Divergent experiences of family leisure: fathers, mothers, and young adolescents.

Introduction Family leisure is held in high esteem in North American society as an important and essential component of family life (Holman & Epperson, 1984; Orthner & Mancini, 1990). It is promoted in family magazines, on television programs, and by park and recreation programs as a means of improving family well-being (Shaw, 1992). Holman and Epperson (1984) conclude that "both families and professional family helpers see joint leisure time as an important element in promoting marital and family quality." (p. 285). Yet despite this high esteem, there is increasing research evidence that family leisure activities may not always be a positive experience for all family members. For mothers, family leisure is often inter-mixed with the role of caring for children and managing the home, which may compromise their experience of enjoyment and freedom (Henderson, 1990, 1991; Shaw, 1992). For children, the early adolescent age period is associated with increased conflict with family (Collins & Russell, 1991; Steinberg, 1981, 1987) and with less positive affect in daily interactions than is experienced at earlier or later age periods (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996). This suggests that early adolescence may be an age when children's family leisure is not a consistently positive experience. This article provides systematic data on what mothers, fathers, and young adolescents actually experience during daily family and home leisure activities. We present findings from an experience sampling study in which family members provided repeated self-reports on their subjective states during their ordinary lives. For each member-mother, father, and young adolescent-we ask whether family and home leisure activities are associated with the subjective experiences, such as freedom, intrinsic motivation, and positive affect, that are typically identified in psychological conceptualizations of leisure (Kelly, 1996; Mannell, 1980; Samdahl, 1988). In order to provide an holistic view of each family member's experience, we evaluated family leisure in relationship to the rest of their daily activities. Because we are interested in examining leisure in the context of day-today life, this article employs a broad definition of family leisure activities. This definition encompasses a range of daily activities that might contain the expressive functions of leisure, including eating, talking, watching television, and resting, as well as active leisure. We also include all occasions when these activities occur with family members or at home. This decision to include all home leisure activities, even in instances when other family members are not participating in the same activity, was based on a number of interrelated considerations. First, home and family are closely linked in the feelings of family members (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1981). Second, during daily interactions at home, the boundaries defining when a person is engaging in a leisure activity with someone are quite vague-family members often do different activities in close proximity to each other; they often may move in and out of interactions (Shaw, 1992), and frequently they do not agree when they are together (Larson & Richards, 1994). Lastly, occasions when all family members actually share the same activity are not a very frequent parts of daily life, especially when children enter adolescence (Holman & Epperson, 1984); situations in which family members are near but not sharing the same activity are more common. Hypotheses The core hypothesis of this study was that family and home leisure activities would be associated with differing experiences between mothers and fathers, and between parents and adolescents. The basis of this hypothesis is a recognition that the experience of family leisure is affected by differing family roles and life stages (Altergott & McCreedy, 1993; Freysinger, 1995). We also recognized that the experience of family leisure activities is affected by what happens in other parts of people's lives; and what happens in the rest of lives differs for fathers, mothers, and young adolescents (Larson & Richards, 1994). …