Mariana (Mari) Villegas Suez

Becoming the "Soccer Mom": Motherhood and its Tropes Throughout American History

Mariana Villegas Suez

The “Soccer Mom”: she drives a minivan full of children to their sports practice and attends every PTA meeting. She is suburban and stressed out, but other qualities are debated. To many, she is white; to many more, she is married and middle-class, a swing-voter that prioritizes fears concerning her children over other issues. She’s Claire Dunphy from Modern Family, stressed about her kids, dealing with a clueless husband, and maybe even involved in politics. She may be a little intense, rather than the perfect, smiling housewife of the forties, but she has similar chores around the house. Despite the stereotype of the “Soccer Mom” being a relatively recent phenomenon, this archetype is the product of societal changes and pressure on women, along with changes to how childhood is viewed. In essence, the Soccer Mom is another trope in the long line of ideas and debates about “Perfect Motherhood”, at least when discussing middle-to-upper-class white mothers. To understand the Soccer Mom, along with the different iterations of the “Perfect Mom”, it is essential to look at how history has shaped motherhood and views of children.

Before "Mom": the Colonial American "Mother"

Some believe that the idea of “mom” as selfless is not modern, but as old as time itself. In this view, women being homemakers, being the parent in charge of the innocent children’s wellbeing and being held to standards of angelic femininity is normal and natural. Picturing womanhood in the past draws images of “pink-cheeked farmwomen kneading homemade bread… shelling sun-warmed peas on country porches'',1 of perfectly feminine beings doing what women are called to: care for others. Before “mom”, though, there was “mother”; before the idea of a family being composed of a heterosexual couple with a bread-winning husband, a housewife, and a couple of children, the family was seen as a “small commonwealth”. 

This “commonwealth” consisted of a self-reliant family that did all of its own labor: they would churn their own butter, produce their own clothing, and survive according to the work they produced. Accordingly, childhood was not seen as a sacred stage of life that should be protected, as the modern Soccer Mom may see it. A child was a small adult, except that they had more propensity to sin. Any frivolities a child wanted to partake in were seen as dangerous to their soul. The father, not the mother, was typically seen as the one in charge of the children’s learning and their souls. He was the “primary parent, with ultimate responsibility not merely for the support of their children but for their moral and intellectual development as well”2.

Mother, Home, Heaven

By the nineteenth century, ideas of who children are and, therefore, who mothers are, began to change. The surge of the Industrial Revolution took labor away from the home, leaving men, who could get better-paying jobs, to find work. During this time, children’s whims were delicately indulged; rather than small adults, they began to be pictured as a separate stage of life. Affluent families began to center children in their lives, beginning to characterize them as innocent and to be cared for gently. This led to the idea of the mother not just being in charge of constantly reproducing and creating life, but being bound to the home. In The Mother’s Book, a manual written by Lydia Maria Child in 1831, she emphasizes new motherly values in the era, including the importance of love and compassion in raising children—most importantly, Child emphasized the necessity of having a mother in charge of the children, rather than fathers doing so3. This becomes the set-up for the Soccer Mom of the future; a “Perfect Mother” is beginning to exist, while the “father” that used to be in charge of the children’s well-being focused on being a breadwinner. 

Coventry Patmore also changed ideas of wives and mothers in an 1876 narrative poem of his wife, “The Angel in the House”. In it, he describes the ways in which women are naturally predisposed to excel in the private sphere, or the house and children, and how the ideal feminine woman is submissive4. Women’s roles as mothers and wives became elevated, making it seem as though the motherly instinct is “the ruling passion in the heart of the true women”5, but these roles also became deeply attached to religion, as motherhood was seen as a “Heaven-entrusted task… so sacred that none other can ever approach it”6. “Mother” was no longer another part of the “small commonwealth”, but was now central in the raising up of a child, as seen in Figure 1, which describes the teachings of a mother, the "household queen" and "guiding star". 

