Male carer changing daughter’s nappy

[FirstTimeMummyHK]

AIBU to expect the nursery to tell me in advance that a man has now joined the nursery and will be changing my daughter’s nappy? We have been with this nursery for a while and there were only female carers there. The other day I went to pick up my daughter and there was a man sitting in there and I asked the nursery manager quietly
whether he changes my daughter and she said yes he would do. The nursery manager was very grumpy that I mentioned it. I was very nice and
polite to her. I felt that her reaction to my
question was unnecessarily grumpy. I am part of a religion where it’s quite a big deal to separate men and woman although we are not orthodox. I understand that nurseries wish to preserve equality etc and I am
a huge supporter of
men taking on caring roles. However AIBU to expect to be told in advance that a man would be changing my daughter / taking her to the toilet/ wiping her private area??

Hi all,
We have received several reports about this thread and are going through them now. We would like to remind everyone of our long-established guidelines as it is highly frustrating to remove otherwise good discussion points that are unfortunately framed as a personal attack.

Yes this. And the fact that the manager was 'grumpy' would make me move my child pronto.

What do you mean “he’s the exception that proves the rule”?

Do you understand what you’re saying? Your statement means that in most cases male nursery workers are peodophiles and that if this PP’s husband isn’t (after she’s done a thorough and totally unjustified search of all devices and online accounts) then he is the “exception which proves the rule”

Are you really saying most male nursery workers are peodophiles?

Id be interested to know where your statistic is for that?

You sound like a Daily Mail reader.

I wouldn't be happy with this either. There's so much faux naivety on this thread. Of course not all men are sexual predators, but over 90% of sexual predators are men, so it stands to reason that most children are safer in the care of women than men.

Of course there will always be one or two female predators, but the numbers are miniscule. It's disingenuous to pretend that women are as dangerous as men. It's like saying there's no difference between the danger levels of a grizzly bear and a cockapoo, because Sharon down the road once had a cockapoo that bit someone.

Here you have a setting, whereby an unknown male is alone with a little girl, and is cleaning her private areas. If he wanted to be inappropriate, he has full unfettered access to do literally anything he wants. That is not something I would be happy with. And it has nothing to do with Religion, and everything to do with not wanting to take that risk.

I had to have an intimate exam just recently by a male doctor, and he asked me if I wanted a chaperone. I said no. But I am capable of recognising if he did something inappropriate, and could report it. This little girl can't recognise it or even speak up.

Clearly not all men are pedos, but I’d suggest its reasonable to have concerns that a man who seeks out jobs where he has unsupervised access to undress children may be more likely to be a pedo than the average man who works in a supermarket or building site, and he and his employer should consider that it is something that will concern parents.

Especially when it’s a minimum wage job, there are literally thousands of other minimum wage jobs a man could get where people wouldn’t feel uneasy about his presence, so of course we ask ourselves why he chose this line of work?

There has also been a woman jailed this week for killing a child in a nursery.

Because you chose to send your child to daycare and it is becoming more common for men to work in childcare.
As has been said what happens if she needs a doctor urgently? Will you say I'll wait for a female?

I wouldn’t be happy with a man apart from his father changing my little boys nappy either but then he’s not in nursery so I am able to make that decision.

Unfortunately the reality is that the U.K. has a very high amount of sex offenders and peodophiles and the large majority are males. Babies and toddlers aren’t able to understand or advocate for themselves and I wouldn’t want to be naive enough to think it wouldn’t happen to mine.

I would be more upset that parents had not been informed there was a new member of staff who would be caring for my child.
When mine were at nursery we were introduced to new staff members, or were told that there would be bank staff (sometimes by email if it was a short notice hire).

Why are girls different from boys?
My son is severely autistic he wasent out of nappies until he was 9/10 hexstill needs help with intimate care now at 14 as he's non verbal he's very vulnerable ,the vast ,vast majority of stsff in his special school ,respite are female

Can understand the concern, sort of, as an anxious mum myself - but nappy changing protocols since that awful case 10 years ago (involving a woman nursery worker) now involve this being done in a semi public place, where the child’s privacy is protected, but where the person changing the nappy can be observed in the act by a second party.

I would simply ask for an explanation of their safeguarding policies on this, rather than focus on a male employee. Frankly, our children need to see more men in these roles, more men in primary/infant schools (not just as headmasters), as they need to see men as nurturers to build up a positive and balanced perspective of them. For both boys and girls.

