ABSTRACT
Within families, children and adults continuously negotiate new relationships, and a principal focus for these negotiations is the division of domestic labour. Most investigations of this topic focus on children’s emergence from dependence on parental care to independence (see, for example, Solberg 1990). However, the economic and social private household should also be understood as a unit of reciprocal care and interdependence (see Brannen 1995; Mayall 1998; Morrow 1996). This chapter explores ways in which families organise domestic labour within the constraints of their daily lives, and how dependence, independence and interdependence are intertwined in the child’s relationships with other family members. The focus is on young schoolchildren. Which positions do parents assign to their children in the family household? How do children deal with the positions allocated to them? Which particular kinds of social childhood are produced by schoolchildren and their parents in the daily processes of dividing domestic labour?
