ABSTRACT
For convenience of comparison, Table XXXI gives a general summary of the class differences in baby care. It will be seen that in nearly all cases there is a general trend running right through the occupational groups. Where there are big differences
in behaviour, the most obvious distinction is between middleclass and working-class attitudes; almost every area of behaviour shows a broad gulf between professional-managerial class practices and those of the skilled manual group which, it will be remembered, makes up about half of the general population. Of especial interest here is the white-collar section of Class Ill. When making the middle-class/working-class distinction in these chapters, we have included all white-collar workers together in the middle class; and it is clear that, on the criterion of child upbringing at least, we were not mistaken in dividing the Registrar General's Class Ill in this way.l Shop and office workers' wives behave in general rather differently from the rest of Class Ill; in some cases-the age at which they have their first baby, for instance, and their use of bottle or dummy beyond the baby's first birthday-they approximate more nearly to professional-class norms than to those of manual workers. In certain areas, however-notably in the use of smacking and the prevention of genital play-they are closer in behaviour to the skilled manual group, although even here they retain their position as bridge between manual and professional workers. The only case in which they really break out of rank, as it were, is in the participant role of the father. It is probably true to say that the wives of office and shop employees have aspirations to middle-class attitudes and behaviours, but that their limited resources, both financial and educational, determine a manner of living which in many ways is less unlike that of manual workers than they might wish.
