moved the analysis into a theoretical direction.
Findings
The analysis of the data revealed the high value and significance of children’s participation in organized sport opportunities as it related to being a good parent. Moreover, the analysis of the parental discourse discovered that parenting went beyond the home environment and
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became a public act that was observed by other parents, with these observations creating the basis of what was deemed to be a good parent. Three main themes that best reflected the parents’ perspectives emerged: (a) paying a high price to play, (b) judging other parents and (c) maintaining the gendered ideal. From these three subthemes a core theme emerged: parenting in private and public spaces. The three sub-themes and core theme are discussed in the following sections.
Paying a High Price to Play
The first theme revealed the significance of facilitating children’s participation in organized sport, and parents clearly believed that these activities would help prepare children for their adult years. For example, one father talked about the value of organized youth sport to a child’s life:
Whether it’s organized sports or an organized club, I feel every child should be involved. Sports builds up not only your own inner self-esteem, but it teaches you how to play as a teammate and it prepares you for the real world so to speak. (Father, family #2)
This sentiment was echoed by many of the parents, however, what stood out in this study were the comments that indirectly critiqued other parents in the community. For example, these two fathers explained:
I see some of the kids in the neighborhood that have parents . . . the kids aren’t involved in sports at all. And I think it’s something the kids should have a chance at. (Father, family #1)
There are still a lot of kids out there that don’t play. Maybe they can’t afford it. I know some that can afford it and they’re just not involved. Maybe, it’s the kid’s choice too but I think a lot of times it’s the parents. (Father, family #6)
Children’s participation in organized sport was deemed necessary, and for some parents this necessity extended to the provision of additional opportunities to enhance their basic skill development. As best illustrated by one mother: “Everybody thinks your kid’s a superstar but they don’t want to give them the tools that they need to be a good player. They don’t want to spend any extra to have them take power skating lessons” (Mother, family #4).
Another issue was the need for parents to provide opportunities, so that their children would not feel resentment in later years. As one father explained:
And you know, a friend of ours just lives outside of town here and he was an awesome hockey player and he was invited to the junior camp [try-outs for a higher level hockey league] and his mom never told him about it until it was over. And he’s still bitter about it and he’s almost 50 years old now. So, you know, we don’t want our kids to look at us, you know 20 years from now and say you never gave me the opportunity. (Father, family #2)
The parents in this study also talked about their hectic schedules and feeling like their family was always “on the go.” Some parents explained how their children’s sport controlled their lives. As one mother explained, all aspects of family life would be scheduled around the
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games and practices: “Well it takes over right. I would say it just becomes what you do. It becomes your life. You fit everything else around the games or practices” (Mother, family #3). A father who talked about the loss of couple time with his wife echoed this sentiment: “The biggest one is time we spend one on one with your spouse. Or you know, if we are together it’s usually one or two kids with us. Yeah, I keep telling [wife], it will come back. We’ll have the time again” (Father, family #2).
The consumption of family finances and the economic strain on the family were also prevalent, with some parents reporting exorbitant fees for even one child’s participation. As these two parents explained, the extra costs related to equipment and transportation also consumed the family resources:
Registration is $1,800. That’s just registration, that’s not equipment, that’s not tournaments, that’s not $100 a week in gas. And that’s not hotels if you are in a tournament. Like [child] did four tournaments and they’re all sleepovers. (Mother, family #3)
Definitely, the registration which is dear. And then it’s all the equipment which is expensive and then there is the gas running around all over. Like all winter long, I don’t think the car ever cooled down. You drive home and you want to just leave it idling in your driveway because you know you’ll be going somewhere again shortly. (Father, family #5)
Yet the centrality of providing these opportunities was significant to the idea of being a good parent. This may be one reason that families were willing to make significant sacrifices to other aspects of family life. Thus, in part, a good parent was defined by the very provision of opportunities for their children, even though these opportunities were seen to constrain their lives.
