Page 120 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

In search of a ‘good mix’ 113
‘movements in the social space’ discussed in this chapter are not only classed,
but also raced and gendered. They are also involved in the affirmation of a
particular sense of self, suggesting a more complex interplay between subjec-
tivity and practice than Bourdieu might imply in his discussion of ‘disposi-
tions’. This section examines how the women moved in the social space of
motherhood and the non-‘random’ collection of friends that they made in
that space.
The women in Clapham met and made friendships with other mothers
in various ways. They went to ante- and post-natal classes, both those run
by the health authority and those run by non-governmental organisations
such as the Natural Childbirth Trust (NCT). These were classed and raced,
by virtue of both their geographic location and the nature of the activity.
For instance, Jan noted that the NCT ‘tends to be very kind of, um, terribly
well-heeled and all of a type really’ (Interview 30). They also made friends
through chance (or not so chance) encounters in baby clinics, in the street
and through mutual friends. Playgroups of various forms are also forums for
socialising, for both mothers and children. While not all women used them,
some made a point of taking their babies and toddlers to activities (including
swimming and music classes) almost every day. This was generally presented
as a strategy for relieving the intensity of full-time care of young children,
allowing both parent and child to have other company.
In my experience of being in one o’clock clubs or playgroups, which I
attended in order to contact potential interviewees, there is a great degree of
social segregation with middle- and working-class women forming separate
groups (childminders and nannies, particularly those from abroad, formed
another group). The playgroups I attended were largely white. The social
segregation was also noticed by Karon, a working-class woman living in
Clapham who was not part of these two friendship groups. She was forth-
right about the impact of class on the interactions at the one o’clock club
that she attended:

Karon: Well, you get the yuppie mums, or so we call them. I call them the
yuppy mums and they are all interacting and they stay together
and they turn up and have their own little social things. In the
summer, they do make you laugh actually. They come over and
they’ve got their picnics and they’re sitting under the trees and
they really do make it known. Then there’s, well I’d class myself
as a working-class person, you know, we have different . . .. But
then saying that, don’t get me wrong, I do socialise with the ‘up-
per market’ you might call it [laugh]. You know, some of them
are very very friendly and some of them make it known that
they won’t be you know dirtying with you.
BB: Really, how do they do that?
Karon: They just ignore you. They just think they’re better than you.
Nose up in the air, they don’t even acknowledge you. And
they’re the children that you find are the worst behaved. They