To ask about your experience with male nursery staff

Yes, because 97-98% of nursery workers are female. Some women like Vanessa George have allowed themselves to be conduit for male abuse and that is obvious terrible but sexual abuse by female workers is still extremely rare.

A more informative stat is to consider the number of abuse cases by males in relation to their proportion of the workforce - 2-3%. I would suggest that as in other areas, the abuse cases per head perpetrated by males far exceeds that of women (by an exponential amount).

Criminologists know that the biggest determining factor in criminality is sex. Male people are significantly more likely than females to commit crimes (yes, I know your Nigel is lovely - no one is saying ALL males).

There are a tiny handful of male midwives in the country - guess how many now have convictions for sex offences? Some jobs attract men with bad intentions.

I’m not saying that no male should be a nursery worker and I’m glad people on this thread have (so far) had a good experience but we mustn’t forget the facts about safeguarding and prioritise the safety of children.

"I'm all for normalising male carers but it will take time and it's very difficult to balance I think"
40 years ago I was changing kids' nappies at work. My dad did it in the 1960s. It's hardly a new concept 🤔😀

Agree with this. If we accept and actively advocate for these things for women and girls in general, then they're a must for those women and girls who are additionally vulnerable whether that's age, disability etc.

If this helps OP- We have two young male members of staff at my daughter's nursery and they are both fantastic. Our daughter is very fond of both of them and I personally feel proud that this nursery has given her experiences from a young age of men in caring roles, alongside women.

My DD had a male keyworker in her 3 year old provision, he was fantastic and she loved him. I was a single parent and I really valued having a regularly present male role model.

There was only one in my daughter's nursery, very briefly, and there wasn't much to say. He didn't do any of her nappy changes etc and I wouldn't have been comfortable with it if he did. I'm all for normalising male carers but it will take time and it's very difficult to balance I think.

My daughter has however had male play workers are forest school and outdoor based play centres and when she was younger she definitely had a different dynamic with them than female ones which was interesting. She also had a male teacher this year and he novelty has worn off for her 😆

U11

AllPlayedOut
I am from the area where these assaults have taken place.
This worker had worked at 20 child care centres.
Tip of the iceberg.
There must be huge changes to the childcare system.
Suggested are - 2 workers must be present at all times.
Security cameras to be installed in all areas.
Working With Children police checks are just a joke.
They are expecting huge numbers of class action lawsuits suits.
One of the news readers actually broke down on air.

We had an awful experience with a male nursery nurse. I can't even type it, it was so awful.

You lose any argument because you decided to resort to randomly insulting women who might disagree with you anyway...

Of course there are other types of abuse but men are also much more likely to commit violent crimes than women. Even if women as a class spend far more time looking after children so you may expect more cases of women harming children whom they care for as they are far more often the main carer. But when we are talking about young pre-verbal children in a childcare setting who require personal care then sexual abuse is going to be the greater concern as it provides more opportunity to be alone with the child and it requires intimate care so it is easier to disguise abuse as part of personal care. Some activities are inherently riskier. This also applies to adult safeguarding hence why male Drs can see female patients for most things alone but if an intimate examination is required then a chaperone will generally be offered.

Why are you obsessed with sex crimes? There are many types of abuse, any of them can leave psychological scars for life and have nothing to do with sex. With women I would be worried about other types of abuse.

My theory is that while yes, there are dodgy men out there who may perhaps use nursery work as a way to access children, the reality is that these men are watched more closely than any other worker.

MOre imprtantly, I also believe that my definition, the vast bulk of male nursery workers are often among the best. the reason being siply that due to the way our society and culture works, men who choose to be nursery workers are doing so as an active choice. We always had lovely nursery workers but without a doubt, many of the women were there simply because it was a convenient job that they could get with little additional education or skills or while ithey were waiting to do something else. It means that the male nursery workers are almost all in the group of nursery workers who do it because they love it while for female nursery worers, this group is a smaller percentage.

The only downside of our male nursery worker, who was also DS' preferred babysitter fr a while, was that he did rather drop to male stereotypes.... when he babysat, I'd come home to the lounge in a complete state! he'd let DS play with all his toys, put him to bed and then just sit and watch tv. drove me mad!

My daughter's nursery had one male member of staff, who wasn’t her keyworker but she liked him and often talked about the funny things he did. The nursery next door to her school (who provide the wraparound care) also have one male member of staff.

In both cases, they are working in the pre-school room
with three and four year olds. I don’t know if this was their preference, or whether the nursery managers acknowledged that parents might feel uncomfortable with a male member of staff looking after non-verbal children. When the vast majority of child sex abuse is carried out by men, it is statistically more of a risk than with female staff.

