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“No Vacation for Mother”: Traditional Gender Roles in Outdoor Travel Literature, 1940–1965

In the 1961 Ladies Home Journal article “Can Parents and Children Share Vacation Fun?,” renowned pediatrician and parenting expert Benjamin Spock commented, “in the planning of vacations, the children’s benefit is often given first consideration, the father’s next, and the mother’s last.” He admitted that children should be given top priority “because if the children are out of sorts nobody has any fun,” but he also suggested, “I’d like to at least make the gesture of thinking of the mother’s situation first.” In his opinion, “she has to spend the good part of the day doing the same things she has to do the rest of the year, but with less adequate facilities.” Although some women in his research confessed that the “mother’s job is harder,” the majority replied that they derived pleasure from seeing the enjoyment of other family members, especially their children. According to Spock, some women had never “really stopped to think whether there’s any fun for themselves; they operate on the assumption that it’s woman’s job to take care of children and husband wherever they are.” Although he said the female temperament was suited for “monotonous job[s]” and mothers often “go through a hundred disconnected, humdrum chores each day, which bring no financial reward, fame, and only occasional thanks,” Spock advised that they may need a vacation, too. He exhorted readers, “I think that the mother, who is the most homebound member of the family,