These ideas continued through the early twentieth century. Motherliness was seen as “helpfulness, compassion, glad sympathy, far-thinking tenderness”7, motherhood was “the birth of unselfishness, sympathy, and love”8; in essence, the “Perfect Mother” was fully established as a role with a large set of responsibilities and expectations. Children, too, were beginning to take shape as beings that needed to be protected. Though kids in the city spent a lot of time outside in child-dominated play (and seedier activities, like pick-pocketing), reformers began advocating for adult-supervised activities. To support these reforms, the general safety and psychology of children began to be studied further, and fears of raising children the “wrong way” begin to take hold. As the decades continued, mothers had added pressures, needing to make sure the food they fed their families was not only interesting but filled with the right amount of vitamins and enough nutrients for kids to be the right weight and height for their age9. In advertisements about children’s health, mothers, not parents at large, were the main target, as seen in Figure 2. The “Perfect Mother” was now someone that had to be in constant supervision of her kids, and was solely responsible for their full health.

“Mom” soon replaced “mother” as she became an emotional role from the thirties to the post-WWII period. Mothers, like the “Angel in the House'' from the century before, were a necessary building block to society: they were selfless and full of love, and with the rise of pink-collar jobs, such as secretarial work, middle-class mothers that had depended on domestic servants to do menial house labor were tasked with all domestic duties. Here is the rise of  the “June-Cleaveresque wives and mothers who cultivate their feminine beauty and exist solely for acts of subservience to their husbands and children''10, women who are expected to feel nothing but pure joy while thinking of being a homemaker. As seen in Video 2, a housewife had a list of things that she must be: she needs to know how to make her home comfortable, how to dress, and how to care for children. At this point, there is a new idea of a "Perfect Mother" and what she must do.

Women were not only expected to feel happy at the mere thought of caring for their homes, but were critiqued on how they mothered. “Momism” came to reflect the smothering of mothers that could lead to effeminate sons, for one. Edward A. Stecker wrote an article titled “Motherhood and Momism—Effect on the Nation'' in 1946, describing the ways that good mothering can lead to success in war, but “bad” mothers—those that are too doting and refuse to “emancipate the child”,11 destroy young men and can lead to losing wars. Mothers were now not only in charge of home life, but potentially at fault for a nation in ruin if they were “hysterical”12. Philip Wylie criticized the idealized version of motherhood in 1942, arguing that it was based on an unrealistic view of women and that "mom" was expected to be perfect, selfless, and subservient to a male-dominated society. He described how this idealized mother was organized and focused on her children, community, and clubs, setting a precedent for future standards of motherhood, specifically stating that moms “pulverize school boards” and charities, spending their lives knowing no “other topic except the all-consuming one of momism”13. Mom is not her own person; mom is there for her children, her community, and her clubs. This description, in turn, is foundational to future descriptions of the Soccer Mom.

The Work that Never Ends

After The Feminine Mystique, a critique of gender roles that kept women trapped in the home was published in 1963, a new wave of feminism emerged—one that wanted women (or, white women, at least) to be a part of the workforce rather than be limited to household labor. By 1980, women made up 42.2% of the labor force14, though feminism was not the only motivator: in reality, many women worked because they simply had to in order to survive15. By the end of the decade, “approximately 34 million children had mothers who were working or seeking employment”16. Working mothers were not without controversy, especially by people that felt that mothers were central to the domestic sphere and that they were abandoning children at home (or, "latch-key kids"17). 

Left with the pressure to be caretakers, along with the necessity to work, mothers were now expected to be something new: The Super Mom. This concept grew as a conglomeration of Second-Wave feminism ideals of women in the workforce and pressures to be a perfect, ever-present mother. The Super Mom “has that working-mother look as she strides forward, briefcase in one hand, smiling child in the other”18, according to Bryan K. Robinson and Erica Hunter from the University at Albany. This, like previous motherhood fantasies, is unrealistic, especially for mothers with low wages or no support from another partner. Though many of the jobs attributed to the Super Mom were impossible, it was expected that women not only could, but should, carry the burden of childcare and a full-time job. While some noticed a lack of access to daycare facilities19, as an issue, President Nixon vetoed a bill to create comprehensive childhood development measures and daycare programs throughout the United States. This meant that mothers were meant to pay for childcare or focus their energies on caring for their children while working. Though this was extremely difficult and taxing, advertisements from the era made it seem heroic and fulfilling. These include ads of women dressed as superheroes while doing motherly tasks—driving the kids to school or doing the dishes. In the 80s and 90s, this was demonstrated by popular Coca-Cola commercials, as seen in Video 3. 

