The women were slumped despondently in plastic chairs and pointedly ignored the little ones smashing Lego a few feet away. The youngest mum noticed me hovering in the doorway and waved me over.

"First time?" she asked. Despite my daughter being nearly a year old, it was our first day at a playgroup; but for the mums I met, the groups are a lifeline, a place where they escape the extreme claustrophobia of their broken homes. Out of the six mothers there, only two (including myself) were over 23 years old. The others lived a) at their mum's, b) in a bedsit, or c) in a hostel.

Chewing on a free, broken Digestive, I listened to Jo's story. Her Nigerian father had kicked her out the day she admitted she was pregnant. "I was 17 and studying well," she sighed as her four-year-old girl slapped a boy twice her size.

The largest mum leapt up with a shout. "That little cow," she raged. Her thighs clashing furiously, she thundered outside to break up the fight. We watched through the windows as she tore the toddlers apart and dangled them from ample fists like a pair of rag dolls. The little girl's mum looked worried, but had the good sense to stay in her seat. Lip-reading wasn't necessary either, as we could hear every word.

"C'mere you little, you little . . ." the large mum started, then paused. There was an invisible code of conduct that all the women followed. Smoking and swearing were the norm, if done subtly and away from the prying eyes of social services. The toddlers were told to "kiss and make up", and the gossip continued.

Despite some really miserable circumstances, the young mothers seemed to cling to propriety and competed to win an unstated "best mum" contest.

"I live on a very nice estate," said one, giving its name.

"That's not an estate," said the girl on her left, "that's a hostel. I know it 'cos my mate stayed there when she got homeless." The word hung in the air, as loathsome as anthrax.

"I'm not homeless," was the quiet reply. "We live in a nice flat." The other girl wouldn't let it go, and after a while it was conceded that yes, OK, it was more of a room in a hostel than a flat, but she had made it nice for them and they'd be moving to a bedsit soon, all right?

On Friday, I tried another playgroup. The pamphlet describing the "Steiner" way of learning used phrases like "encouraging natural enthusiasm" and should have told me to beware.

The inside of the church hall seemed to have had all colour surgically removed. Once through the double doors, I almost rubbed my eyes. Old, brown rugs sagged across bare floorboards; simple wooden blocks and pine cones were the only "toys". An old dapple grey rocking horse from the Fifties swayed spookily in one corner. In the other, old sheets had been draped across chairs to make a playhouse/grotto area. Nervously, I put Alexandra down. It was eerily quiet, and she looked at me in confusion.

Four mummies (most of them in sandals) were making bread with their silent offspring in one corner. Every move they made was syrupy with sincerity. "Here, darling, here's the dough," whispered one. "Here, darling, let's make a bread roll," said another in an identical pitch and tone. A strange keening floated through the cloying air towards us. It was the "Bread-Making Song", the words as indistinct as the tune. Then the ladies in sandals hummed a "tidy up" song and soon, inevitably, it was time to sit in a circle and hold hands. A blessing was offered to the sun for the food we were about to receive. I mentally vowed to flee the moment Reverend Moon's name was mentioned, or if anyone made an attempt to rename Alexandra "She Who Picks Her Nose" or some such nonsense.

The two-tier education service starts much earlier than age five, but here, just possibly, the middle classes do not have the best deal.