ABSTRACT
This is a study about women, and in particular about young women with young children. But it is also intended to throw some more light on patterns of family life in the two social classes. In fact the starting point for this research was the desire to test further the findings of studies such as Family and Kinship in East London (Young and Willmott, 1951). This work highlighted the importance of the extended family and showed this to be the main source of wider social contact for working class families. It provided the main doorway to friendship and was maintained in particular by the relationship between ‘Mum’ and her married daughter. The close relationship between extended families was already well known to those who were concerned with the rehousing of people from slum areas, and Mogey in his study Family & Neighbourhood (1956) found the St. Ebbes families all part of extended networks, and very ill at ease when moved to new housing estates. But whereas the emphasis in the study by Young and Willmott had been on family relationships as a result of active choice, Mogey’s study suggested that working class patterns of social contacts are by nature a passive acceptance of family and neighbourhood rather than an active selection of a circle of friends and contacts which involves a degree of social skill.
