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the monitoring of children are commonly assigned to domestic maids (Plate 22) by most of the elite parents.

Plate 22: A girl-child, domestic help placed in charge of monitoring a child during church

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Plate 23: A group of children reciting biblical verses during church service on a Sunday morning. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani: Fieldwork, 2012).

Plate 24: Children listening to religious teaching during church service on a Sunday morning. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani: Fieldwork, 2012).

On the other hand, the Muslims train their children in the ways of observing five daily compulsory prayers at any convenient place they may be at the stipulated time. As such, praying mats and tes‟bius are made available within Muslim households. The act of observing prayer times is voluntary for children below seven years of age, but as from age seven, it is made compulsory and enforced by parents through disciplinary measures.

Children in the company of their parents attend Jum‟at services at different mosques on Fridays. Young children are also encouraged to participate in fasting activities during the yearly Ramadan but they are given the privilege of breaking before the scheduled time, usually 6:00pm. In addition, some of the Muslim children attend weekend Quranic schools

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where they are trained on how to pray, recite long passages from the Quran and to write in Arabic language (Plate 25).

Plate 25: Children listening to religious teaching in a Quranic School on a Saturday morning. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani:Fieldwork, 2012).

In terms of dressing, children are commonly dressed in trendy western clothes while the Muslim girl child covers her head with hijab (head scarf worn by Muslims women). In most cases, some of the children do insist on dressing like foreign children, who they imitate from watching cable television programmes (which most of the parents willingly provide if they can afford it). As one of parents, Mrs. Olalekan, indicated:

… if my child expresses a desire for any material thing and I can afford it, why would I not satisfy such wish? After all I am only going through the stress of working because I wanted to see to the needs of my family, of which my children are of paramount priority.

Based on such a view, most of the elite children‘s clothing consists of foreign clothes, bought in clothes stores, or through office marketing or home delivery services, while some of the average or low income earners provide their children with different ―grades‖ of fairly used clothing popular called okrika. Traditional attires are often worn by the children during social functions on Sundays or when there is a cultural display programme in their schools (Plate 26 & 27).

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Plate 26: Children (Boys) in traditional attires. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani: Fieldwork, 2012).

Plate 27: Children (Girls) in traditional attires. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani: Fieldwork, 2012).

In sum, the child-rearing practices adopted by most parent participants engaged in formal employments is often a joint responsibility that rests solely on the biological mother and father but the individual financial investment on their children varies. For instance, the direct financial costs of raising children, including expenses on rents or home maintenance, electrical appliances, transportation, feeding, health and educational training are usually taken care of by most fathers, while other expenses on clothing, domestic appliances, health, and other children‘s needs, are usually provided by the mothers.

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4.5.3 Rubrics of Observed Child-Rearing Practices among Parents in Informal Employments

The dominant child-rearing practices among parent in informal employments vary but most of the activities observed in the homes and family units of the literate parents, engaged in informal occupations, are similar in many respects to their counterparts in the formal sector. On the other hand, most of the illiterate parents, engage in trade and practical occupations, often depend on the first early morning Islamic call to prayer for their wake-up time, while others employ different methods of waking up as described earlier. Early morning prayers are compulsory for Muslims, either at home or in the mosques around 5:00am, while Christians observe their own either as individuals or as a family unit. However, majority of the parent traders barely participate in early morning prayer sessions due to their tight working schedule that hardly leaves space for such activities. For instance, most of them often want to avoid the early morning rush hour in order to get to stores or markets early, or travel to neighbouring villages or other states to purchase goods.

Nevertheless, children of illiterate parents obligatorily greet their parents in the morning, as the first or second most essential mandate that must be fulfilled in the morning.

The next point of call is their involvement in early morning domestic tasks like sweeping, washing of dishes, warming of leftover foods (Plate 28), among others. Some children have to walk considerable distances to fetch well water (Plate 29), etc., and they continuously go on many trips to provide enough water for the needs of all the family members before going to school. These tasks are commonly assigned permanently to children individually, and dodging such responsibilities is greatly frowned upon by parents or guardians.

Plate 28: Children warming leftover meal in an outdoor kitchen. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani: Fieldwork, 2012)

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Plate 29: A little girl returning from the well with a bowl of water. (Source: Cecilia Owolabani:Fieldwork, 2012).

Waking up late is not commonly encouraged and cannot be used as an excuse for incomplete daily assigned domestic tasks in some of the homes. When the case of going to school late arises, they have to either meet up with their basic morning responsibilities and go to school late or go to school early and forfeit their feeding allowances or other benefits.

Some of the children often leave their homes for schools without having breakfast but few do purchase roadside foods or snacks with part of their feeding allowances. Such food is packaged and taken to school, eaten by the road side or eaten on the way to school. This common habit is encouraged by most of the illiterate parent traders because of their tight schedule that hardly allows any space for breakfast preparation at home.

The children attend both private and government schools, depending on the choice and financial capability of the parents, while babies, toddlers and younger children mostly attend private child-care centres and schools. Those in the primary section of government schools close around 1:00pm while those in secondary sections close around 2:00pm, but young children in kindergarten or prep schools are picked as from 12:00pm. The closing time of those attending private nursery, primary and secondary school varies from 2:00 to 4:00pm.

Only few out of their children participate in extra classes. This low rate is recorded because most of the parents are always available to attend to their children, after the school hours.

However, during closing hours, the children are either dropped by the school buses, collected by their parents, while some commonly strolled home in different age groups (Plate 30), and those going to long distances, assemble as crowds at bus stops to board cabs or buses.

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Plate 30: Children in a private Primary school strolling home after the school hours