Managing Sports Career and Family Life
A major problem in retaining women athletes occurs when they start a family. In most, but not all cases, a male athlete continues his career unimpeded after the birth of a child in the family. A woman athlete, on the other hand, either retires or continues on with her sport, but with enormous stresses of juggling child care and training and competition commitments.
In today’s society, women fulfill many roles, and sports women are no exceptions. They are also wives and mothers, struggling to meet the demands of both careers and families.
As a mother, as a wife, or as a member of the family, sports women are keenly aware of the balance that must be maintained by any sports woman. Training, family, injuries, community commitments, etc., all have to be delicately weighed before the dream to participate in their chosen sport and win can be realized.
In the past, household labor shaped women’s lives. The wife cooked, washed clothes, planted vegetable gardens, milked cows, managed dairies, pickled and preserved and smoked and salted meats. She also took care of the children, stitched shirts, knit stockings, made soap, candles, and medicines.
Tips to Manage Both Family Life and Sports Career
Times have changed but the chores haven’t changed for women even these days. However, the new roles that women have taken on depend on their relationships with their families. In becoming professionals and continuing with their chosen sport, women have to look for help in the area of child care and home maintenance. Home and child rearing once seen as the female domain is not as much only the concern of the wife; it is becoming a shared responsibility. And, the sports woman must now depend not only on her spouse, but often on a network of relatives and neighbors to help with child care.
Children too have to pitch in with their share of house hold chores. Children should be so conditioned that they no longer expect that they will have constant access to their mothers. If necessary, the children should expect to come home from school to an empty house because mother is still at work. All said and done, it is still the mother who most often must juggle her work schedule when her children are sick. It is still the mother that is looked to for nurturing and comfort.
Legal Provisions – A Great Help for Sports Women
In July 2005, an anti-discrimination provision was introduced to the Qualified Sports Act in Poland. The provision enables sportswomen to engage in further development shortly after giving birth. Female members of national teams unable to compete as a result of pregnancy or childbirth receive a sports stipend in the full amount for the duration of their pregnancy and half the amount of the sports stipend for six months following childbirth. Before that provision was introduced, the overwhelming majority of sportswomen abandoned further involvement in sport after giving birth to a child. Because of this provision, Polish competitive sports are no longer forced to lose outstanding sportswomen. Similar laws should be drafted in each and every country to facilitate the return of the sports women after they start a family.
Sources: United Nations, Empire State College