To ask about your experience with male nursery staff

I witnesses a male nursery staff put his hand down a little boys trousers so I removed my dd from the nursery and explained why to be told it’s been investigated and it’s believed he was checking the boys nappy to see if it was padded.

I don't think "children are constantly being failed": most children receive a good standard of care. There are failings which are obviously terrible, and there are some instances in which changes to practice could have prevented incidents. But I think it's probably also true that children are much safer in registered childcare now than in the past when they may have been left with anyone who would have them. Eliminating all risk is impossible.

I'm not sure a statistic about sexual abuse (against all people, of all ages) tells us much here, though I agree perpetrators of sexual abuse against children are more likely to be men. The relevant statistic would be whether the number of nursery workers who perpetrate abuse and who are men is disproportionately higher than the number of men work in nurseries. And I don't think that data exists. Also, if we're going on statistics alone, children are most likely to be abused by family members - and no one is advocating for all children to be removed at birth.

I’ve worked with a number of male practitioners in my 30+ years in early years. Most were brilliant. Really tuned in to what the children and knew them well. Great at their job and rarely bitchy in any way.

I’ve worked with two who were quite lazy, one of whom seemed to think women should fall at his feet and seemed surprised that as a mum of two teenagers I had no interest in him the way he wanted me to. He stopped speaking to me when he realised I wasn’t smitten by him. The other one had only applied for a job with us as it was his qualification and as he was travelling he had been unable to pick up bar work. Parents complained they watched too much tv and not a lot of play. He left to travel again and the parents were happy when the assistant manager took the room over and returned to what they expected.

I’ve never worked with a male who has been struck off the SSSC but have worked with females who have found themselves subject to investigations and hearings by the SSSC for not being respectful and nasty.

I have no problem with male teachers or coaches, though again I acknowledge there is a risk and I think that safeguarding in many situations need to be improved but I am not comfortable with children young enough to require personal care, especially if non-verbal, receiving it from male childcare workers.

Who is more at risk to a child step parents/new partner or nursery staff?

Of course I understand the statistical risk etc, but to extrapolate your argument, do we just not let men do these jobs? Do I tell that to my primary teacher nephew? Or my male friend who coaches a girls football team?

It’s not bigotry, it’s reality and you need to give “your head a wobble” (I really detest that phrase) if you think that men as a class are not far more likely to commit sexual abuse than women. They are a much higher risk in terms of violent offences too. Of course we need safeguarding precautions for all adults who’ll come into contact with children in childcare settings and I think that more precautions are needed but men absolutely are more of a risk. (And I have a completely clean record but I’ve never got upset and claimed bigotry when they want background checks when working with vulnerable groups even though statistically I’m in a very low risk category because it isn’t about me.)

Also considering the number of medical processionals who have committed sexual offences against their patients(Again the vast majority male) including while they’re literally undergoing surgery, you’d have to be staggeringly naive to rely on trust.

Beyond the anecdotal, we have to have trust in a professional to do their job properly or we get nowhere. There is some astonishing bigotry expressed here, as well as some welcome enlightenment. I've worked with babies, male and female, so did my father, mother, sister, 2 brothers, several uncles and aunties, and we all managed it without doing anything wrong.
If you don't trust someone to do those jobs simply because they are a man, you need to give your head a wobble 😀

Neither do I but it was on the BBC World news front page which is where I saw it.

And yes I absolutely agree that safeguarding in nurseries is not good enough and that children are constantly being failed but it’s still true that men as a class are much higher risk of committing sexual abuse than women even if there are far more female childcare workers than men. 98% of sexual crimes are committed by men. The difference in risk is enormous.

Dd1 had a male member of staff, along with a female, when she was 3 in nursery. They both were absolutely brilliant, a great double act and the kids absolutely adored both of them. The male was probably in his 60s so had loads of experience and just had such a kind, funny way about him. I would sometimes stay for rhyme time and he was just so entertaining with his funny songs. The kids would literally climb all over him 🤣. I was really disappointed that by the time dd2 went to nursery he'd retired abd she was now working in the kitchen. I credit them both with helping with dd1's confidence

The only person my DS (now 18) remembers from nursery was the male member of staff. He was so gentle and kind.
It's hard to know and only you can know how you feel. If you are very uncomfortable maybe you can ask for a change ?

I don't generally follow Australian news closely, no.

