Ban men from working in nursery settings

[Aliceisagooddog]

After yet another paedophile has been found guilty of awful crimes whilst working at a nursery, surely we need to rethink this. The risks are just too great.

I agree that safeguarding needs to be improved generally because of horrific cases of physical abuse and neglect in childcare settings from workers of both sexes but by not having male childcare workers in childcare settings you vastly reduce the risk of sexual abuse immediately. Men as a class, are also far more likely than women to commit violent crime even taking into account that the majority of childcare workers and caregivers are female but that alone will vastly reduce the risk of sexual abuse.

We know that paedophiles are actively seeking out positions in childcare. That the drive to recruit more men is being exploited. We know that they are 3 times as likely to work with children as your average man and that men commit 98% of sex crimes. For me it simply isn’t worth the hugely increased risk.

I think that men should not be giving personal care to young vulnerable children with additional needs either.

Has a female childminder ever been in the news for sexually abusing children?
I’ve never heard of a case.
and this latest nursery sex abuser had been working there for 7 years! How did he get away with it for so long?

Yes - I don’t understand why men are carrying out intimidate care of the most vulnerable women - the elderly, those mentally diminished and disabled

No, I 100% wouldn't have a man changing my SEN child or being involved in any intimate care for her at all.

It's just so wonderful that men are, apparently, so much better at these jobs than women, if these threads are anything to go by, but I won't take even an additional 1% risk of my non verbal child being raped.

Yeah I'm not sure what your proposing is lawful, but it is certainly hysterical.

Women have been found to commit sex crimes in these roles too sadly. It's not a matter of their sex, but a matter of their character.

But what about all the lovely men PPs know who are so very much better than all those awful/rubbish women (who can also abuse too you know)? Would you really want to make those lovely men sad?

(Sarcasm disclaimer just in case!)

Possibly because never found out. A childminder physically abused my child (locking in a conservatory on her own on a hot day and she went out). In my panic to get her out I didn't get any evidence, and despite me reporting to local safeguarding and ofsted nothing was done and she is still running her business. Some abuse isn't detected. Some is reported but not acted on/publicised.

But making men happy is so much more important than child safeguarding.

Poor little things can't possibly be discriminated against, how would they cope with being told no?

What nursery employs a 45 year old man to look after babies?

What possible reason, apart from the disgustingly obvious, can a 45 year old man have for wanting to work with babies?

If I'd have visited a nursery with a view to looking after my baby, and they introduced a middle aged man as one of the carers, I would have in their face and walked out.

I'm not sure the age is relevant?
These two were teenagers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-57943692
https://www.surrey.police.uk/news/surrey/news/2025/11---november/nursery-worker-jailed-for-sexual-offences-against-two-children/

I get the appeal, and agree with parents having the choice of who cares for their small child.

I also think it's lazy safeguarding to rely strongly on a particular demographic being 'safe' and collective gut feelings on who is safe has repeatedly failed to protect the most vulnerable.

Why on earth do women pretend that isn’t the case and, even worse, pretend that women are just as bad???

My guess is it's not pretending, but focusing on men and women as individuals and see and have experienced on an individual level women being horrifically abusive and men who are amazing carers.

That's never going to mesh up when treating each sex as a class of people and looking at the issue at the macro level.

I can understand both intellectually and professional grasp the stats and why some are uncomfortable with male carers; however, having been abused by women - including violently and sexually - and had it dismissed largely because of the perpetrators' sex which they were very confident in while doing so, as well as professionally heard legal professionals dismiss women who sexually abuse children as being interesting, but a waste of time since it's "not the crime of century", I'm always going to struggle at the individual level to not see women as potentially just as horrible, even knowing men are more likely to be that horrible.

Because it's a rewarding, fun, varied job with (hopefully) a great team around you.

I can't believe you couldn't think of a single reason why babies are nice.

I’m a primary school teacher, I trained 5-11.

• I don’t trust males in nurseries. Primary school is different as kids have a voice, can say no and express what has happened.
• I don’t trust private nurseries because they tend to work with staff who are unqualified and a lot less staff around such as SLT which can range from head teachers, other class teachers and teaching assistants. In state schools, all teachers are required to have QTS and be degree educated at the minimum. Private nurseries do not.
• I don’t trust childminders either. All these women, literally have no idea who these women are shacking up with and all the men defenders come on these threads to save them.

Sounds harsh, but I really don’t care.

Statistics:

”In the UK, there are approximately 3,566 women in prison compared to about 83,768 men, making up roughly 4% of the total prison population.”

YET YET YET, women and men are the same when committing crimes ok 🤣🤣🤣 men are way worse.. 80k worse in fact.

Sharing this again as I’m shocked at the responses of the men defenders brigades:

”In the UK, there are approximately 3,566 women in prison compared to about 83,768 men, making up roughly 4% of the total prison population.”

lol you delusional soul! Do you work in education?

@LurkThenPost I work in the baby room of a nursery.

even worse. Have you seen the statistics?

Not always listened to. I was sexually abused at school at age of 9. Told another teacher, nothing hapenned, I kept being sent to 1 to 1 sessions with this music teacher for months

Yes men are statistically more risky than women. Step parents are 100 times more risky than bio parents. Do we ban step parents from living with children as they are statistically much higher risk?

And within those numbers/percentages a higher proportion of those men will be incarcerated for violent and sex crimes than women will. Women are relatively more likely to be imprisoned for non violent crime.

Just because women can do bad things too doesn't make it sensible to refuse to notice that men are statistically much more likely to.

Yes we can.

You are conflating risk of sexual assault from a biological father with risk from an unrelated male. The risks to children from these two demographics are not the same.

Pedophiles actively seek out opportunities to sexually assault other people's children. A tiny minority of men will sexually assault their own children.
Approximately 2% of girls abused within the home were assaulted by their biological father. according to a study of nearly 1000 girls in San Francisco who were sexually assaulted in their own home.

A much higher percentage of girls are sexually assaulted by their mother's new partner. 17% of girls who were abused in their home were abused by a stepfather figure (whether married to their mother or just living with her).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6609753/
Analysis of interviews obtained from a random sample of 930 adult women in San Francisco revealed that 17% or one out of approximately every six women who had a stepfather as a principal figure in her childhood years, was sexually abused by him. The comparable figures for biological fathers were 2% or one out of approximately 40 women. In addition, when a distinction was made between Very Serious Sexual Abuse (including experiences ranging from forced penile-vaginal penetration to non-forceful attempted fellatio, cunnilingus , and anal intercourse) and other less serious forms, 47% of the cases of sexual abuse by stepfathers were at the Very Serious level of violation compared with 26% by biological fathers. Possible explanations for these starting discrepancies are discussed, and some of the implications for remarriage are considered.

There are no safeguarding policies robust enough to prevent predatory men from sexually assaulting other people's children in nurseries.

sorry that happened to you, I ever agree with 1-2-1 sessions like that. It’s way too risky.

I don’t agree with blended families or step families because it’s never truly equal and children get caught up in the mess. I’m not moving any random man. Men seek out women with daughters/sons to abuse.

Hysterical - nice misogynistic slur

Sex is 100% the clearest determiner as to whether someone is going to commit a sex offence.

Those who feel that men in nurseries are a benefit for potentially providing a male role model does it really stack up if there is a statistically much increased risk of sex abuse?

The role model thing feels like a vague, intangible concept for infants who are the most vulnerable group. At school age the risks decrease and benefits increase so I can be more swayed by that.

As for normalising care being something both men and women can/should be involved with it's hard to know what to say. In an ideal world that would be lovely. If having them provide care to the most vulnerable increases the risk of abuse it's not worth the risk.