The generational shift towards the reciprocal disclosure of intimacy in daughter–father relationships through physical activity in the UK

Abstract

Within family sociology during the past 30 years, while a general consensus has developed that most parents and children in the Western world have come to share relationships characterised by a greater degree of intimate disclosure, the extent to which parent–child relationships have become ‘purer’ and more egalitarian remains a contested issue. Although there has been a developing interest in involved fathering through sport and physical activity over the past decade, research has yet to concentrate on the consequences of this transformation for daughters. This article applies Mannheim’s tenet of generation entelechy to life history interviews with 14 women born between 1950 and 1994 to argue that involved fathering through physical activity offers conditions for daughters to realise a long-held desire to establish more emotionally reciprocated intimate bonds with fathers. Daughters described a shift from viewing fathers as emotionally uninvolved workers to becoming interdependent intimates.