AIBU to feel uneasy about male staff in nurseries?

But I also don't want Vincent Chan, Jayden McCarthy, Thomas Waller, Nathan Bennett, Joshua Brown, David James or Ashley Griffiths or any men like them to be those strong male role models.

At the end of the day, as PP said, despite being a tiny percentage of nursery workers, males commit the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse in nurseries.

So if you are in favour of males working in nurseries, you are in favour of your child being more statistically likely to be sexually abused.

Why anyone would choose to raise the risk of their child being sexually violated just so they can be seen to be supportive of random men, I don't know, but there you go. It's virtue signaling to the extreme, I suppose, literally putting their child's well-being on the line to show that they support men. Gross.

Yeah you're right. If it's not deterring them then it's only useful afterwards.

No it's not. It's different. The PVG updates if someone gets a conviction after they join the scheme

I've never been in a nursery where staff aren't alone in the toilets.

and that is exactly what needs to be the focus. Safeguarding policies in some nurseries clearly need to be vastly improved.

For example, one nursery worker was able to sexually abuse a child in the toilet. Why was he with a child alone in the toilet? Why was he there alone long enough for him to sexually abuse the child?

I think it's important that children have strong male role models involved in their upbringing. Sadly many children don't

Yes, that's the same as a DBS check.

What safeguarding policies are you thinking of?

I'd love to know if those who think it's absurd for males to be banned from nursery work, also think it's absurd that only females can work as mammographers, and think that males should also be trained as mammographers.

In Scotland we have a PVG system that updates if someone has a criminal conviction.

DBS checks, plus the safeguarding policies of well-run nurseries.

Your feelings are your feelings if not happy then find a other setting/nursery.

But YABU to suggest all men are banned from nurseries. Would you apply the same to a male paediatric nurse/midwife/NICU nurse?

There is a male nursery worker in DS2s nursery. He's very popular and brilliant at his job as well as being a good role model to young boys that there isn't such a thing as girl job or boy job.

His nursery has safe guarding practices for all staff when it comes to nappy changes and toileting.

So you have left them with the people statistically more likely to abuse them.

You think a DBS check is much greater verification than actually knowing someone well and observing their behaviour closely over a long period of time?
The DBS just shows they haven't been caught doing anything.

Similar to the baby who was smothered in a nursery a couple of years ago, after her death the police came in to review CCTV and ended up convicting another worker of abuse.
It's not possible for someone to be monitoring the CCTV all the time, they just use it to go back and look at for evidence if there has been an incident or accusation.

Surely a male nursery worker has been verified to a much greater extent than family members have?

I have a male family member who used to work with young kids, he’s mature enough to understand that any concern isn’t personal. He reserves any annoyance for the men that commit crimes against children and knows that any parents who feel concerned aren’t saying that they think he, specifically, is a paedophile.

It’s perfectly rational to consider the fact that men, statistically, pose a far higher risk of harm to children than women, particularly sexual harm. It’s also sensible to be aware that jobs that provide access to young, vulnerable children are attractive to bad actors, heightening the risk. That doesn’t mean that every man who wants to work with small children has an ulterior motive, but some of them inevitably will, and parents are sensible to bear that in mind. In my opinion, anyone who isn’t sensitive to that is too immature to be responsible for young children in any event.

That's awful. I think the cameras should cover every single area and can't be manipulated by staff.

You'd hope they'd be a deterrent. But at least I guess it means they can gather evidence. But obviously if the cameras aren't actively monitored then it's too late as the abuse has already happened.

Presumably you know male relatives very well over a long period of time, have a good idea of their character and previous behaviour, and would trust them before leaving your child with them.

Totally different to leaving them with a stranger who you hope has no criminal record and has had a reference checked by management.

Do you feel uneasy leaving your children with their father or male relatives?

Out of interest, who decided that they had to 'warn' everybody when he was going to be working there? Was it the nursery management or did the parents demand it? And if the latter, would they do the same if they had racist parents on their books who demanded to be 'warned' every time their child might be cared for by a black or Asian adult worker?

Do they also send out cautionary messages if there's a female worker who covers occasionally, in case the little ones get upset by any carer with whom they aren't familiar?

By posing the question about make staff members you are questioning the safeguarding of children in the nursery, regardless of whether staff are male or female.

You need to find a setting that you are confident keeps all children safe or keep your child at home.

(3) show who? In the sad reality where these jobs are very attractive to predators/paedos who want to gain access to kids, I’d rather not use my own precious children as ideological Guinea pigs to prove some point about gender equality.

You're showing the whole of society - including the tiny little kids who are in the nursery. They don't just exist in suspended isolation, as primitive creatures who are fed and have their nappies changed and nothing much else - every second of their lives, they're learning and absorbing so much.

Nobody ever says that there's no point in adults talking to or reading to little ones, on the grounds that they cannot yet talk or read themselves. We could just wait until such time as they can talk and read on their own... and then be surprised that that time never arrives - as nobody has ever modelled or introduced them to it beforehand in those crucial first years.

We start off with tiny children who only know women as carers - especially those from households where no adult male lives. This cements it even in their young minds that men have no meaningful role in caring for children. Some of them probably find it a shock if they get to primary school and find that there are actually men there in loco parentis.

I wonder if this is a contributory factor in many of the useless men who've always assumed that men are free agents whilst women and children come as one combined package. Women are great for sex, but if the worst comes to the worst and they have babies that you can't be bothered with at any time, you can just leave that mother/child combo and move on to another woman with your time, money and efforts.

Meanwhile, those girls who have also grown up with exclusively (or near enough) females looking after them end up as women who may express horror at the very idea that men could want to work with children and be declaring that there must be something inherently wrong and untrustworthy with all of these men.

Remember: there was a time when nobody - of either sex - could possibly understand why a woman would want to drive, work outside of the home, bother her head with adult financial responsibility, vote etc. Where did they get these preconceptions from, if not from having grown up in a society that instinctively taught them this from a very young age?

Correct