Judging Other Parents
As the second theme highlights, underlying much of the parental discourse about the notion of good parenting were evaluative statements about the other parents’ level of involvement as it related to their children’s sport participation. Most of the parents were highly critical of absent parents, who were seen as parents who dropped their children off at the door, and did not actively support their children at the sport venue. For example,
It’s sad. You can see it in the kid’s face if they [the child’s parents] are not there . . . or if they are there and they’re an ass it’s even worse. It just destroys the kid. Why would you sign your kid up if you don’t want to be involved? (Mother, family #3)
Another parent, her son plays goalie, but his dad’s never there. And you know, you see him there once in a blue moon to watch his [son’s] games and it’s like, I just couldn’t handle that. I just feel bad. I mean, it’s not that he’s not there in other ways, it’s just hockey isn’t his thing. But I couldn’t imagine not being at the hockey game! I mean we try to get to all the boys’ games, but for him not to come if he could be there . . . (Mother, family #1)
As the above quotes illustrate, a good parent was seen to provide emotional and physical support to their child—although not all parents shared similar views on the right type of
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support. For some, it meant a positive and supportive attitude; for others, it meant harsh and honest criticism. As best exemplified by one mother: “Praise is always a good thing. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, just be supportive” (Mother, family #4). In contrast, another parent explained that harsh honesty was more important as he described his own feedback to his sons: “I’ll say, ‘Remember back when you couldn’t even skate? Remember how long it’s taken to get half-ass good at it? Cause you’re still not a pro, you know’ ” (Father, family #3). These personal perspectives related to parenting practices would then become the basis in which other parents were judged.
It was clear that judgments were often made of other parents who were forcing their children to play at a higher competitive level. Similarly, parents who pushed their children too hard at a game/practice were deemed to be behaving inappropriately:
Like, I’d never force my boys into anything. They’ve all always had their own decision. Because I’m not gonna force them. It’s their decision. I’ve seen too many parents wreck a kid’s career, drop out of hockey altogether because they’re just forced into it too much. (Father, family #1)
I am the least competitive parent there is. It actually drives me insane when I go to the arena and kids aren’t really enjoying [figure] skating or whatever and they’re coming off and they’re like: “I want my skates off!” or “I want to go home!” or whatever, and their parents are like “Get out there!” It always infuriates me. I know some parents think the competitive aspect. I just don’t understand that and it just sends me overboard. That’s probably the part of the sport that just about drives me the most crazy. The other parents who are just too overboard – too much. (Mother, family #5)
Moreover, a good parent was seen as someone who volunteered and helped out with his or her child’s sport organization. Active involvement in their children’s lives was deemed to be important, both to the children and sport organization:
A parent who volunteers. One that doesn’t just send their kid out on the ice or send their kid out on the diamond and just sits there and watches. You know – be involved. You know the kids see it and they know it. (Mother, family #6)
And you get some [parents] that just have no idea – just bringing little Johnny out and never volunteer. You know, you get that crowd that never help out. Bitching and complaining but never helping out. (Father, family #3)
Judgment of absent parents was also revealed to be directed at spouses as well. That is, family conflict was evident when one spouse was seen to be unsupportive and did not attend games and/or was not involved with the sport organization. For example, two mothers explained:
Like it kind of bugged me about [husband], he knows so much about hockey . . . but he would never go out because he didn’t want parents grumbling at him kind of thing. (Mother, family #1)
Like [son] had rugby yesterday and it took a lot of . . . I dropped a lot of hints saying “you know, this will probably be the only time you’ll get a chance to see
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[son].” And [husband’s] like “oh no, I’m busy, I’ve got to go pick rocks.” [They are farmers.] And I said, “God it’d be nice if you’d go to see his game because it’s the only chance you’ll get. Pick rocks tomorrow!!! When you look back, are you going to be glad you picked those rocks or be glad you got to see your son play rugby?” I don’t know . . . (Mother, family #6)
Perceptions of a good parent were also framed by reflecting upon their own childhood and their parents’ level of involvement: “I do it because I want my kids to see that I am involved. My mom never was involved in anything and why wouldn’t I be involved? Why would I expect somebody else to do it for my kids?” (Mother, family #6).
Many of the parents talked in great detail about misbehaving parents and what they saw as inappropriate spectator behavior, particularly at children’s hockey and baseball games. Narratives of parents yelling and screaming while watching their children play were cited in almost all of the parental interviews. For example, one of the fathers described some of these incidents:
If you’re sitting beside her [another parent], she just yells the whole time, hanging over the glass just screaming at her kids. You know, “get down there!” or “Hurry up!” or “Get the hell off the ice if you’re tired!” and that kind of thing. You know? You see it all and again is that a good parent? I don’t know. Sometimes, some of the things they say, you maybe kind of wonder, “geeze!” (Father, family #5)
Another father talked about physically separating himself from his wife and the other parents: “Sometimes it gets so bad that if I’m up in the bleachers I’ll go stand in the lower part behind the glass. I just can’t take it” (Father, family #1).
