Soccer mom is an American term that describes a stereotypical, middle-class suburban mother, heavily invested in her children’s welfare, who spends most of her time shuttling her children to activities such as soccer in a minivan. As early as the 1980s the phrase soccer mom was used to describe mothers involved in the economic and volunteer support of soccer organizations for childhood soccer. The term soccer mom hit the national consciousness in the 1996 American presidential campaign, to describe the demographic of generally stay-at-home mothers who were busy taking care of their family’s day-to-day needs. While the term hockey mom is also in use to describe a middle-class suburban mother who spends her time shuttling her children to hockey, soccer mom appears in print nine times more often than hockey mom, according to Google’s Ngram Viewer. This is probably due to the fact that soccer has two seasons every year and is a much more popular sport for children than hockey. Soccer mom is usually considered a pejorative, with the connotation that the mother in question pushes her children into too many activities at the expense of their mental and physical health, as well as at the expense of developing of her own interests and talents.
Examples
Being a soccer mom requires time, perseverance and a high tolerance for pain and unholy stenches. (The Deseret News)
Cheryl “The Soccer Mom” Anderson has performed stand-up comedy for the past decade, and knows well that when a bride-to-be and her tipsy pals are in the audience, some heckling may soon come her way. (The Sacramento Bee)
“Someday, these cars will be safe enough that children could go from one place to the other without having a soccer mom having to drive or a soccer dad,” he said. (U.S. News & World Report)