But considering that in the UK, only this year, there's been female nursery workers convicted of physical abuse and manslaughter, we can either say that no one of any gender is trustworthy with children or that the vetting processes usually work and that we need to ensure nursery staff can raise safeguarding concerns about their co workers without fear.

What instincts and how is she suppressing them?

You clearly missed this very recent one then.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4rr2g3072o

Though there have been others.

My DS had two male nursery staff; one was still there for my DD. Both from age 1. I assume they changed nappies! Because they did everything else. They were both outstanding educators who my children loved.

My DDs current nursery has an all female staff but they have visiting e.g sports classes with male teachers.

All the recent stories I've seen of abusive nursery staff - which are terrible but rare - have involved women. I would have no issues with male nursery staff and would employ a male nanny/babysitter.

You really can’t see a difference between the child’s Father and a man who is a relative stranger who you are not present with giving a child personal care?

Again as I said we cannot eliminate all risk, because yes parents can abuse children too and also some female childcare workers but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to minimise it and considering the staggering difference in the rates of sex crimes between men and women? Having only female childcare workers hugely reduces the risk of sexual abuse.

It’s not unreasonable for women to have reservations about a male we barely know doing nappy changes etc on a nonverbal child. We all know that the vast majority of child abuse is by males and that these offenders may be motivated to great lengths to gain access to children.

For preschool age verbal children having a mix of female and male practitioners is great. I’m sure in almost all cases it’s great for younger children too but it depends on how you weigh the potential risk.

Presumably even the child's father, your father and any men in your life too then.

I didn’t actually say that in my post because I personally don’t have any statistics on that. But it’d hardly be surprising if it’s true because the vast majority of nursery workers are female. Men are very much in a minority in childcare.

Vanessa George’s name has always stuck in my mind because of how comparatively rare it is for a woman to sexually abuse children. I have read hundreds of stories about men doing the same and beyond the infamous murderers/sex offenders like Fred West or Ian Brady I couldn’t name any because there are just so many of them.

Of course you’re never going to entirely eliminate risk because someone has to look after children but men commit 98% of sexual abuse and also the majority of violent crime so men as a class are much higher risk in these respects. I don’t have children but I’ve worked in childcare in the past and though I think that male nursery workers can be a positive thing in many respects I would never be comfortable with my hypothetical child receiving personal care from a man.

But as you say most abuse (including sexual) in nursery settings are by women.

There was a man in the nursery/EY team for my boys and he was just one of a team of 4 or 5 who were in at any one time. It turned out that DS1's year group had only 4 girls out of 20 odd and some of those boys had no competent and present men in their lives so it was good for them to have a man interacting with them in a positive way.

Not UK but there’s a horrific case of a male nursery worker in Australia in the news at present . (Warning extremely disturbing)

https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/breaking-news/man-26-charged-with-sexually-abusing-children-at-melbourne-childcare-centre/news-story/b55633b3a8583ef01c1e323d12334133

And yes there have been horrific cases involving female nursery workers too but men commit about 98% of sex crimes so they, as a class, are a much, much higher risk than women. That’s reality not prejudice.

Were these incidences of abuse and manslaughter carried out by male members of staff?
I generally enjoy having male members of staff (just as with females there's the odd one that's lazy or just plain useless), it brings a different energy when you have both and I think for children a mix of staff, male/female, young/older, from different places etc is a great start in life for them.

Not interested in arguing this with the pick me/cool girls crowd, just posting my experience for OP.

Why is someone who disagrees with you or has had a good experience of a male nursery employee a pick me girlor one of the cool girls crowd? I disagree with you and I'm a 69 year old grandma who has never been cool in her entire life.

My DC went to a nursery with a male worker in the toddler room. I observed that he took jokes too far, for example DC was scared of hoovers and I saw this worker put the hoover on and chase DC with it while I was queueing to collect at the end the day once. It got to the point that if he answered the door in the morning, DC would try to run away, screaming in blind panic and fighting me to get away. I don't know WTF went on at that nursery but my DC got an unexplained injury and when I raised it the manager outright refused to look into anything and tried to claim the injury must have happened at home when it clearly couldn't have done. I had to pull my child out, and years later the child still has the scar from the injury. After my experience, and on top of what I know about crime stats etc from child safeguarding courses for my own job, I'd be extremely wary of any male trying to get access to young children who aren't verbal and can't tell anyone what's happening. That might be irrational but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Not interested in arguing this with the pick me/cool girls crowd, just posting my experience for OP.