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

be at work and have my child be in a nursery and, yeah, just sort of build on
that really. (Natasha, two children, black Caribbean, lone mother, at home)

And being at home and.. .I thought, ‘This is just depressing,’ you know,
because I suppose, you know, because not all the time I wanted to go out when
I thought [child] needed fresh air, this and that. And if I did go out I’m a
person I can’t go out and window-shop, I have to go and buy. (Diana, three
children, black Caribbean, lone mother, pt post office worker, baby at ft
nursery from six months)

This enthusiasm for childcare, especially nursery care, and ambivalence towards the
benefits of staying at home was a somewhat unexpected finding of the study. The
positive attitude towards the ‘expertise’ of professional childcare workers corresponds
well with policy messages around child development (e.g. Birth to Three Matters,
Sure Start 2003). Yet, it also leaves working class mothers with a negative sense that
they may not be able to give their children all they need.

Discussion: towards a new division in the moral universe of mothering

This paper considered the diverse practices and identities around mothering and paid
work negotiated by a sample of working class mothers with young children in two
different localities in inner London. We found that the policy discourse positioning
employment as a social responsibility and central to a positive sense of personal
fulfilment was powerful and ubiquitous across the sample. It appears that an
exclusive identity as mother is increasingly contested among the urban, working class

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