To not send my child to nursery - another case of a man abusing children

[Ossian1]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgldr4mm8eo

This is happening so often these days. It seems there’s a new story every month or so of a male nursery worker sexually abusing children.

Orginally I thought they were just isolated cases but it’s becoming more and more common. I’m losing track of all of the different cases.

I’m pregnant and have decided I won’t be sending my child to the local nursery, I’ll be finding a local female childminder who doesn’t live with a bloke. I’ve had a look at a few and have options.

I don’t believe nurseries are safe anymore.

Nurseries need to stop hiring men. What a horrible story.
I don't care about NAMALT.

I don’t agree that “the community” are going to have any genuine insight into what goes on with a childminder.

It’s unkind to make total leaps and claim I’m slating all childminders though, isn’t it?

This.

A female staffed nursery is the safest option

My best mates mum was a childminder. She didn't live with her nonce partner (who SA'd my friend) but he was around a lot. She had awful MH issues and often left the childminded children with my friend who was a teenager at the time, or with the nonce partner.

I'd trust a nursery over a child minder any day.

We'll have to agree to disagree then.

YANBU - would always choose a childminder over a nursery. C/hildminders are predominantly women who are mothers themselves and go into childminding once they’ve had their own child as a way of making money from home. Perfectly reasonable..
These men deliberately seek out jobs where they have access to vulnerable children. And they will continue to do so.

Define “so often” because I’m willing to bet it’s an overwhelmingly small chance.

What will you do if there’s male teachers at primary school, home school?

Yeh nurseries have checks and balances. His weir behaviour was flagged by his colleagues which led to them checking cctv

no such thing with a childminder so no thanks I’ll stick to my nursery

I would rather men weren't employed as nursery workers. That was my first thought when I saw a report of that horrific case. But with current laws I don't think that would be legal.

I work in children's social care and now have an older teen DS.

I am so glad I never sent him to nursery or a childminder, we just lived on a very tight budget when he was small, so I stayed at home with him. No family around, just me. ExDH worked full time.
I wouldn't have earned beyond what we would have paid for childcare and I knew he was safe.

I wouldn’t put my child with a childminder. There’s nobody watching them. You don’t know what relatives or other men are going in and out of the property. In your shoes I would just pull your child out if they hire any men. I’ve never seen any men working in a nursery. I don’t think it’s that common

it’s not just about sexual abuse though is it?

plenty of childminders neglect their charges under the nose of said community, and people just comment on how shit they are.

I’ve known many childminders take their charges to baby groups and essentially ignore them while they chat with their mates.

leave screaming babies in pushchairs while they complain about them and their parents.

in one instance a childminder left a baby in her car while she visited her friend.

abuse is terrible, but neglect by childminders is a daily occurrence.

ultimately the only guaranteed safe environment for smallll babies is their own home. But sadly so many people can’t afford to stay home so they have to settle.

And this can happen at nursery too.
How do you know it doesn’t?
As pp said, the only way you’ll know for sure what’s happening to your child is if you stay at home and look after them yourself.

Dont farm out children to be looked after by other people is the simple answer but of course that is not possible these days. My son was assaulted by a nursery worker many moons ago I had to fight tooth and nail to hold the nursery and the worker to account.

He only went one day a week. Engaging child care services, be that Nanny, Au pair, nursery, or child minder will contain risks.

Especially before the infant can speak.

It can but the difference at nurseries is the ratio of people.

As.a general rule it’s not just one person looking after the children. But ultimately in an ideal world children shouldn’t be left in childcare settings.

Please don't tar them all with the same brush.
My work involves going into nurseries and preschools and I see lots of excellent male staff.

There was plenty of research back in my day about nursery vs childminders, and if I recall it was mostly concluded that children under two faired better in child minder settings.

I thought the same about a childminder being preferable until I went to visit one. She genuinely did seem lovely, it wasn’t her that was the issue, but I realised I would be sending my baby into a total strangers house with no real way to know what actually was going on there or who could potentially go in or out, she said her husband worked from home some days and it really scared me. I picked a nursery with all female staff. I unfortunately can’t keep her at home with me all the time, as much as I would love to.

My.kids are grown now, but I so do not care about excellent male staff at nurseries. It's not all men, but it's always a man. Men should not be in promixity to such young children.

Yanbu. There's something not right about blokes who choose nurseries to work in. I would NEVER leave my kid in a nursery where man has sole access to my child

It's tragic as the safeguarding procedure clearly failed catestrohphicly at this nursery and by the sounds of it, potentially other nurseries too prior to him working there too. There clearly needs to be a massive reform over how the safeguarding system is designed and monitored because this seems to be more and more of an occurrence these days. It's absolutely horrendous.

So you would rather have one person looking after your child, with no record or control over who your child comes into contact with?

Exactly this. If your childminder invites her weird uncle over you’d never know. Nursery workers get caught on cctv.

this guy looks creepy

I had a childminder before and after school as a child who wasn't nice to a baby in her care. She didn't like her and would encourage us to do things that made her cry. Who knows how she treated her when we were at school. Women can be evil too.