In Sweden of today a general idea of childhood seem to be that childhood is and should be a phase of life free from work. Labour laws regulate children-s access to the labour market and compulsory school attendance places children in demarcated school areas. However, investigations and research from different parts of the world show that children often work in their spare time outside school. Given this, it is not presumptuous to assume that children do participate in work life and on the labour market. But what is the nature and extent of the work the children take part in and how can it be studied? In my ethnographic research I have found that children-s work in Sweden of today often takes place at home, a few short moments every day or during short periods every week at different locations in the communities where the children live, and not in one particular relatively demarcated workplace. This seems to have created a paradoxical situation in which children-s work has been hidden and in which children-s activities seldom are noticed, registered or considered and defined as actual forms of work.