Play‐group politics: a critical social capital exploration of exclusion and conformity in mothers groups

Abstract

Mothers groups, or informal collections of mothers who meet regularly or semi‐regularly with other women who have children of similar ages, are often positive sources of friendship, support and the exchange of resources. Of course, they are also sites of less positive outcomes such as exclusion, judgement and the reproduction of dominant gender ideologies. In this paper, the authors explore the experiences of members of mothers groups by using a critical social capital analysis. Based on an analysis of interview transcripts of 24 mothers who were members of various mothers groups from a mid‐sized city located in south‐western Ontario, Canada, findings from the study suggest mothers groups enable mothers to ‘get together’, ‘get by’ and ‘get ahead’, whilst also representing groups in which mothers ‘get left out’, ‘get judged’ and ‘get gendered’. By drawing upon social capital literature, including feminist and critical social capital literature, the authors conclude the paper with a discussion of two questions: (1) What do mothers groups tell us about parenthood? (2) Who benefits from this story?

Keywords:

• feminism
• playgroups
• qualitative research
• motherhood
• social support

Acknowledgements

The authors extend their appreciation to all the mothers who contributed to this study as research participants and to Jennifer Kaczynski for her dedicated research assistance.