Introduction to theme issue on leisure and the family

This Theme Issue on Leisure and the Family is a new initiative of the Journal of Leisure Research where accepted papers on the same theme are published together in the same issue. Unlike a special issue, where papers are submitted based on a call for papers on a specific topic, a Theme Issue contains papers that are submitted to the journal as regular papers but are then grouped together after acceptance and published in the same issue. Thus, a Theme Issue arises spontaneously when a number of papers on the same theme happen to be accepted around the same time. This first Theme Issue on the theme of Leisure and the Family begins with a paper by Izenstark and Middaugh (2022) titled “Patterns of family-based nature activities across the early life course and their association with adulthood participation and preference.” A significant limitation in research on the developmental outcomes of children’s exposure to the natural environment is the tendency to limit childhood nature experiences to one point in time. The authors address this deficiency by investigating continuity and change in familybased nature activity participation patterns in terms of activity type and frequency across the early life course, based on five developmental periods, and whether these early experiences are associated with adulthood preferences and participation. The next two papers in this theme issue are much more focused on mothers and specific leisure activities. In “Leisure reading experience promoting prenatal attachment among pregnant women: A moderated mediation model,” Nivedhitha and Geetha (2022), note that amongst women, leisure reading is the most frequently chosen leisure activity, and thus it has the potential to reduce stress and enhance positivity for expecting mothers. Thus, they construct a moderated mediation model to explain leisure reading’s indirect effects upon prenatal attachment. Liu, Jia, and Wang (2022) in “Yoga leisure and identity development of Chinese second-time mothers” note that while China adopted a universal two-child policy in 2016, Chinese second-time mothers experience challenges balancing family, career, and other life dimensions. Thus, they explore the role of yoga leisure in helping these mothers cope with these challenges and to reduce identity conflicts. The subsequent two papers concern widowhood and tragedy in the lives of women. Standridge, Dunlop, Kleiber, and Aday (2022), in a paper titled “Widowhood and leisure: An exploration of leisure’s role in coping and finding a new self,” report on in-depth interviews with 13 widows concerning their leisure activities as they adapted to the new reality of being a single woman. Leisure activities were sought out for changing needs (e.g., support, companionship, and distraction), to provide connections with women in similar circumstances, and as a means of personal evolution. In “Travel after tragedy—A phenomenological study on what it takes for women to travel solo after tragedy,” Sengupta (2022) investigates what prompts women to travel after a tragedy and how such travel assists them to cope with trauma. Most of the tragedies that led to travel were related to family members such as the death of a family member, separation, or divorce. The first and most important of the