The Super Mom was unsustainable, and this was quickly noticed by mothers. Women like Elizabeth Baker wrote books to advise women on what they should do, such as in “The Happy Housewife”. In this advice book, Baker writes that “though the Bible is very pointed about the fact that a woman’s first earthly responsibility is to her husband, children, and home, it in no way condemns a woman for earning or handling money”20. She suggests to mothers to pray about working, and was clear on the fact that mothers had a heavenly duty that they should not sacrifice at the expense of children—unlike men, mothers need to provide for their families within the scope of the home, not the office (unless extremely necessary). Mothers that did get a job often were made to feel as though they had two occupations: being a worker, but also being a mother. Judith N. Mattison wrote a series of poems in “Prayer Thoughts for Working Mothers”, describing how when she gets home from work, a different set of tasks awaits her. In one poem, titled “My Work Never Ends”, she describes her life this way: 

“Help!

I need a day off.

I work at my job

in my kitchen

in the yard

in the basement utility room.

I never get time off.

I’m responsible all the time….

Part of working outside the home 

is this sense of unending responsibility.”21

"Perfect Motherhood" in this era, and in many ways, after it, is qualified by never-ending responsibility and care; being a superhero, but being unable to manage it all.

Motherhood wasn’t the only thing experiencing reform in the late twentieth century, as views of at-risk children led schools to create after-school programs. After years of “latch-key” kids, new reformers sought to find ways to keep children in adult-monitored spaces, especially since it was thought that youth-led crime was taking place after school, when kids with working parents had little supervision22. Over time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, prevention of crime became less of a focus in extracurriculars than achieving positive outcomes for youth, as people believed that programs “would build on the assets youth had, or could have”23. Families who could afford it made extracurricular activities a staple, shaping their children's schedules like never before. This had an incredible impact on childcare and parenting. By 2001, 70% of children over six years old participated in at least one extracurricular activity, and High Shoolers in the United States spent an average of 18 hours per week on activities including sports, clubs, and volunteering24. By 2002, mothers were praised and expected to engage in these activities with their children, increasing their involvement and participation through help with financial support and time management25. 

Both standards for motherhood and child care resulted in the “Soccer Mom”, who ended up being a political power. According to Lauren Lang, a professor of Cultural Studies at Roger Williams University, Soccer Moms came from a Super Mom burnout and with “increased media focus on potential threats to children from both inside and outside the home, and political emphasis on reviving family values resulted in a trend of affluent, suburban mothers choosing to work only part-time or less”26. This is an era of fear-filled news stories about razor blades in Halloween candy, child kidnappings, drug crimes, and a dangerous world for children. Furthermore, there was an increased amount of media on the “bad mothers” that did not spend time at home with their kids. A Super Mom that worked full-time could not comfortably conform to the new standards of the era. The first usage of the term “Soccer Mom” may have been in Denver’s 1995 municipal election with Susan B. Casey’s slogan “A Soccer Mom for City Council”27, but the trope took off in the 1996 Presidential Election, as seen in Video 4. While Bill Clinton was facing Bob Dole, there was an increased focus on the political power of suburban women worried about their children, with Clinton gaining the vote through the singing of a tough crime bill and the promise to put more reading tutors at school28. The concept of women’s power was not due to their own worries or interests as much as their filial loyalties and motherly duties29. Today, these suburban mothers are also credited with being a voting block in their own right, and are credited with shaping elections with worries about their children.30 31 32 