There was a young male skate-boarding nursery worker at my kids' nursery, he was brilliant, all the kids adored him.

Over the time my children have been at nursery they have both had a male member of staff as a key worker (DD and DS). DS loved it - he really bonded with him and I think it’s such a positive dynamic to have a male role model in caring roles. He played the guitar and sang to the kids and generally was just a lovely and easy going presence. I think we’re so programmed to think that men that want to work with children are weird or predatory that I felt my own concern peak a little but there was nothing at all wrong with it. DD also loved the chap who worked in her room - he was much more fun and enthusiastic than most of the women tbh - some of whom didn’t seem to be there because of a love of children but more because it was one of the acceptable career choices for them.

Based on my experience I don’t have a problem with it.

Our nursery has 3 male workers. We haven't had any problems and our DS really likes all of them. I take it a good indicator that he happily goes to them when they answer the door.

However, being completely honest, if I had the option of which sex looked after him, I would choose female. There have been a few awful news stories recently about male nursery workers. For those saying "what difference does sex make", my answer would be that sadly men are far more likely to be sexually motivated than women. But I am well aware children and babies are at more risk of other types of abuse, as has also been publicised in multiple stories recently.

But I wouldn't take him out of nursery based on the sex of the staff unless I had concerns (trans member of staff would be a different story, I'd be out of there like a shot).

This is a very, very sad post.

@Itallcomesdowntothis Also, worth noting that 0.8% of girls under 5 in the UK equates to almost 14,000 girls. That is not tiny.

Exactly. Entirely unscientific but I would expect that a greater percentage of of fishermen both amateur and professional, die by drowning than say, skateboarders. Not because fishermen are more foolish or careless than skateboarders but because their hobby or career means that their job/hobby means that they are far more likely to spend a lot of time in close proximity to water. Just as women are far more likely than men to care for children(Either their own or as a childcare professional)

So girls were 4 times more likely to be reported as abused. What about the statistics relating to the sex of the alleged perpetrator?

Okay well the NSPCC state that .2% of boys and .8% of girls under 11 are reported abused (clearly it is more but this is their report).

90% of that was from someone they knew

A third of that was from another child.

It’s a fact that men are more likely to sexually abuse children than women and therefore children are statistically less safe with a male nursery worker.

That said, I have had very positive experiences with the two male nursery workers at my son’s nursery. They’re both brilliant.

Even though I agree the risk is higher with male nursery workers it is still very very unlikely to happen. Ask your nursery about their safeguarding protocols, be diligent with that.

Please can you provide information to support your suggestion that both men and women are 'likely' to abuse children, unless you're willing to acknowledge that it's more commonly men than women?

Also, as already demonstrated, safeguarding is a small part of the process required to keep children safe. If pre-employment checks were enough, there would be no safeguarding concerns raised, no prosecutions, and no sanctions on professional registrations. If you're including reports of concern under your use of "safeguarding", then remember that when a concern is raised it's because someone has already likely been harmed, and therefore harm is not prevented by this process - only further harm is potentially prevented.

Five minutes on Google and I’ve found dozens of stories from various countries including the UK. They’re out there even if the stories don’t make the big British news sites.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/20/daycare-worker-prison-sentence-sexual-touching-child-sydney-ntwnfb

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-04/qld-ex-childcare-worker-abuse-charges-named/102931896

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-11/pratik-bhattarai-childcare-worker-jailed-child-sexual-abuse/105036550

https://amp.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article301640854.html

https://www.wsmv.com/2024/12/07/he-was-monster-mother-victim-speaks-out-after-man-accused-raping-children-unlicensed-antioch-daycare/?outputType=amp

https://abc11.com/amp/post/Nc-man-ryan-olufs-charged-sexual-exploitation-girl-child-care-center-moore-co-1-million-bond/16362549/

https://www.kdll.org/local-news/2025-03-26/kenai-man-arrested-for-alleged-sexual-abuse-at-in-home-daycare-center

https://region.com.au/man-who-sexually-abused-four-year-old-at-daycare-given-18-months-jail/724332/

https://amp.kentucky.com/news/nation-world/national/article240837821.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2wrgd91w6o.amp

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jul/13/nursery-worker-jailed-eight-years

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-04/jail-for-tas-childcare-worker-who-sexually-abused-4yo-girl/102684050

https://kmyu.tv/news/local/ogden-daycare-worker-tanner-wayne-dobson-pleads-guilty-to-child-sexual-exploitation

https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2024/03/former-daycare-worker-gets-40-years-in-prison-for-sexual-assaults-of-multiple-children.html?outputType=amp

There are many more unfortunately.