Would you be put off a nursery if it employed a man?

Good post. Your comment about people being undetected by moving on reminded me of this awful case. This man worked in 23 nurseries in 8 years and over 800 kids had to have an STI test.
Absolutely vile.
www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/15/afternoon-update-tuesday-ntwnfb

Yes, I wouldn't send my children to any pre school childcare which employed a male. Through my work I met a number of paedophiles earlier in my career and all bar a couple seemed such nice people. If you didn't know what they'd done you'd never have suspected what they were capable of.

As I was naive and young I discussed this with a much more senior colleague. I found it confusing, I hadn't expected to like these evil people, but they were nice. My colleagues reply was along the lines of 'of course they're lovely, why do you think parents let them close enough to their kids to do what they did '. I learned a lesson that year.

This.

And I would emphasise, this is the key. child protection is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone’s.

there should be NO opportunity for this to happen in a care setting ever. Or anywhere.

But a care setting, everyone should have been screaming what is happening here.

I work in such a setting and even going to the toilet myself is a nightmare. everyone knows where we are at all times and can see each other. I just cannot comprehend any other situation

The nursery manager was a man when my children were there, his own child was a similar age so we would talk about our children. He was lovely with the children.
I didn’t see it as a problem at all

the man who sexually assaulted me as a child also worked in early years so for me it absolutely bothers me. i know everyone should be equal but i don't see why a man would go into that role. at my sons nursery there was a young lad for a few weeks, made me uncomfortable. he was out of nappies already and i knew logically i couldn't approach management without seeming discriminatory..as much as we don't like it, what can we really do

Yet many CSAs are fathers.

Under the Equality Act 2010 men can’t be banned from working in nurseries. The poor baby who died in 2022 was strapped to a beanbag by a female nursery worker. Should we ban females from working in nurseries too and train robots to do childcare?

Because of easy access. The answer isn’t to expand access

In some circumstances, not others. A local family run a large childminding service which employs the mum, dad and a professional assistant with ratios accordingly. I can see how it has grown over the years and they have a great rep locally. I would want a clear narrative of why a man is present though and sure that's unfair, but it is within the reasonable bands of unfair given the risks.

I wouldn't be comfortable with it.

I've known and known of too many bad men and I'm afraid that gives me prejudice. The fact is that a lot of predatory men gravitate towards roles in life where they will have control of the vulnerable (like the current nursery case, or that vet in leicester that was in the news recently for abusing boys at a summer camp). I hate the thought of not being able to protect my son so wouldn't take the risk.

We've had this discussion countless times now; Yes, lots of people will be put off because "it's mostly men who are peadophiles"or commit acts of violence and that children are even more at risk because people who are predisposed to being that way will seek out jobs where they can specifically work with children, despite plenty of evidence to suggest that many men are just as good as women in these roles and that statistically, abuse is more likley going to happen in the home from someone that you know.

There's already 5 pages of this thread and I can almost guarantee some of these points have already been raised.

Thankfully we're past that stage now but no, I wouldn't have sent either of mine to a nursery with male staff.

I was wary of DD2's Reception teacher being male too (very young and straight out of teacher training), but reassured myself that it was the two female TAs who helped with any toilet issues/changing clothes.

No, not all men, yes, not no women. Yet male daycare staff are roughly 30 times more likely to commit sexual offences than female staff. So I wouldn’t be thrilled

I worked in a nursery for four years with two young men there. My own daughter attended with me and I can honestly say they were amazing with her and had a great bond, also really great role models for the little boys and I trusted them with my DD implicitly, one of them being her key worker. It never ever crossed my mind and never has done that they would hurt or abuse a child in any way and yes I’m aware that it does happen in nurseries but I wouldn’t tar every male with the same brush. There was a female worker there sacked due to pushing a child, yes not the same as sexual abuse but women can and do hurt children too!!

I think most people know that?!

but consider- your husband / child’s father isn’t a CSA. You believe your brothers and grandfathers aren’t CSA either, but they’re never left alone with your female baby anyway.

thats the reality for the vast majority of mothers. In that case, of course the strangers are the ones you worry about.

if you are vulnerable to being groomed, have a male who isn’t the father in the house, come from a family of / are a victim of CSA or other risk factors then of course you should worry about men in your own house first.

i know you’re going to say- the father is still the highest risk. Yes, apart from when he is NOT a CSA. Which obviously the vast majority of fathers are not.

Yes, nursery workers are known to the child. And the family. The parents think they are great.

God how ignorant are people here. The vast majority of abuse is conducted by family members or people known to the child.

Have you really?

The more men we have working in nurseries, the more cases of child abuse there will be in nurseries. Yes the absolute risk will remain extremely low but one more child is one child too many.

It wouldn't bother me. My girl had a male nursery nurse when we moved and honestly he was really good for her..I feel she lacked make role models. I saw a huge change in her confidence since. I've seen more reports of female nursery workers abusing kids over male ones.

I’m talking about private nursery. My kids went to school nursery aged 3 with female staff

There were a few men working at my kids' nursery. I know that's unusual. It was years ago now but I wouldn't hesitate to choose the same again.

They have the same problems there.

https://swedenherald.com/article/sexual-abuse-against-nine-children-in-ljusdal

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world/sweden-daycare-worker-raped-24-toddlers-sent-to-jail-for-over-for-6-years/story-aijketMNZucFpLKa7d7SSJ_amp.html

Quite interesting though- and admittedly only a quick google- is that CSA seems high in Sweden. 1in 5 children have been victims and nspcc put it as 1 in 20 in the uk

I’m not suggesting it’s related to their male childcare staff but maybe isn’t the best example of safeguarding?