Maintaining the Gendered Ideal
It was clear, too, that the mothers were responsible for the orchestration and scheduling of the children’s activities. For example: “At the beginning of the year, I write the schedule down. I kind of color coordinate. [Daughter]’s schedule is in red, [son]’s in blue, and my work is in black” (Mother, family #2). Some of the mothers talked about equal responsibility, yet it was the mothers who were primarily responsible for the hidden work, the emotional labor and the coordination of the family activities. Husbands also re-affirmed this, by talking about helping out, while their wives coordinated the family schedules. As this couple revealed:
I would say that it’s pretty equally involved. Like maybe . . . I would have to say overall it would have to be equal. (Mother, family #1)
Well, she’ll write down on the board what’s happening, like on the calendar. And she’ll say “well do you want to take [child #1] or [child #2] or [child #3]?” And I’ll say, “well I haven’t seen [child #2]’s game for a while, so I’ll take [child #2].” That’s how we do it, but she’ll kind of look after the scheduling. (Father, family #1)
Because of the hectic schedules and the husbands’ inability to help out at all times due to their perceived work demands, some of the mothers expressed sentiments of time stress and fatigue as they tried to balance their employment and domestic responsibilities with their children’s sport schedule. As one mother explained:
388 D. E. Trussell and S. M. Shaw
It’s very hard! It’s hard on family life. It can be very stressful. You know, you come home and if they haven’t . . . I get upset and you’re expecting something to be done and it’s not done. I get frustrated sometimes. Or if you’ve asked the kids to do stuff and they haven’t done it, it’s like “Listen, I’m running you here and there, you guys need to step up and help!” Especially now that I’m full-time [employment]. (Mother, family #1)
In contrast, these sentiments of time stress and fatigue were not prevalent in the fathers’ interviews.
It also appeared that women’s traditional responsibilities for planning and organization within the family unit were extended into the public domain and the organization of the children’s sport leagues. Underlying much of the talk about the organizational demands and responsibilities was a sense of the gendered politics related to the respective roles that the mothers and fathers held within the sport organization. When asked the open-ended question, “What are the expectations for mothers and fathers in the sport organization?”, many of the parents initially talked about a sense of equality related to the leadership roles. For example: “I would say it’s probably about 50/50. Where I think a few years ago it was more dads” (Mother, family #4). Some parents even revealed that women predominantly held leadership roles for the local leagues’ board of directors.
Yet it was also clear that the type of sport appeared to influence the gendered nature of the volunteer work. Fathers were still typically involved with administration roles in sports traditionally considered as masculine (i.e., hockey, and in particular, the more competitive leagues). However, mothers were principally responsible for the facilitation and leadership roles for feminine sports such as figure skating, while fathers provided very little leadership support in this area. For example, one couple revealed:
There isn’t a dad involved with the skating club. We have not had a dad anywhere in sight. (Mother, family #5)
Don’t get me wrong, like a male could do that. It would be no different than the bookwork I did for the snowmobiling club, but I haven’t been asked and I probably won’t volunteer. Can we leave it at that? [Laughter to ease the discomfort.] I probably could but it just seems . . . it is a little different I guess. I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. I don’t think there’s any males who’ve done it in the past. (Father, family #5)
These sentiments were echoed by another mother who explained that the absence of fathers might be because of their lack of knowledge in a particular sport: “The figure skating executive would be mostly moms. You would never - very seldom see a dad. I don’t know if dads understand figure skating so . . . ” (Mother, family #4). Yet at the same time, many of the women who were involved in leadership roles for the hockey’s board of directors did not have any previous experience with hockey.
In visible leadership roles such as coach or trainer there was also a sense of change with more women becoming involved, particularly with the onset of girl’s hockey and its league rules. As a mother explained: “Hockey is men [referring to coaches] but there are definitely women trainers sitting on the bench. Actually with girls’ hockey there has to be. That’s a league rule for the girls’ team because of going into the dressing room” (Mother, family #5). However, beyond the initial few examples given, it became evident that the fathers were still primarily involved in visible leadership roles such as the coach, with only an emerging sense of the mothers’ involvement in this form of volunteer work.
Parenting in Public and Private Spaces 389
Moreover, when families that typically embodied egalitarian principles in their house- hold were confronted with what they perceived to be inequity in the sport organization, they would simply avoid confrontation. For example, the mother quoted above used to compete in the sport her children were currently participating in. As she explained: “I allow it to carry on [mothers fulfilling secondary roles] even though I might feel differently, unless it’s a really big heart tug for me, I’m okay with it” (Mother, family #2).