Sadly, it is the knee jerk reactions of people like this one that mean they stear clear. They are all afraid of being acused/suspected.

We are talking about child sex abuse.

But if you want to go there, The % of women who kill children compared to the amount of women who work in nurseries is minuscule.

The same cannot be said for the tiny number of men who work in nurseries and the % of them who are convicted for child sex offences.

There has also been a woman jailed this week for killing a child in a nursery

We accept a small level of risk in order to secure our careers. We know there is a tiny risk that a nursery worker will harm our child through negligence.

Do we also have to accept a heightened risk of sexual assault on top of that? Especially when it is completely avoidable? (Eg not hiring men or at the very least committing in writing that they’ll not be doing intimate care?)

To be fair they don't change nappies in a secluded area, they have a chaperone in that sense. And going to the GP is essential, a nursery isn't. The OP should get a baby in my opinion.

OP's getting a hard time because it's absurd to expect nursery to accommodate this request. Also when you leave your children you need to trust the carers. The OP clearly doesn't.

Parents can be there when a doctor examines their child so it's not the same at all.

As PP have pointed out most sexual predators are men (the vast, vast majority 98% I think) - most paedophiles are men so men have a very different risk profile to women staff in a nursery. If the man is genuine then he'll put child safeguarding first and will understand that perhaps he needs to be treated slightly differently due to this different risk profile and perhaps can't carry out all the same tasks as the women staff, or at least not immediately.

All the disingenuous posters acting as if a man is the same as a woman in this setting - it's like saying if there's a nursery dog it's exactly the same if it's an XL bully or a dachshund. Ridiculous and child endangering nonsense.

OP, I agree with your original post and later comments 100%. I am sorry that you have received snarky comments.

Most posters on mumsnet think it's completely fine. But mumsnet doesn't represent most parents.

I entirely understand your concerns.

But why is it unreasonable for OP to request that a man doesn't change her daughter? Especially as she wasn't aware that he was even working there. If you're fine with it then great, but it doesn't mean everyone has to be.

If her daughter needed 'urgent' care it's unlikely it involves her genitals. And even if it did the OP or another staff member would be present.

@FirstTimeMummyHK

If you do decide that a nanny is the way forward for you, try the Norland Agency.

https://www.norland.ac.uk/norland-agency/

Whilst I wouldn’t have an issue with it, I also think people’s wishes should be respected as far as possible. So I would have explored whether there was a way we as a nursery could accommodate your request on religious grounds. That seems reasonable to me.

I can understand your concerns. I wouldn’t be happy with this on the basis that it is usually men who are abusers. End of. Yes women can do this too but the truth is it’s mainly men.

I also think it should be policy that no one changes nappies alone at nursery.

OlympicProcrastinator Fantastic post. And completely and utterly lost on the person that responded to it !! 🙄

our children need to see more men in these roles, more men in primary/infant schools (not just as headmasters), as they need to see men as nurturers to build up a positive and balanced perspective of them

Unironically they may come out with a worse impression, due to the larger risk of sexual assault. Think about all those boarding school scandals …

It’s unfortunate but we cannot treat men as equals in this regard

Op would be with her daughter in that circumstance. Can't you see the difference? Jeezo.

This. All safeguarding procedures are about filters - that's all. They don't stop people being abusers or prevent abuse. They filter out some, put off others from that particular route to children but many simply get past them because they have never been caught. These abusers will happily take part in training, be rigorous with procedures, appear highly professional until they spot an opportunity to abuse and getaway with it.

Nurseries are very vulnerable places- very young children who often can't tell, staff performing intimate tasks on them several times daily, busy rooms with staff moving around and responsible for a number of children.
They key to it is the culture of the nursery- the manager giving safeguarding and its prevention the highest priority, not allowing laxness and rudeness in attitudes about children, ensuring anything that is 'off' is reported, staff not covering up anything like a colleague who doesn't follow procedures, cameras that are reviewed regularly and not just looked at if there is a concern, team leaders who deal with 'culture' and with staff performance. If staff know they are monitored and corrected they will follow rules. Kindness towards and protection of children should be the mantra in every bit of practice. No excuses.

The case we saw yesterday of the little girl killed by a nursery worker's cruelty to her exposed a culture that was rotten to its core in that nursery.