AIBU to feel uneasy about male staff in nurseries?

I think the fact it's poorly paid reflects society's view that it's an easy, low skilled job. When in fact I think it's a really important job to take care of young children, comes with a lot of responsibility and should be valued more. Maybe if you could earn more than peanuts there would be less cases of children dying/being abused as more responsible people would be drawn to childcare as a career.
Suspect the wages are low though because if they were higher then the cost of childcare for parents would have to go up also.

So if a male nursery staff was recruited to your DD’s nursery, you’d remove her??

Why would a man want to work in a nursery??!!

I’ve heard it all now.

Maybe we should remove all men from jobs involving children, and go back to the days when there were men’s jobs and women’s jobs.

I mean, why would a woman want to work in senior management positions, surely it’s taxing on their smaller brains and they’re too emotional?

I think men have to work so much harder to prove themselves as carers for children and the ones we had were wonderful

They really don't! They just have to show up and mums will fawn over them and the "physical energy" they bring. Except they don't bring more than the female nursery workers.

I wouldn't want a man in a nursery changing my DD's nappy.

No they don’t. Often parents refuse to attend anyway.

Schools have an Intimate Care Policy that staff abide by in changing children. There are too many children not toilet trained and staff, teachers included (in fact in one school I advise, the headteacher was doing the intimate care).

Some individual children have an intimate care plan, for other situations formal risk assessments are in place, including where children are changed to maintain the child’s dignity.

The only benefits that are being cut this year as far as I'm aware are for new Lcwra claimants - personally I'm not sure that cutting benefits from just less than 400 pounds a month UC for someone over 25 is going to help jobseekers. It's just going to make poor people poorer

Do you have statistics? I can think of women who have abused children in Nurseries. There was a baby in Manchester left strapped to a cushion bean bag thing. She died.

Thing is, there are are lots of sectors struggling for workers. Even if this does increase the workforce numbers, no reason to suppose unskilled women forced into work are going to choose EYFS in sufficient numbers over, say, hospitality or call centre.

It's got nothing to do with what she is or is not capable of.
You are missing the point.
The point is this: I would regard a baby to be safer with a teenaged girl than a male nursery worker because as regards sexual abuse the baby is very, very, very much less at risk with her.

Also, it is the combination of 3 things not just money that makes me suspicious of men wanting to work with babies.
Namely:
1, Poorly paid.
2, Vast, vast majority paedophiles are male.
3, Nursery work is the perfect environment for them to be in.

I really do not understand those who when confronted with these three things could continue to say male nursery workers should be allowed. They should so obviously be banned.

It seems to me that you are trying to make this into a feminist thing.
It really is not. And I've not got much time for those who believe scoring feminist points trump children's safety.
Yeah let's let this teenage boy work in this nursery even though it's really weird to score a few feminist points.
For goodness sake.

In any case, how is putting mens hurty feelings about being banned from nursery work feminist anyway? Bizarre.

Just f-ing ban 'em. It's easy and justifiable on grounds of safety.

I believe there’s a plan in place for that particular problem to get solved with regards to reducing benefits further. That will force many back into the workforce like it or not.
Suitable or not

What on earth does it matter whether the job is poorly paid or not. Some people take poorly paid jobs because it's still a better option than being on benefits.

What kind of voluntary work with children are they involved in where male volunteers have to have a DBS check but female ones don't? That sounds highly irregular

Where did I say the checks and procedures only apply to the male volunteers? DBS checks IME are required for anything involved contact with children, the procedures also apply to both. However its hardly a secret that the design of procedures and the origin of the checks followed abuses by predatory men and in each case there is more strict observance of no out of sight 1-1 with male volunteers.

Men can take offence at that or recognise that the most effective thing they could do is address male predatory behaviour.

There's a substantial shortage of female unskilled workers who are willing to fill this particular role. Early years has a massive recruitment crisis. I don't think OPs really engaged with the reality that we aren't in a position to be very choosy about nursery staff. Which is worrying, of course.

I agree that it's patronising and insulting to everybody when people gush over male nursery workers as a whole for their supposed brilliance and superiority over the female ones. It's an individual attitude and aptitude thing; nothing to do with sex.

However, why do you think a sullen teenage girl should be content with a poorly-paid job, and/or unable to go for a better one, but not a teenage boy? Do you think that boys are just naturally better at getting or more worthy of better-paid jobs? Is low-paid nursery work 'good enough' for a girl but not for a boy?