It was also clear that the gendered affairs of sport organizations were also revealed in the fundraising responsibilities of mothers and fathers. Although both mothers and fathers talked about the importance of fundraising and the high costs of children’s sport participa- tion, it tended to be the mothers who talked about the work (planning and organizing) of fundraising activities. As illustrated by one mother: “Like we had the year end tournament for the Pee Wee girls at our center. We got that so I did all the fundraising. I organized and got that all together. That was a big job” (Mother, family #6).
Core Theme: Parenting in Private and Public Spaces
From these three subthemes a core theme emerged reflecting the notion of parenting in both private and public spaces. Throughout the interviews, there was an overall sense that parenting went beyond the home environment and became a public act that was observed by other parents, and it was the basis of these observations that reinforced the meaning of a good parent. That is, not only did parents talk about their own children’s sport participation, but they also talked in great detail about their observations of other families.
The analysis of the data revealed the high value parents place on children’s participation in organized sport opportunities. The parents emphasized that the very provision of oppor- tunities was a central aspect of being a good parent, and the subtheme “Paying a High Price to Play” revealed why the parents were willing to do all this work and make personal and family sacrifices. Moreover, parents made numerous judgments of other parents (including spouses and their own parents) who did not provide appropriate opportunities. The analysis also illustrated the contradictions inherent in the parents’ discourse as they criticized both underinvolved and overinvolved parenting. That is, parents were highly critical of other parents who were absent from the children’s games/practice, and they were also highly crit- ical if they thought other parents were forcing their children to play and/or were too hard on them. In addition, diverse opinions were also evident related to the type of feedback and support parents should give their child (e.g., positive and encouraging versus highly critical and harsh). However, regardless of diverse opinions and critiques, the essence of judging other parents actions in the community was consistent throughout all of the interviews.
Interestingly, there was an overall sense of lack of empathy and recognition of dif- ferences that was missing from the parental discourse on judging other parents. Although many parents shared stories of their difficulties in supporting their own children (e.g., work schedules, finances), their view of other parents and the difficulties that they might encounter was absent in the discussion. One mother expressed this lack of understanding from other parents. She said: “In the past years there’s been times when we’ve struggled [financially]. It’s been more difficult or whatever. I’m working a little more too which helps. But it can be . . . people don’t understand what other people do, what their issues are” (Mother, family #1).
Moreover, applying a gendered analysis to parents’ organizational responsibilities revealed a sense of change with women’s increasingly public roles. Yet this analysis also demonstrated the reproduction of sport as a traditionally masculine domain with men in the visible center roles and women in the hidden periphery roles. It appeared that women’s traditional responsibilities for the planning and organization within the family unit were
390 D. E. Trussell and S. M. Shaw
extended into the public domain and the organization of the children’s sport leagues. This was particularly evident in the local leagues and traditionally feminine sports.
Thus, expectations and practices that formed around appropriate parenting practices and behaviors were constructed in not only the private context of the family unit but also extended into the broader community; organized youth sport played a central role in this discourse.
Discussion
This study revealed the parents’ perspectives on the high cost of youth sport for the family unit (emotional, physical and financial), the judgment of other parents’ behaviors and the gendered nature of fulfilling parental responsibilities related to youth sport. Embedded throughout all of the interviews and the parental discourse was the meaning and significance of being a good parent. When considering the parents’ emotional and physical work and the consumption of family resources, why was children’s participation in organized sport such a valued and important aspect of family life? In part, it may be due to their moral worth as a parent evaluated by their children’s successful participation in youth sport, and the parents’ visible investment in this pursuit. This may be why parents are so willing to alter family budgets, accommodate the financial resources required to support their children’s sport participation and reproduce traditional gender relations.
The idea of paying a high price to play complements previous research that found that children’s participation in organized sport led to highly scheduled lives for parents (e.g., Kay, 2000), the consumption of family finances (e.g., Townsend & Murphy, 2001) and perceived loss of family togetherness (e.g., Trussell & Shaw, 2007). Furthermore, the importance that the parents in this study attached to providing sports opportunities for their children complements previous research (e.g., Adler & Adler, 1994; Dunn, Kinney, & Hofferth, 2003; Trussell & Shaw, 2009). That is, research has shown that many parents believe that organized youth sport facilitates important lessons related to character building, teamwork, responsibility, cooperation and competition, all attributes that are valued in a capitalist society. Consistent with this notion, the parents in this present study talked about the importance of facilitating their children’s participation in organized activities and clearly believed that these activities would help prepare children for their adult years. Thus, in part, a good parent was defined by her or his provision of opportunities for their children, and this may be the reason that so many parents were willing to do all the work to facilitate their involvement (see also Shaw, 2010). This provision included not only the sport activity itself but also the supplementary activities for skill enhancement and the kind of support that parents provided.
