To think this is gender stereotyping?

[angiec89]

Was talking with a friend a few days ago and she mentioned she was looking for a babysitter for her two kids this Saturday. I suggested DS as he's 16 and local (he could walk there and back), and she knows him well. He's done babysitting before for other friends and neighbours.
My friend looked surprised and essentially said thanks but no thanks.
I thought that seemed reasonable enough as her kids are quite young so maybe she wanted someone older. But no, instead she asked her neighbour's 14 year old daughter instead!
AIBU to think this is because my son's a male?

No but I would request that nappy changes were done by a female member of staff, as that's the only time I would expect my child to be alone with a caregiver in a nursery setting. I would not use a childminder who had teen sons or a husband/partner in the house when my child was there. I did withdraw my child from a nursery who had the manager's teenage son in the setting, playing with the kids, during lockdown without telling parents, when they were unable to reassure me they had considered the safeguarding aspect. Obviously it is the organisation's choice if they want my custom or not, but it's important I feel confident my child is being protected.

Yes, the case so astonishingly rare that literally everyone has heard of her. How many men have been convicted of sexual abuse of a child this year? How many of their names do you know?

There was no thought process behind me saying female, this Is the only place olive known it to be offensive.

Just so were clear I've very much on the side of trans woman are not woman , and I hate the term cis . You dont need to prefix the norm .

Good men dont turn a blind eye or join in with this sort of behaviour. And you know it.

You could replace the word men in you post and put something else instead. And I could almost guarantee it would be taken down very quickly. I wont say what word,but I'm certain almost every bodies experience is the same.

Men are fair game on here though

Point proven 😂

I also think safeguarding and nursery policies have changed a lot for the better since the 00’s

Looking at the individual won't made a difference. The individual isn't exactly going to admit they have it in their heads to SA children. It's harsh, and I don't necessarily agree with it the stereotyping. But I was SA'd by a 16 year old teenage boy when I was a child.

A teenage female is far far less likely to commit such thing. It's just the society we live in. I'd rather a teenage female look after my child/ren than male.

Absolutely. It's toxic that some men/boys are unable to critically think beyond their own self-absorbed feelings as to why women would react this way.

The question of male to female CSA pedophiles is an interesting one.

One study done on CSA within the Catholic Church in France from the 1950s to present found 2/3rd of perpetrators were priests and 1/3rd were nuns for 216,000 child victims.

A study done on teachers & CSA of students in the US found female teachers were again around 1/3rd of perpetrators.

The 21 members of the biggest child sex ring in the U.K. were recently convicted- and 8 of them were female pedophiles or just over a third.

[None were transwomen.]

I recognise these are only a few data points, and I deliberately picked the ones that show the absolute worst the ratio could be as if I were biased against women.

Even cherry picking the absolute worst cases, having a female babysitter cuts the CSA risk in half which is a significant reduction. A parent would be mad to agree to a babysitter that has a minimum of double the risk of CSA to their child.

Regardless of sex of a babysitter, it’s always a good idea to have a nanny cam because there is also physical abuse so while female babysitters are low risk that doesn’t guarantee your child is 100% safe from all forms of abuse.

If someone considered ending a friendship due to me safeguarding my child, I'd end it for them.

You have no idea if the mother or family have experienced SA before. Nobody has the right to question why a mother doesn't want a young male looking after their children. No one has the right to question anyone looking after her children.

The mums aren't the bad guys here. There are stats and reasons why we are careful as to who we pick to look after our children.

Did the OP’s friend actually confirm that she didn’t want the OPs son babysitting because he is male? Or are we just making assumptions ourselves here?

We can't fight for equality when it comes to who raises children, mothers remaining in the workplace, equality of childcare in the home (fathers pulling their weight) if we're going to insist that men are too dangerous to look after children and instill that into them from a young age. Look at what message is being given to OPs son: "no, you can't babysit because you're too much of a risk".

So is looking after children women's work, or isn't it? We can't have it both ways. Either men need to step up and do an equal share, or they're too dangerous and women must be the ones staying home and watching the children.

I hate what I'm about to say but I can't help how I feel. I would also not allow a 16 year old male, who I didn't know very well look after my children either.

