To think male nursery workers should be banned for safety reasons?

[Carla786]

I KNOW most men who work in them are fine but sexual abuse in nurseries is overwhelmingly committed by men. No more men, much less abuse risk.
Yes we need more CCTV etc to watch bad women but it cuts SA risk immeasurably.

We can still have male primary teachers etc kids are old enough to speak up then.

And yes, you can ban on the basis of sex for safety reasons. In women's refuges, eg.

Yes, a lot of women on here are fiercely defending keeping male nursery workers, but many men themselves I suspect might be actually more likely to be sceptical.

@Circe7 , It’s that if you feed boys such as negative view of themselves'-
Why would boys be 'fed' this view? Many nurseries are all female anyway due to few male staff. There would be no need to tell young boys about the ban.

It's just common sense and a need to protect your kid against the very real possibility that it could happen.

Exactly

Also, historically how common has it been for unrelated men to do intimate care for preschool age kids? I'd estimate it's not been very common. I'm not saying men shouldn't, I think dads should.

But otoh has the lack of unrelated male intimate carers historically caused preschool age children lots of distress or made boys feel unhappy? I'm not fully sure of that.

I don’t think toddlers are going to pick up on the ban. It’s that I think it would be a slippery slope to further bans or at the least intensify a culture where boys are basically seen as a problem. Which obviously they pick up on as they get older.

Some dads would use it as an excuse.

''Can't you do the nappies? We aren't even allowed to work in nurseries, women are better at this stuff than men''.

Sure but we’re talking about an impression which boys are getting about themselves as to what society / the government thinks of them.

They’re not for the most part going to be working through that type of statistical argument.

Line of sight can be overcome - the nursery we used had an L-shaped room with the changing area in the shared corner, walled off from one "leg" by lockers but visible (end-on) from one side of the other room for the full length of the room. Children's toilet cubicles and potties were also in this area. When someone was using the changing area to change a baby another member of staff stood in the half of the room where they could see behind the lockers and kept an eye out but were still physically in the main area with the rest of the children and could see what was going on there too - the other children couldn't see anything as the table was above their head height and the top of the changee's head was all that was visible to them. Parents could come in at any time (via the many entry security measures) but would be briefly guided away from the angle where they could see behind the lockers if there was a change in progress.

I think this is what you would call a "slippery slope."

It should NOT be a slippery slope to further bans or a boy hostile culture. Logically it does not need to be.

It's about protecting boys AND girls from a motivated & dangerous minority of deviant men, NOT demonising all boys and men.

Well their parents should explain it to them in a logical and sensitive way. I don't like that but as you say they will find out.

Well 25% of children grow up in a single parent family including my own.

If you just ban men from working in nurseries and its stops there there probably isn’t much impact.

But I think it’s more pervasive. You give men the impression that wanting to care for a young child is suspicious and they won’t do it, even if family.

Sports coaches might have some relationship with a kid but many would probably keep a degree of distance now. Same with teachers etc.

My uncle talked about his football coach taking him home after every match and what an important figure he was to him. I don’t think that would happen now. And I wouldn’t let my own children drive home alone with a coach.

So I actually don’t think a lot of children do have strong male role models. They might have some relationships with men but they’re often quite distant/ professional or overseen by a parent. Which is good from a safeguarding perspective but something is lost for it. And I’d put that partially to blame for the mental health issues teenagers are having now.

This is a whole other issue that you're apparently completely unaware of somehow.

Explaining difficult and upsetting things is part of parenting. You can't shield your child from everything disturbing forever.

I get that re single parents but surely at least some of those have contact with a father? I know they are often bad.

What about grandfathers? Uncles? Family friends?

Yes 100%. I also think all nurseries should have full cctv which parents can access via an app.

I refuse to send my DC to nursery or have a childminder. I come from a village where one of the nursery nurses/sons adult son abused half of my brother class. Dozens of lives ruined. I keep men as far away from my DC as I can.

The list of reasons to keep men in childcare is getting more ridiculous.
If a man is too stupid to distinguish between men not being able to work in childcare because of the greater risk the male sex poses in terms of sexual abuse versus women being better at changing nappies then he shouldn't be breeding in the first place.
And if his argument is that it isn't safe for him to change nappies then he shouldn't be anywhere near a baby, his own or otherwise.

It would send the message that caring for babies = women's work which is already an issue in society.

Not to mention the issues surrounding equality laws in the work place and the can of worms it could very well open. If we can decide that men can't do a job because they are men, the same thing will absolutely happen to women in the work place because it would become more acceptable.

Great post

I've been thinking...

Maybe an option could be legally, some nurseries could officially only employ female staff, and some could employ both. So parents would have the choice.

That's de facto how it is anyway, except it it's important to parents that their nursery has no male staff then they may have to move at any point.

How could that be an option legally with gender discrimination and equality laws in the work place?

Nurseries are not female only spaces and are not protected under that.

Yep. Those defenceless babies right not to be sexually abused trumps any man's "right" to work with them.

De facto this is the real world choice that exists, yes.

My daughter's former nursery employed two men the term after she left and there was quite an exodus of customers.

It would be inconvenient to move a tot, sure- but not the worst case scenario

Women commit the majority of child abuse though. It's only sexual abuse where men are the main perpetrators.