Male nannies/childminders

YY mydog

So men can't be nursery workers, nannys, primary teachers, nurses, doctors? Because it might upset the mothers? Don't be ridiculous. A man is just as capable as a women and it is sexism to suggest otherwise. What needs to happen is that the prejudice of the women needs to be challenged. Most abuse happens within the home environment, with someone who is in the family - that's where the work needs to start.

I totally agree that if you have a man looking after your young children, that man has to be able to provide physical care. Young children need to be hugged, changed, cleaned up, etc.

And of course there are men who look after young children who do so with very good intentions and do the job very well. But men are much more like to sexually abuse young children than women. So having a male childcarer does increase the risk to small children. And I totally understand some mothers not being prepared to take that risk

I'm a Childminder (ofsted registered to provide care in the childrens own home, and also for overnight care, ..... which I do sole charge for full weeks at a time as respite for children with e.b.d and other additional needs, while parents have a break), I'm also a Cub Scout Leader who takes them camping for full weekends at a time, 3 times a year .... more importantly I'M A MAN!!! Everything I've just described is apparanly a recipe for, risk, suspicious, allegations, society's predjudism etc. I've got qualifications in Childcare and more CRB's than soft ned (which doesn't automatically mean someones "suitable" to be in contact with children). The way I look at it, It's got to the point now where adults are so petrified of what could happen, the key important reason of why we're there i.e looking after the children gets neglected, and the kids are ones that suffer for it. The nature of what I do requires some security and nurturing for the little ones, a hug when they're upset ... even a hug just to show you care about them or happy to see them, physical contact to keep them and those around them safe when they're throwing a massive wobbler, and for some yes I have had to change them when they've had an accident, I have had to wash their hair cos they've put the entire bottle of shampoo on and can't get it all out. Does this worry me? NOT AT ALL why? Because I went into working with children to provide a stable, secure environment for when parents couldn't be there (work, respite etc.) I think that they deserve the same amount of care that they would get from home, you'll find most parents would be grateful of that commitment to their children, not suspicious. If they've employed you they mist trust you or they wouldn't let you within 100foot of their little ones. Children don't have the shallow minded concept or ability to read into stuff unnecessary like adults do, so as long as I don't do anything innapropriate which I never would cos I'm not like that, why would it ever cross their minds to maliciously lie and make up a scenario that implies something they're not even aware exists at that age. I've been a Cub Leader for 4 years without an issue, and a childminder for 3. All the parents trust me implicitly with their children, and prasie me for the fact that I go that extra mile to look after them properly and provide for what they need emotionally and physically. Parents are grateful that I put my focus and efforts into looking after them properly and not into protecting my from stuff that won't ever be an issue cos i'm not a sick minded person. I childmind more children from the local school than all the female chilldminders in the area, most of them are in my Cub pack and parents allow me to take camping 3 times a year, that's beacause my repuation and hard work has gained me parents trust, respect in the community and support against prejudism from others that don't know me that well. If all the males who can potentially make fantastic teachers, nannies etc. could just focus on what they set out achieve as a career, and try and ignore the small minded numptys standing in their way, in time they'll get the work and make a good name for themselves, which soon shuts up the minority who need to get a grip on reality. Males aint gonna be accused for something they haven't done ..... and if they're not the sort of person that does sick things to children, there shouldn't be a worry. The day I get banged up for something I haven't done is the day I give up childcare, and give up on life in general as when it gets to that point I don't think I wanna be in a cruel twisted world like that anymore. Morbid I know, but hopefully it'll never happen if all the decent men out there stick together and prove to the world they were wrong!

Waits for handmaiden before calling "House".

Surely you have better things to do than playing feminist bingo on a feminist forum?

Human relationships operate on an individual level
But also within a class dynamic

a woman can be sexist when she bins an application for a childcare job based on [male sex]
No she can't, she might be 'reverse sexist' or 'inverse sexist' like you get reversed racism or inverse snobbery - which goes against the prevalent dynamics but could not exist outside them.

a black gangster can be racist when he drops a breeze block on a white boy's head because he hates white people.

Likewise with reverse racism.

Both hold enormous power over that individual's life.

Now you have suddenly jumped from the motive of the perpetrator to the victim. That is where your argument gets confused. Of course being barred or killed because of your sex or race is an enormously powerful experience for that individual, but it is within the wider dynamic. The hatred of white people is a reactionary hatred not systemic, as is the hatred/mistrust of men. Call it inverse or reverse if you like, but calling it 'gender bigotry', or 'sexism' is wrong.

Back to school for you!

