Would you be comfortable if your daughter was assigned a male nursery worker?

[Nervousb2b]

Out of interest, how would you feel if your daughter was assigned a male member of staff in an early years setting to provide intimate care? Would you feel just as comfortable if a female member of staff was assigned?

Some may be okay with it, some may not - interested to see the general consensus.

He can be a primary school teacher though. Why does he specifically want to be a nursery teacher? It’s quite specific. I was advising someone yesterday who said the same thing, to study primary education rather than Early Years as it’s quite restrictive.

You are right that it is very sad that people can’t do exactly what they want because some men are abusive. Girls and women have to take that into consideration on a daily basis.

No I wouldn't feel comfortable with a man looking after and changing my daughters nappy when she was young 0-3 years.

If they were working in the preschool room, then I would be OKish with it as long as there were other female workers aswell. But in all honestly I would feel more comfortable to have females.

In all honesty, I wouldn’t be entirely comfortable, no. And like PP I hate that a few shitty men have spoiled it for the men who are and would be lovely childcare workers.

The only way I would be ok with it with a pre verbal child is if all intimate care is done without a door - my DC was in a nursery where there was a sort of alcove where nappies were changed and the kids sat on the potty. But I know of nurseries where the kids are taken into a room and the door shut.

All the nurseries we used had open view nappy changing areas & toilets with virtually no doors off the main room.

It's a no from me. I have long experience of adult social care and approx 1 in 8 male carers I encountered (over 20 years, so a sample in the high hundreds) were abusive. And that's for adults.

Ours has a couple. They have good safeguarding policies; intimate care is provided without being completely alone with the children (there is privacy as they’re shielded but in a small section of the room for nappy changes).

My thoughts is if the safeguarding procedures are inadequate to safely have a male worker, they are inadequate for the female workers as well.
No sacred castes. Being female doesnt make someone safe.

I think these kind of conversations are really, really
important, to be done at an age appropriate level and ongoing. Just because a child can talk, doesn’t mean they necessarily will tell you if something untoward is going on, but at least you are giving them the tools that can help them.

There's a male worker in my DCs setting, though not the same room. As the staff often cover for breaks / leave, I had a chat with his key worker and advised I was only comfortable with female workers helping with intimate care. The reaction was clearly that they thought I was OTT but no one burned me at the stake for it. It's definitely a difficult position to be in, but I would chose the momentary discomfort of the conversation rather than ongoing worry any day.

So what happened to the grandad who took the wrong sleeping child

if the grandad was known to the nursery , surely he would recognise his own grandaughter ? So why did he take the wrong child

obv the setting was wrong to let this happen but why did the grandad not releise

I wouldn’t be comfortable no. There were a couple of men at my twins’ nursery but we’d moved there when they were about 2.5, completely verbal and pretty much potty trained so I didn’t worry about it. Has they been younger I would not have been happy. As I recall the two male workers only worked with the slightly older children and not the babies.

@Blondeshavemorefun
That is one of the questions that the parents of the child have been unable to get an answer to.

Grandad must have a screw loose.

That case is just so bizarre. How could he not have realised that they hadn't given him his own grandchild but rather a stranger? I'd believe it more if, say, he had GC who were identical twins and they gave him one when he was meant to be collecting the other.

He brought the other child straight back a few minutes later, so it wouldn't even make sense if he had been a child-abuser and seen his chance to take advantage of the error and plead innocent confusion when returning the wrong child much later.

It obviously is prejudiced. It is almost the textbook definition of prejudiced.

It's just that this prejudice is justified.

This is genuinely not something I had considered. The nursery my children attended had 3 male staff members (out of about 12 total); one in his 40s who went on to become the headteacher, and 2 younger ones in their late teens or early 20s I'd guess. My children are boys and they didn't go to nursery until they could talk but it didn't cross my mind to not want a male nursery worker - I actually liked that they were there as positive role models for them and one of the younger men was my favourite member of staff in my younger son's room; he was really passionate about early education (he was doing a degree in something to do with childhood psychology/development/I can't remember alongside working in the nursery) and was very proactive in sharing things he learned with parents if they were interested.

And I say this as someone who categorically would not ever have been okay with having a male midwife during labour (unless an absolute emergency, but in which case they'd have had the doctor in tbf).

Dd2s nursery staff was 50/50 male/female. It was amazing!

No I’d not be ok with it. I wish I could say I would be fine, because I hate having to think men can’t and shouldn’t look after babies and preschool children, but I’d be lying.

At 3 it’s not at all uncommon for even the most reliably potty trained toddlers to have accidents. As a teaching assistant it wasn't rare to need take year 1 kids for a clean up after they had an accident. Sometimes because they’d started with a virus and had the runs. Those could result in a major clean up and clothes change and I’d not want a guy doing that .

No

No, absolutely not. The statistics are clear.

No, unless the the room had cameras, two other female workers and no side rooms.

The centre would also have to be comfortable answering questions about how they safe guard all kids from abuse and explain their systems.

The man's education, experience and references are important. I admire many male doctors, nurses and ambos so I know logically that there are good and trustworthy male child care workers too.

Not for young children. Primary school yes.

I'd be absolutely fine with this in a nursery setting.

Same here.
Deeply suspicious.

The problem is this:

If we - as we bloody well should - ban these men we would have people screaming about lack of 'equality' and other such bullshit.

I know we are meant to be cool with this, but I’m not and if I couldn’t restrict my child to female only care, I would pull them out.