29 Sep 2014
Children’s after-school activities leaving middle class mums worn out, says Loughborough study
Many middle class mums are exhausted because of their children’s after-school activities, according to a Loughborough University academic.
Professor Sarah Holloway says middle-class mums are working flat out trying to keep their children occupied with activities that enrich their lives.
She says that 42 per cent of middle class children who took part in her study did more than five extra-curricular activities a week, compared to 6.5 per cent of working class children.
As a result, the nature of middle class family life has been transformed in ways that have benefits for children but can leave working mums, especially those with more than one child, tired out.
That’s one of the major findings of a research paper called ‘Enriching Children, Institutionalizing Childhood? Geographies of Play, Extracurricular Activities, and Parenting in England’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
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