Honestly, I sometimes think these mansplaining feminist forum squatting men have such charmed lives they have to play act at being oppressed to give them something to do.

Waits for handmaiden before calling "House".

"The programme" is wrong. It was always wrong. The ferociously dynamic interaction of 7 billion of the most complex machines on the planet cannot be seperated into a static picture of "the oppressed" and "the oppressors". Power relationships frequently change on a macro level, as they have with regards gender dramatically in the last 50 years. Male childcarers and the bigotry they must face on a daily basis (not least from the females who dominate the workplace around them) is a good example of this.

But regardless, the separation of the world into black and white has no place outside of a disney film or religious scripture. Human relationships operate on an individual level, and within this a woman can be sexist when she bins an application for a childcare job based on gender bigotry and a black gangster can be racist when he drops a breeze block on a white boy's head because he hates white people. Both hold enormous power over that individual's life. I'm sure your world view is comforting in its simplicity but it really is absolute horseshit and its about time you realised this.

I think many posters on this thread need to go back to basics of understanding the prevalent power dynamics at work and how they interplay with privileged entitlement, class vulnerability and the exploitation and abuse of that vulnerability.

Using 'sexist' to describe behaviour towards men is crap. As is using 'racist' about white people is crap.

Get with the programme all you people that think its 'just as bad' to criticise/hold the powerful to account as it is for the powerful to abuse and exploit those who they wield power over.

genderphobic
It sounds like an extreme title for someone who hates gender roles or something. Like if you don't agree that blue is for boy and pink is for girls, you are "genderphobic".

I would expect everyone working professionally with children to have gone through the relevant checks, of either gender. I am delighted that DS1 has a male primary school teacher this year as it broadens his role models, so I disagree with Eats also.

I agree with the point up thread that if more fathers did more childcare, it would be seen as less "unusual" for men to choose a childcaring profession.

A friend of mine got sarky comments for helping out as a one off with a boys' youth group (in the presence of the usual organisers), even though he is CRB checked for his dayjob. Not very nice.

Late to the party, but I just wanted to say, eats, you seem to think you speak for feminists. You say 'Actually the position I am taking is a feminist one. Because fundamentally being a feminist is about putting children and women first rather than men.' I don't grudge you the right to express your opinions and I'm sure you're right you are prolific and have a big influence, but you do not speak for me and I do not honestly believe this is a feminist position.

oops thought there was only one page hehe

Boys 9and girls of course) need more male role models especially in areas where the prevalent 'class' is single mothers. A positive role model never did boys or girls and harm.
My DD was abused but i would no more view a male teacher with suspicion than a female teacher.

Hate to break it to ya'll .. but there are female abusers, too.

All groups have people like that don't they? Cycling fundamentalists, trans fundamentalists, men's rights fundamentalists, cookery fundamentalists etc. So long as 95% of people think men in childcare is good, I and other chaps can still get a job doing it.

namechangeguy Tue 11-Sep-12 17:13:28
What we see here is a flawed position taken by people who have read radical literature and taken it as gospel, rather than thinking it through for themselves. A bit like fundamentalist religion really.

I'm just thankful that only a small minority believe such rubbish, and heartened to read so many comments on here expressing disgust and able to see the damage such thinking can do to the cause.

I love you, madwoman

Oh quite. But the way the statistics are used to introduce fear and mistrust of all men makes it very difficult to work towards the removal of gendered stereotypes. So, there must be a more positive way of advocating change towards greater (and ultimately equal) male participation in caring roles, whilst acknowledging the stats. Not using them as an excuse to move forward, and to reinforce existing stereotypes.

I'm not saying that was your position (or indeed anyone else specifically) just that there seemed to be an all pervasive view of 'men are abusers.' so even men in existing paid childcare positions were being viewed with mistrust. And the whole 'security checked' thing is so problematic, that it is being used to justify both sides of the argument. On the one hand, security checks just mean an abuser hasn't been caught yet, and on the other, that a carer that has been security checked is fine. I'm happy with the 'minimizing risk' argument in that context, but not having men in childcare has also been called 'minimizing risk'.

The topic is so emotive, (for obvious reasons) but I can't seem to get my head around the fact that it seems that the fwr board is espousing (at least an undercurrent of) daily-mail-esque paedophile hysteria.

Abuse is a terrible thing, and minimizing the risks are obviously a good thing. But I'm a little uncomfortable (and, lol, sad) that the vast majority of men are being demonised. And that isn't a 'what about the menz' because I am largely looking at the wider ramifications of that demonization (women are still defined as carers. Men can't care because they are dangerous) and the reinforcement of the status quo as a result. No change. No working towards anything.

