Page 139 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

132 In search of a ‘good mix’
come to tea and the invitation is not reciprocated, for perhaps
a number of reasons. You know, perhaps they live in small flats
and they don’t want other children to come round, which is
perfectly reasonable. But there are enough of us with sort of
‘middle-class’ families, for want of a better word, that they can
spend time with out of school hours and do things with that
both families might enjoy doing. So, it’s not been a problem.
BB: So their, kind of, out-of-school friends, as opposed to their in-
school friends are more middle class?
Liz: Yes, I think that’s true.
BB: And how does that relate to the children they play with or spend
time with in school?
Liz: ...Funnily enough, they’re not the same group of children.
Yeah, they don’t necessarily spend . . . [. . .] Susanna, I suppose
she’s got three girls who she would consider best friends. One is
a neighbour whose family are very like ours – and we see each
other socially and da de da de da. The other is a little girl who
I don’t even know where she lives and she’s come recently to
the school and I haven’t actually met her mother. So she never
comes here because that seems to be very difficult to arrange
and I’ve often said to Susanna ‘Oh why don’t you invite Ruby?’
and she says ‘Oh no mum, it’s not, that isn’t going to work, you
know, Ruby doesn’t do that sort of thing’. And the other little
girl fortunately lives just across the road and her family of course
are very different from ours. In that her mother’s a single parent
and... the child’s father hasn’t lived with them for some time,
it’s quite a complicated situation. But she’s fine because she lives
across the road. And there was a bit of difficulty sorting things
out to begin with. But that’s been quite [questioning] well recip-
rocated. Susanna’s actually spent the weekend there and stayed
the night. But I think it’s much more difficult for her mother to
have Susanna to stay than it is for us to have Chloe to stay. So
I think it’s not entirely quid pro quo. Which is absolutely fine
anyway. You know, things sort of work themselves out.
(Interview 43)

It is interesting that Liz’s children also understood that there were some
families that take part in the practice of after-school play and others, such as
her friend’s, that did not. Children may be more aware than parents realise
of the way in which social differences structure people’s behaviour and so-
cialising. Liz clearly marked this form of socialising as classed. The particular
child in question whom Liz’s daughter thought would not want to come and
play was black. Liz did consider that ‘race’ might be connected, but did not
know if it was significant (and it is also impossible for us to judge):