"I Love Identifying as a Mum, but I Am More Than That” : Team Sport Participation as Negotiated Resistance to Motherhood Norms

Sammanfattning

Most women in Sweden have full-time employment while being the main caregiver. Nevertheless, some mothers continue team sport participation after entering motherhood. This study explores how competitive recreational team sport functions as a site where motherhood norms are negotiated, reproduced, and resisted. The study is based on ten semi-structured interviews with mothers participating in competitive recreational team sport. Using an abductive approach and a feminist perspective, the analysis builds on theories of role theory, involved motherhood, the ideal athlete, and leisure as resistance. The findings suggest mothers experience expectations to prioritise caregiving over their personal leisure, while they mean that fathers are not expected to reduce their sport participation to the same extent. Many participants have felt self-doubt and guilt when prioritising sport participation. Team sport participation is constructed as important for identity, wellbeing, and community. Sport involvement is legitimized by framing it as having positive effects for the mother’s caregiving. The analysis shows how mothers’ involvement in team sport can function as individual and collective resistance to motherhood norms and norms surrounding the ideal athlete. This resistance is conditional: when conflicts between motherhood and sport engagement arise, caregiving responsibilities are prioritised. The study contributes to sociological research by demonstrating how mothers simultaneously resist and reproduce norms surrounding motherhood through participation in competitive recreational team sports.