ABSTRACT
The Peek Frean employees had vigorously repudiated any such charges of neglect, asserting that it was primarily the children who benefited from their mother working. In view of these divergent claims the team tried to test a hypothesis which, at its simplest, was that the children of the Bermondsey households whose mother went out to work ‘fared worse’ than those whose mother was a housewife. Minding is a highly charged subject emotionally, it is related to the individual child’s own maturity, and to family and class interpretations of what constitute proper care. The school children were often at home when the team member called, since much of the interviewing was done in the evening and in school holidays. The children were thought to come by money and its temptations too easily, and were over-reluctant to take the rough with the smooth.