There is of course no magic wand that will remove the hysteria. There will still be threads about 9yo boys in women's changing rooms at the pool. Dads will still go ballistic when their son picks up a dolly lest it turn him gay on contact.

It's obviously a step too far in the current western context to expect anything else. But we can all look towards utopia, if not work towards it, I suppose.

[shrug] We appear to be talking past each other. I'm talking about something systematic. You're saying that I'm extrapolating from my own experience and other people will/may/do feel differently. We don't agree but this feels like a relatively minor point, so I'm going to leave it.

Madwoman I neither condone nor share the 'overarching distrust of men in caring professions' on this thread - as I have said, repeatedly. But nor am I going to pretend the statistics aren't there. I think you can understand that the statistics are there and work from that starting point without ending up not trusting or using men in caring professions.

I said : where does anyone say anything like "people should just shut up about because it makes them feel sad"

I'd also said in response to your
Women and children who have been raped and/or abused by predatory men have every reason to be phobic - that is, to fear them, in the abstract at least, if not in person. It's not fair to the individual men who are perfectly unthreatening, but it is an appropriate response to the levels of violence and harassment and abuse that women and children face at the hands of men.

by saying
Perhaps - and only perhaps - for those women and children; but certainly not for all, particularly not those who don't share either your life experience of worldview.

You're suggesting a garment cut for you should fit everybody. It doesn't.

'work to challenge and change the system' is exactly what the thread has been suggesting. So, to encourage men into child caring roles (paid and unpaid), whether that be by how we raise our sons (alongside our daughters) and lobby for policy change.

I don't see anyone arguing against 1, blackcurrants. But I don't see 1 as being compatible with an overarching distrust of men in caring situations (whether checked to the nth degree or not) by a large number of posters on this thread. The 'men are dangerous and I can back it up with statistics' type post is complete anathema to an attempt to change the status of men in society (and ergo the status of women). It's feck all to do with being sad, although I am.

I do agree about the north American babysitting institution though. It is much better than the ad-hoc uk nonsense, which is complicated by random nspcc advice and bizarre governmental sound bites.

Dd1 is taking a babysitting course next month, and ds1 will in two years. He is fabulous with small people.

The conclusion "all men are paedos'' is wrong. The fact that men, statistically, abuse and molest children more than women do, is not wrong.

So what do we do with the fact?

Do we (1) analyse it as part of a pattern of the systematic oppression of women, and work to challenge and change the system that makes that fact true? (A feminist response)

or do we (2) 'call people out' for mentioning that fact and say that mentioning that fact is 'driving men out of professions' (your apparent response).

I mean, come on. (2) is just defensiveness, good men being insistent that they're not bad men. I understand it (people talking about racial oppression make me want to defensively insist upon my total lack of racism) but it's not actually helpful. Privilege exists, and defensiveness occurs when privilege is pointed out.

I said that men who work with children are subject to more social distrust and scrutiny. I didn't say that it was right or fair. I speculated as to why that might be, and noted that blaming the distrust and scrutiny rather than the cause for that distrust and scrutiny is, eventually, counter-productive.

Sadly, blackcurrants I think the point you are making is:

men who want to work with children [expect] to be subject to general social distrust and scrutiny

and I do think that is genderphobic, so the accusation wasn't lightly tossed. It was pinned to you.

I've been pursued down the street by a gang of young ethnic men; yes, for a while I was cautious. Do I distrust men of that ethnicity? Nope. Just silly young men.

Women and children who have been raped and/or abused by predatory men have every reason to be phobic - that is, to fear them, in the abstract at least, if not in person. It's not fair to the individual men who are perfectly unthreatening, but it is an appropriate response to the levels of violence and harassment and abuse that women and children face at the hands of men.

Perhaps - and only perhaps - for those women and children; but certainly not for all, particularly not those who don't share either your life experience of worldview.

Men who don't like that fact do, I'm afraid, have to lump it.

No, they don't. They can call you out for it, and watch for the increase of men being driven out of professions...

Good men who observe that fact tend to respond that it is a problem with our patriarchal society

No, men who agree with your perspective might say that; that they don't share your perspective does not make them bad men, just not ones who share your view.

and how that damages women and children, not something that people should just shut up about because it makes them feel sad.

where does anyone say anything like "people should just shut up about because it makes them feel sad"

Saying the sort of things you do, will at least make the nod-and-wink "all men are paedos" conclusion easier to jump to; and it is wrong.