‘I’m so much more myself now, coming back to work’ - working class mothers, paid work and childcare.

Elsewhere we have written about the lack of so-called ‘weak’ social ties of many of
the interviewees in the study (Vincent et al. 2008b). Working class families with
limited financial means and cramped housing are at a considerable disadvantage with
regards to building up the kind of networks and social circles of other mothers and
young children described by middle class interviewees in our earlier study. These
social meetings often revolved around children’s activities (e.g. lunch and tea in each
others’ houses, music groups, art club, etc.), activities which hardly got any mention
in the accounts of the day-to-day lives of our working class respondents. Like the
lone mothers in Power’s (2005) Canadian study, the mothers in our study are ‘flawed
consumers’, unable to engage with these types of social activities that often require
considerable financial resources. In the absence of motherhood providing close social
ties, it is not surprising that some of the working class mothers in our study talked
warmly about the friendships offered to them through work:

I missed the [school] children at work and I missed my friends and socialising
and, yeah, things like that. So being at home [during maternity leave] was.. .I
sort of felt a bit left on the shelf, you know? (Jocelyn, five children, black
Caribbean, lone mother, pt teaching assistant)

I like adult interaction, I like my colleagues at work, I like all of that. [] You
know, you go out to lunch with your colleagues. [] Because I’ve got different
colleagues, you know, some are Muslims, some are this, so you get invited to
so many things. (Dinah, one child, black Caribbean, lone mother, ft admin
officer)

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