The power of the ideology of intensive mothering was reflected in the passion and commitment to facilitate children’s organized sport involvement. Similar to Hay’s (1996) conceptualization of motherhood, the narratives spoke of the mothers’ lives as child- centered, self-sacrificing and active managers of their children’s lives. Compared to previous generations, a central aspect of being a good mother today involves the provision and facilitation of enrichment activities and the willingness to make personal sacrifices in order to do this. Organized youth sport appeared to reflect and further strengthen this ideology of self-sacrificing motherhood in not only the private context of the home (e.g., scheduling, food and equipment preparation) but also in the public context of the community with the gendered work of the sport organizations (e.g., filling the hidden roles such as fundraiser, board of directors).
The ideological shift of fathering from monetary support to a more involved style of fathering (Yeung et al., 2001) was exemplified in this study. The value of supporting
Parenting in Public and Private Spaces 391
their children’s sport participation through the provision of opportunities and attendance at games was central for the attainment of this ideological imperative. Through children’s organized sport participation, the fathers were able to publicly display a sense of their physical and emotional support for their children and meet cultural expectations for the new fathering ideal. In doing so, they were also able to successfully avoid the dilemma of feminizing the fathering role (Gavanas, 2003) while reproducing and strengthening the preservation of hegemonic masculinity through sport (Coakley, 2009). Thus, organized youth sport facilitated both the reproduction and resistance of traditional gender relations related to motherhood and fatherhood ideologies.
Conclusion
Both fathers and mothers were highly invested in a sense of themselves as good parents, and in this study this notion was closely aligned with youth sport. This may echo Snyder’s (2007) argument that parents may rationalize their “choices in a way that affirms their status as a good parent by drawing on popular notions of what it means to spend quality time with their families and accepting or modifying those messages to justify the decision they have made in regard to juggling family time and their family’s job demands” (p. 338). Thus, through the very provision of organized youth sport opportunities, parents may feel a sense of comfort and accomplishment that they are, indeed, meeting societal expectations for being a good parent.
In addition, however, the findings in this study may also serve to broaden our under- standing of the production and idealization of parenting ideologies. That is, it emphasized the importance of the public nature of parenting with the justification of one’s own par- enting decisions and actions through the critique of others. Underlying many of the stories was a sense of judgment, by parents of other parents, with respect to their level and type of involvement in their children’s organized sport activities. Hence, the issue of judging other parents (including community members, spouses and their own parents) became an important idea, reflecting the parents’ value and opinions with respect to good parenting and sports, and in turn, illustrated how parenting ideologies are constructed by the discourses expressed by individuals in their everyday lives.
Moreover, in the broader social science literature the parenthood ideologies of intensive mothering and involved fathering are often discussed in isolation of one another. It could be argued, though, that many of the concepts that inform these ideologies are shared and central to both motherhood and fatherhood. For example, at the core of each of these parenting ideologies is the centrality of what it means to be a good parent, and this study supported the notion that it is reflected in the discourses expressed by the mothers and fathers in their everyday interactions. Ideological assumptions about parenting roles were reinforced by both mothers and fathers when judgments were made of other parents in regard to parenting behaviors. These judgments revealed not only that good parenting was highly valued, but also that it was difficult to achieve. The critique of others may also illustrate the difficulty for mothers and fathers to acknowledge and value different parenting styles and decisions from their own.
Although exploratory, this study supports earlier speculations that organized sport may have significant context in ideological values, rooted in a middle-upper class value system, which evaluates a parents’ moral worth (Coakley, 2009). Consequently, despite their different lives (e.g., financial resources, work schedules), all parents (mothers and fathers) are subject to judgment and censor by society, if they are not able to live up to the universalized and socially constructed ideal. Clearly it will be important in future research to capture the experiences and meanings of diverse family units (e.g., co-habiting, blended,
392 D. E. Trussell and S. M. Shaw
gay and lesbian, race/ethnicity, new immigrant) in order to enhance our understanding of this ideal. For example, the presumed heterosexuality of parents that is reflected in this study, as well as in the broader parenting literature, may reproduce normative gender beliefs. Families from diverse family forms and family stages may reveal diverse perspectives and attach different meanings to the relationship between organized youth sport and parenting and gender ideologies.
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