Research suggests that compared with working-class parents, middle-class parents more commonly enrol their children in organised activities with the aim of increasing their prospects of future success in education and working life. Organised activities are seen as an important contribution to the reproduction of social class. Most of previous studies originate from the UK and the US. Drawing on a Bourdieusian understanding of social class, this study contributes to the discussion by exploring class-based reasoning about extracurricular activities among Swedish parents. As a ‘social-democratic welfare regime’, Sweden provides a markedly different institutional and social context than is usually found in the literature. In the present study, interviews with 37 working-class and middle-class parents are qualitatively analysed. Findings show similarities in parents’ reasoning, indicating that Swedish parenting culture and childrearing ideals partly cross class boundaries. They also suggest, however, that the middle-class parents typically regarded extracurricular activities as more important, and enrolled their children in more activities, than the working-class parents. One group of working-class parents did not enrol their children in extracurricular activities. The contradiction between similarities emanating from dominant national cultural understandings of parenting and childrearing and dissimilarities based on class-culture socialisation is explored in this article. One tentative conclusion is that working-class parents’ lower participation levels is not only explained by cultural and financial resources, but also by limited control over working hours.