“I’ve Seen What Evil Men Do”: Military Mothering and Children’s Outdoor Risky Play

Abstract

The restrictions on children’s outdoor risky play is emerging as a pressing public health concern. To the best of our knowledge, no research has examined military mothers’ perspectives on outdoor risky play. Military mothers have unique knowledge of war and combat and potential threats to children’s safety due to their communications with their partners in combat arms occupations. Their perspectives on outdoor risky play are important to consider to expand scholarly understandings of risk discourses in the context of military culture. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 military mothers from across Canada. The results of our reflexive thematic analysis are threefold: (1) Outdoor risky play in close physical proximity to strangers and cars is dangerous for children; (2) outdoor risky play should not result in children experiencing serious injuries; and (3) outdoor risky play can teach children to assess and manage risks.

Keywords:

• Child health
• injury prevention
• military mothering
• outdoor play
• risk

Disclsoure statement

There are no potential conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This research was approved by the Department of National Defense's Social Science Research Review Board and supported through the Military Family Resource Centre. This work was further supported through the first author's receipt of a doctoral award by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada under award #756-2021-0278; and by the first author's receipt of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship under award #010-027-650. The third author is supported by a salary award from the British Columbia Children's Hospital Research Institute.