And at any rate, money isn't everything to everybody. Plenty of people pursue and stay in jobs that don't pay very well but bring them a great deal of satisfaction and a feeling that they're using their talents to make a difference. If it were all about money, Guides, Scouts, Brownies, Beavers groups and all of the rest simply wouldn't exist, as there would be nobody volunteering to run them.

I disagree with all of this and think there are better ways of getting men to share childcare.

What kind of voluntary work with children are they involved in where male volunteers have to have a DBS check but female ones don't? That sounds highly irregular.

Only the bad people will object to a DBS check, as it's a universal, matter-of-course, fact-based safeguard to prevent people with criminal records from being able to freely re-offend. Nobody is picking out volunteers whom they think 'could be dodgy' and saying that they'd better be checked out, whilst waving through and not checking anybody they 'reckon is probably OK'.

It's a bit like an airport where passports are checked: if they check everybody's, there's no problem at all; but if all travellers who were (or looked like they might be) of Asian heritage were sent off to have theirs scrutinised "Because most Muslims are Asian, and most terrorists and their sympathisers are probably Muslim", whilst all of the black and white travellers were waved straight on through... do you not think that might be somewhat problematic?

Its a sex restriction not a gender identity restriction.

Mammography is a very different experience from the other examinations you describe where a chaperone is routinely offered even if the medic is female. My practice only has female staff doing the cervical screenings as it happens.

IME doctors’ breast exams also involved less handling than mammography and they introduce themselves rather than requiring me to walk into a darkened and unchaperoned room topless and starting to manipulate the breasts without so much as “hi, I’m Mary”.

Mammograms are also screening tests - the problem in the UK is not a shortage of mammographers its a shortage of uptake. Perhaps they should look at the experiences of many women during screening to understand why that is.

All this 'he was far better than the female nursery workers!' schtick gets on my nerves.
I mean really? Like predatory males don't wish to present themselves in the best light?
It's just really naive. It really is.
Of course, he's going to be all nicey nice but, you know what, give me that sullen teenage girl any day of the week.

Given that the job is poorly paid, the vast, vast majority of paedophiles are male, and the fact that this is an ideal situation for such predators, how on earth could anyone be NOT be suspicious?! 😕

As for people saying that it would be discriminatory to ban males from nurseries. Nope not true. In fact if the risks are too great they can be. It's absolutely appalling that it will take more cases to make the government stop it.

Nope, I was not commenting on the current state of the law I was responding to a PP who was presenting the feelings of the man as the most important aspect of the debate.

It isn’t.

Whilst all of that is true, theres no shortage of female unskilled workers to fill the roles.
Women only have to step in and sort the scientific world out because there is a shortage in that (another badly paid) career.

I think itll be the opposite we will stop male practice nurses doing smears, with a bit of luck

It's not about making men feel good; it's about bringing children up in a society where they learn that looking after children is not just women's work; just like we now (finally) teach children that STEM is not just for boys and men.

Do you really not think that female biology and social attitudes and restrictions that have built up as a direct extension of that - "You get pregnant and give birth to the babies, so it obviously follows that it's your responsibility to look after them and bring them up (and often pay for them), whilst the men can focus on more important things like running the world and enjoying their freedom" - might have been exploited as an institutional way to keep women down and put them in their place for centuries?

Seeing as you have such intense curiosity to find out people's thoughts on this, I'll happily answer.

Yes I do think it's absurd honestly. One of those weird vestigial practices that will no doubt be overturned in another few years. Mammographers are trained clinical professionals, just like midwives, gynaecologists, nurses, radiographers. I was quite shocked when I first heard the gender restrictions to train as a mammographer, it just didn't occur to me that in this day and age that would be the case.

Interestingly it's seem as okay for a male oncologist specialising in breast cancer to exist, and for a male practice nurse to carry our cervical screenings, or a male GP do a breast exam when someone presents with a lump. But the mammographer has to be female?

"Yes this is the important thing. A man’s right to do anything he damned well pleases without pesky risk assessments."

This is a straw man argument. The poster you were quoting said nothing about risk assessments.

However, it is illegal to discriminate against men by banning them outright from working in nurseries. "Hurty feelz" have nothing to do with it

Yes this is the important thing. A man’s right to do anything he damned well pleases without pesky risk assessments.

None of my DSs or SiLs work with small children on the day job but three are involved in DBS checked voluntary work with young children. None of them get antsi about the checks or the procedures which ensure visibility of all activity because they know that statistically men are a much higher risk to children than women and that the children’s safety is more important than hurty feelz.