I don’t think expecting the person you (in most cases, not all) consciously chose to have a child with to pull their weight when parenting their “own flesh and blood” (hate that saying) is the same thing as a teenage boy babysitting an unrelated child. I’m not dismissing the fact that related men are often abusers and even biological fathers can be of course but I think it’s fair to say most of us trust our partners to want to protect their children.

It would be great if unrelated teenage boys were not dismissed as babysitters but until men stop abusing, the statistics remain and they are unequivocal so I can understand why one might be influenced by their knowledge of these statistics when making decisions about childcare. I agree it’s really sad and I’d be angry for my son - but I’d be angry at the men who not only ruined lives by being abusive but also, in doing so, caused society to be cautious of decent, respectful men. I wouldn’t be angry or annoyed at the mother in this case, though.

With all this talk of gender stereotyping, I'm reminded of the Rotherham abuse scandal, and one of the contributing factors being the fact that council staff felt unable to speak up about the perpetrators (who were mostly of Pakistani heritage) because they didn't want to be seen as racist.

If you're more worried about "stereotyping" people than you are about the safety of children, then something is wrong.

I'd be considering ending a friendship due to the mum insinuating my son is a rapist for no other reason than because he has a penis. Massively offensive.

Why are people being so all or nothing about this? It's a risk/requirement calculation that's all. Children need/benefit from involved fathers, as do the whole family (economically and emotionally). Nurseries and schools are (or should be) highly regulated places with strong policies around safeguarding. There is a difference between entrusting your children to a man in these contexts, to enable essential activity like work, and deliberately choosing to leave your children completely alone with a sixteen year old boy when you don't need to, just to prove a point about gender equality.

She's not insinuating he's a rapist 🙄 anymore than I'm insinuating that all the childminders in my area are neglectful or abusive because I prefer to send my child to nursery, at least in part because I'm wary of leaving my child with a single caregiver and prefer the nursery setting at least in part because of more eyes on/formal procedures around safeguarding. It's just what risks you are comfortable with, not an aspersion on the options you didn't choose.

It's risk assessment. Plain and simple. Boo hoo that some men and boys become aware of the risk that their sex presents to women and children. The feelings of males are not more important than the safety of children. Maybe if all the other men stopped raping and hurting children we could say it was unwarranted sexism. It isn't though.

That is exactly what she is saying though. There is no reason OP's son is any worse than a younger less experienced girl. Other than the fact he might be a sexual predator according to OP's friend. Maybe if he was a stranger I could undertand it more but this is a boy she has known since he was a baby.

But the OPs friend hasn’t done that. The OP hasn’t even confirmed that the friend doesn’t want her son babysitting because he is male — it was the OP who jumped to this conclusion.

The stats are even more stark when you consider how many more women than men work in childcare. The fact that there are far more women yet men still offend at a fairly substantial higher rate is shocking really. Well I suppose sadly not shocking but it definitely flies against the well what about these few women that were extensively reported on as its so rare.

Maybe she just knows her teenage daughters wouldn't be overly comfortable with a teenage boy in their home alone with them. Taking the threat of SA out of the equation she presumably knows her teenage girls and fair play for her for advocating for them instead of pandering to what a male wants and to stop him feeling irrationally offended.

Blimey, such a lot of hysteria on this thread! Nobody's saying that all teenage boys are rapists, or branding OP's son as one. What ppl are saying is that males commit 98% of sexual abuse, and therefore a boy is 49 times more likely to be an abuser than a girl. Even though the numbers of actual abusers are quite small, that's still quite a huge increase in risk.

Imagine you have 1 group of 100,000 boys, and 1 group of 100,000 girls. You are told that in the boys' group there are 50 sexual abusers. In the girls' group there is 1. Which group will you select your babysitter from?

@angiec89

Do you agree that most sexual violence towards women is done by men?
Do you agree that mostly it's done by someone known to the victim?
This is not about your son but it's about stark reality that men, as a group, cause harm to women.

I have never met a women who has not either been a victim of male sexual violence or knows a close friend who has.
I do not know any women who, when they are feeling unsafe walking home alone at night, worry about anything other than male sexual violence.

Instead of feeling bad for your son not getting a babysitting job, maybe feel how privileged he is to not feel the constant threat of male sexual violence throughout his life.

but we also know that sexual assaults and rapes are also underreported.

Sexual Assault Remains Dramatically Underreported | Brennan Center for Justice