In the modern age Soccer Moms, and moms at large, are bombarded with ideas and pressures that became important in the nineteenth century. As older poems and books described mothers as patient and self-sacrificing, modern moms struggle with needing to be “selfless in service to another” while similarly feeling “exhaustion… bitterness in silence, [and] emotional labor”33. Moms blog about these experiences, and some admit not enjoying running after their children and their never-ending list of sports34. Like all other versions of the “Perfect Mom” before here, the Soccer Mom is largely a trope or expectation, as the scope of “Perfect Motherhood” has been cemented and reworked after the Industrial Revolution. Through the late eighteen hundreds and early twentieth century, Mother was a pure angel; in the mid-twentieth century, she was a smiling, selfless being whose good work led to the benefit of the nation; in the late-twentieth century, she was a tired but fulfilled working mom that had a shift at work and a shift at home; now, she is a stressed planner with a minivan. History has shaped what has led to the "Soccer Mom", and whatever new "Perfect Mom" standard follows it. 

Works Cited

1: Matchar, “Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig?”, in Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity. Emily Matchar (Simon & Schuster, Inc). 

2: Robinson, Paul. “The American Family From Colonial Times to the Present.” Washington Post. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1986/12/2 8/the-american-family-from-colonial-times-to-the-present/c3ce9b61-     4dc2-4b13-a597-2e89b205193e/.  

3: Child, Lydia Maria. The Mother's Book. Google Books. Boston, Massachusetts: Carter, Hendee and Babcock, 1831. https://books.google.com/books? id=WL86AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontco ver&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

4: Patmore, Coventry. The Angel in the House: The Betrothal. Google Books. New York, New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1876. https://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=R5MOAAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd &pg=PA21&dq=the+angel+in+the+house+&ots=_5KaFtH_C8&sig=8V1LX2LlT_ S_pSk7MrqgWJwPwfc#v=onepage&q&f=false.

5, 6: Kellogg, John Harvey. Ladies' Guide in Health and Disease: Girlhood, Maidenhood, Wifehood, Motherhood. Google Books. W. D. Condit & Company, 1883. 

https://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=XKFGAQAAMAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA19&dq=motherhood&ots=hy-n7Kp62i&sig=u-X0YMdx8DtVEl-mNqH7nrCdErs#v=onepage&q=published&f=false. 

7: Key, Ellen. The Renaissance of Motherhood. Translated by Anna E. B. Fries. Google Books. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1914. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Renaissance_of_Motherhood/ CjFJAAAAIAAJ? hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Renaissance+of+Motherhood+b y+Ellen+Key&printsec=frontcover.

8: Chesser, Elizabeth Sloan. Woman, Marriage and Motherhood. Google Books. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1913. https://books.google.com/books? hl=en&lr=&id=2hwEAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd& pg=PR13&dq=motherhood&ots=KNsPqGs0dA&sig=zSdcP9K4UatQLmt- 0 gOfEHVp4eM#v=onepage&q=motherhood&f=false.

9: Ralston Purina Co. “A Mother's Manual.” Duke University Libraries, n.d. Accessed May 4, 2023.

10: Lang, Lauren. “Big Brother Meets the ‘Alpha Mom’: Tensions in the Media Standardization of Motherhood .” LORE 6, no. 2 (May 2008). https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document? repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=6e4689 4d6e4adeaddcb43f44f74df32ae3555176. 

11: Stecker, Edward A. “Motherhood and Momism — Effect on the Nation.” The University of Western Ontario Medical Journal 16, no. 2 (1946). https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? referer=&httpsredir=1&article=113 5&context=uwomj.

12: Deutsch, Helene. The Psychology of Women: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Vol. 2, Motherhood. New York, New York: Grune & Stratton, 1945. https://archive.org/details/psychologyofwome0002unse/mode/2up.

13: Wylie, Philip. “Common Women.” Essay. In Generation of Vipers, 184–204. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.

