Mothers and Daughters: Teaching and Learning about Leisure

Abstract

This study focused on understanding what role mothers play in developing their daughters' leisure attitudes, values and behaviors. A group of Canadian women and their adult children were studied to determine what daughters learned from their mothers about leisure. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 mother-daughter dyads. Mothers provided explicit and intentional messages about leisure that daughters evaluated and interpreted along with the behaviors they observed in their mothers. Evaluations and interpretations of these messages contributed to what daughters learned about leisure and how they came to incorporate leisure into their lives.

Keywords:

• daughters
• gender
• leisure
• mothers
• parental influence