To be seriously concerned about sending DS to nursery given news today?

97% of nursery workers are female and you can think of 1 woman almost 2 decades ago.
3% of nursery workers are male and there have been at least 5 men convicted in the last 2 years.

Not really comparable is it?

And your point is?

It is horrifying but it is incredibly rare. unfortunately it's far more common for kids to be abused by family members or people known to them. I actually feel nursery is safer than child minders, as you don't know who could be in the house.

Be careful not to fall into misogynistic traps.

See the 10th rule of misogyny - "the worst thing about male violence is it makes men look bad".

Ask yourself why you're only centering a man's feelings and not considering the women and children affected by sex crimes committed by men alongside his feelings?

I'm not having a go by the way - it's easy to fall into these traps as we are all influenced by living in a misogynist society - and it's likely you care about your friend's son.

But the next time you find yourself saying "but what about the men"? in this kind of discussion, it can be enlightening to stop and ask yourself - "but what about the children?" and "but what about the women?"

When OP's DS is older he too will be viewed as a possible threat

Yes, it's sad and sucks for decent guys.

But the sheer scale of male violence against women and children is so huge, the solution isn't to pretend it doesn't exist so as to spare the feelings of men

Men really need make themselves aware of the scale of the problem and ask themselves what they're doing to make a difference, not centre their own ego and their own feelings. That's not being a decent man.

I completely agree. It is mostly men.

I think it's awful that all male nursery workers would be mistrusted like this. My friend's son works with kids. He is adopted and wants to go into social work but this is his way in. He is wonderful with the kids and just a really, loving gentle guy, who is only 20. I'm so sad that people would look at him and mistrust him just because he's male.

You couldn’t be more wrong on every account.

Women do not commit CSA at a rate that men do. It’s statistically just not true. If you’re talking about violence and physical abuse that’s a different topic however men commit CSA at an alarming rate compared to women.

This the 6th or 7th case of CSA from a male nursery worker in the U.K. where male nursery workers are very rare, what does that tell you?

Every time one of them is caught they’re charged with multiple offences meaning they’ve managed to get away with it multiple times before anyone has even noticed. In Thomas Waller’s case a child told their parent and that’s how he was uncovered so no idea where the rest of the staff were.

DBS and vetting are pointless as many do not have prior convictions.

Lastly, they’re predators by nature so they would absolutely jump through the hoops which I may add there really aren’t many of to be a nursery worker to have access to children.

@dollyblue01 What do you do if you have a mortgage to pay and the women is the higher earner? Sell up? Or trust the nursery?

It happened years ago with a female worker so isn’t exclusively men although I’d say I’ve never personally come across a male nursery worker. I’ve also never come across a nursery where one member of staff would be alone for any extended period with a child. They’re always really hectic busy places ime with staff and kids dashing around constantly. It baffles me as a result that things like this could happen.

I felt safe sending my DC to nursery because the women there were mums and the manager had her own child in the nursery. I think the risk of anything as horrific as this is exceptionally low. They’re all DBS checked and should be trained to work with kids too. It’s a lot of effort for a paedo to go to, they have other ways and means.

My son is now 18 and went to nursery he was never fully happy and I went part time, if I had to do it now I wouldn’t , I’d find a way not to work as I just don’t trust it anymore.

I think it’s infinitely more likely that these sort of predators seek out jobs/volunteer positions where they have easy access to children.

Not that I am advocating for just anyone to do child care. But when people are happy to pay much more for a painter than a child carer, you will get the least skilled/educated people in society doing it because they can’t get anything else (and of course I don’t mean all nursery carers are in this category).

OP, I know how you're feeling. My daughter has been settling into a wonderful nursery all week and is due to start properly from next week. We did wait until she was communicative but it's still a worry.

I try to think pragmatically but the very sad statistic in my life is that in my primary school there was a paedophile (male) and three male teachers in my secondary school were fired for improper conduct/having relationships with girls. I grew up in West London and went to schools in a good area... I was also 10 when I encountered SA on my walk to school just outside the school. As parents, mine were always fairly strict and protective and I was actually ferried to and from school by parents and it was really the off chance I was walking alone that it happened.

I am such a worrier when it comes to these things. I try and be pragmatic but knowing the above I can't help but worry. Like other PPs have said, what should we do? To what end do you avoid these settings. Become a SAHM? Home school? I completely empathise with you OP, but I have no good advice.

Yes, although you have presumably chosen the father of your children very carefully and trust them a lot?