14: “Occupations of Women in the Labor Force since 1920.” Department of Labor. U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/occupations-decades-100. 

15: Women's Bureau, Why Women Work § (1967). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822029059938.

16: Women's Bureau, Facts on Working Women § (1989). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31822008429664.

17: Long, Lynette, and Thomas J. Long. The Handbook for Latchkey Children and Their Parents. New York, New York: Arbor House, 1983. https://www.google.com/url? q=https://archive.org/details/handbookfo rlatch00lon_tua&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1683233087942044&usg=AOvVaw1 x3sNVodvuf40mJc8Tp-bK.

18: Robinson, Bryan K., and Erica Hunter. “Is Mom Still Doing It All? Reexamining Depictions of Family Work in Popular Advertising.” Journal of Family Issues 29, no. 4 (April 2008): 465–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x07310311. 

19: Zylke, Jody W. “Among Latchkey Children Problems: Insufficient Day-Care Facilities, Data on Possible Harm.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 260, no. 23 (1988): 3399–3400. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1988.03410230017003. 

20: Baker, Elizabeth. “Eve's Daughters.” Essay. In The Happy Housewife, 6–10. Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://archive.org/details/happyhousewife0000bake/page/10/mode/2up.

21: Mattison, Judith N. Mom Has a Second Job: Prayer Thoughts for Working Mothers. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Pub. House, 1980. https://archive.org/details/momhassecondjobp00matt/page/n7/mode/2u p. 

22, 23: Hollister, Rob. “The Growth in After-School Programs and Their Impact,” February 2003. 

24: Rosenfeld, Alvin, and Nicole Wise. "The over-scheduled child: Avoiding the hyper-parenting trap." The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter, April 2001, 1. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed May 3, 2023). 

https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/apps/doc/A74692068/AONE?u=mlin_b_bumml&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=fd4117b9. 

25:  2005: “A Profile of the American High School Sophomore in 2002 : Initial Results from the Base Year of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002” by Ingels, Steven J. 

26: Mattoon D'Amore, Lauren. “The Accidental Supermom: Superheroines and Maternal Performativity, 1963–1980.” The Journal of Popular Culture 45, no. 6 (2012): 1226–48.

https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=fcas_fp.

27: MacFarquhar, Neil. “What's a Soccer Mom Anyway?” The New York Times, October 20, 1996. 

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/20/weekinreview/what-s-a-soccer-mom-anyway.html#:~:text=Susan%20B.,of%20denoting%20herself%20as%20everyneighbor.

28: Goldstein, Dana, Robert Gebeloff, Allison McCann, and Brent McDonald. “Suburban Women, No Longer ‘Soccer Moms,’ Hold Key to Midterms.” The New York Times, November 4, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/us/suburban-women-midterms.html.

29: Vavrus, Mary Douglas. “From Women of the Year to ‘Soccer Moms’: The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Women.” Political Communication 17, no. 2 (2000): 193–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846000198477. 

30: Kurtzleben, Daniella. “What We Mean When We Talk About 'Suburban Women Voters'.” NPR, April 7, 2018.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/07/599573817/what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-suburban-women-voters.

31: Frey, William H. “Biden's Victory Came from the Suburbs.” Brookings, November 13, 2020. 

https://www.brookings.edu/research/bidens-victory-came-from-the-suburbs/:

32: Lucey, Catherine. “White Suburban Women Swing Toward Backing Republicans for Congress.” The Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-suburban-women-swing-toward- backing-republicans-for-congress-11667381402.

33: Narayan, Sindhu Vinod. “Being A Selfless Mother.” Momspresso, March 1, 2019. https://www.momspresso.com/parenting/world-as-i-see- it/article/being-a-selfless-mother. 

34: Sweeney, Vera. “Hello Fellow Soccer Moms.” Lady and the Blog, September 13, 2017. https://ladyandtheblog.com/hello-fellow-soccer-moms/. 

General knowledge based on lectures by Professor Brooke L. Blower from January 19th, 2023, to May 2nd, 2023.