That's fair enough. But I think most women would be wary. In the same way, I wouldn't want to find myself alone in a dark alley way with a strange man at night. I obviously would not care if I was there with my brother, or dad 🤷

I will never apologise for being wary of men. Like it not, men are statistically a threat to women. If 50% of nursery workers were male, CSA would increase significantly in nursery settings. I am glad there is societal wariness about men working with young children, as it frankly keeps our children safer.

That’s because there is a very little amount of male nursery workers, as they increase so will CSA. That is what the statistics indicate unfortunately. This whole ‘not all men’ is rubbish because unfortunately with CSA it is always men. Nurseries are the perfect setting for them to commit this sort of offence. Children aren’t often verbal, they have access to them in an intimate and vulnerable manner that you would not in a hospital or school.

Frankly find it astonishing that mumsneters are more concerned about offending males than adequately protecting children.

There was a thread on here about a mum finding out she lived next to a convicted pedo and the amount of people telling her she was overreacting and that he was harmless to her children was sickening.

Most fathers have access to pre verbal children.
🙄

And I would have no issues with any registered child minder.

Op, your concerns are valid. There was a thread few weeks ago about another key worker who was convicted recently for CSA in a nursery. It was a male.

it was apparent from that thread that a) the average mumsnet user cannot comprehend basic statistics and b) there is a genuine belief in here that there is very little to no risk of CSA in nurseries due to adequate safeguarding.

statistics show that men hold 99 percent of the convictions for CSA, not even comparable to women, they’re not even close.

With the dire straits nurseries are in they’re letting anyone who can pass the piss easy qualifications into their settings. That’s why we are seeing an increase in men now getting into this role and it is clearly an attractive, easy access option for CSA offenders.

Background checks are useless because a lot of them don’t have previous.

This man you refer to has been convicted of 22! 22 convictions of which one is digital penetration of a 2 year old girl ! How on earth he got away with that is beyond me. Staff didn’t ‘catch’ him until he had committed 22 CSA offences and even then it was just a video they picked up on. So safeguarding isn’t a reliable argument either.

Also ‘women’ abuse too argument is tired and boring they do not commit CSA at a level that men do. The more nursery male workers we see the more CSA we will see because of how rife it is unfortunately.

Australia is ahead of the U.K. in this, they’ve had male nursery workers longer than us.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-27/childcare-centres-paedophiles-abuse-four-corners/105926324

Given that males are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of said crime then that risk translates into realtime when there is a male nursery worker. I would not send my child there. If you are thinking about SAHM and can financially do it then I would your concerns are valid.

Would you want your pre-verbal child looked after alone by a male childminder?

There are horrifying cases of teachers found guilty of sexual abuse in secondary schools. Do we never send our children to secondary schools just in case? There was a dreadful accident on the road about a hundred miles away nowhere near my house yesterday. Should I be concerned about letting my child cross the road just in case? It’s about perspective. Some things in life we can’t predict and just because it happens somewhere else can’t be a measure to stop other people from doing every day normal things that everyone does every single day everywhere in the country. Yes it’s horrific but it’s not every nursery in every town in every district everywhere in the whole country. Most of us can count on one hand the cases like this we have heard of in our lifetime although one case is too many, but we have to have some perspective otherwise we’d all be locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of our lives scared to go outside ever again. At some point we have to have at least some trust in every day life to be able to function normally.

My daughter works in a nursery and all the staff are very dedicated which includes a man. He has to work with the older children as I think some parents were uncomfortable with him changing nappies. The rules and regulations are very strict, the food is healthy and the children are very prepared when they start school.

You have an absolutely toxic attitude towards men. How does the fact that you know a man well prevent him from abusing children.

Most children who victims of abuse are abused by close family members, not strangers in a professional setting.

I think the difference with a childminder is that you choose the person who cares for your child.
Yes, you have to trust them that they won't hurt your child or allow anyone else to, but you only have to put your trust in one person that you get to know well and have personally chosen.
Whereas with a nursery, you are trusting a business/institution and don't tend to have much knowledge or any control over who is actually caring for your child. Though with a business you hope there is a protective effect of many people involved and possibly CCTV.

I just don't think it's comparable. The vast majority of middle Easterns aren't terrorists. Almost all women have a story about abuse or harassment from a man. Statistically, men commit well over 90% of sexual crimes against children. I also don't think we could ban men from working with children, but I don't think women are wrong to feel uncomfortable.

I find this assumption on here that men can't work with children without being abusers and should be banned from it very uncomfortable. Banning men from working in nurseries is not only discrimination, but would really set a strange precedent for this with other groups. It's like looking at anyone from the middle east and assuming they are a terrorist.

Obviously this is such an emotive subject that people might say these things as it is such an upsetting case, but we do need to be rational about this.

I've worked in a care environment and some of the best carers were men.