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.

And aren’t children more at risk from male relatives, statistically?

I mean...let's be honest, the problem isn't nursery. As per usual, the problem is men. I'll be honest and will say I'd be very reluctant to let my pre-verbal toddler attend a nursery with a male member of staff. I frankly don't care if that sounds bad.

Generally though, I think nursery is safer. Unless you are unfortunate enough to find one with a culture of abuse and cover ups, there are multiple staff and if something is going on that shouldn't be chances are someone will whistleblow.

I have worked in safeguarding for 20 years. Unfortunately it is impossible to totally legislate and abolish all risk, whether at home, school/nursery or the community. The reality is that most children who suffer significant harm do so in the care of family members and those in their network. Modern reporting and social media etc mean that people are far more aware of the rare occasions when it is those outside of these networks are abusers.

Obviously this is not okay, but checks and safeguarding in the UK is actually pretty robust. It is not fail-safe of course, and every time it fails feels one time too many. I remember reading a few years ago that UK safeguarding (from a social work point of view) has been dramatically effective in the results for children compared to other countries. However the public will never see it this way. The successes are never reported, only when it goes wrong.

We cannot eliminate risk, I have to balance it everyday in the job I do. However, compared to how things were a few decades ago, when the church, professional institutions etc really failed children, I hope as a society we are in a very different place. Of course we need to protect children and the vulnerable, but vilifying men taking on roles traditionally viewed as 'women's roles' is nonsensical. For a start, we have been shouting out for decades to end gender stereotypes. There have been endless studies supporting the need for more men in early years/primary education. Finally, the majority of men are not sex offenders. There have been as many cases of women in nursery setting being sex offenders. Shall we ban them too? It is a person thing.

Are there stats showing that an equal number of women in nursery settings are also sex offenders?
Also, why do the studies say we need more men in nurseries, please?

None of my 4 went to nursery. Im glad and I wouldn’t send any other children I have to nursery either (though I won’t be having anymore)

It's not common and you're being very unkind as well as unreasonable

Seems to be a lot of minimising on this thread.

It’s perfectly reasonable for parents to avoid any nurseries that have male staff to avoid this kind of creep.

Bennett told the jury: "It was just a daft decision at that point. I was feeling really icky and couldn't bring myself to get up."

He has pleaded guilty to eight charges of sexual assault of a child, four charges of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and one charge of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.

So it’s only sexual abuse that counts/.

Nobody is minimizing what happened with this man, but the truth is that it’s rare.

The knee jerk reaction of “men shouldn’t work with children is hysterical and ridiculous.

What are the mothers of sons going to do with them then? Given that all men are predators in their eyes. After all,you can’t be picky if you think that all men should be banned from certain environments.

And then we go back to the fact that people are focusing on sexual abuse, and sexual abuse only, as if that’s the only abuse which matters.

It isn’t.

It matters, but there have been far more instances of women in nurseries who have physically abused children, even murdered them. But don’t put children into nurseries with men because they might be sexually abused. Let’s overlook the rest.

The fact is that if you deem children to be unsafe in a childcare setting they’re unsafe in any childcare setting.

IME decent childminders are in the minority.

They may not actively abuse their charges but neglect is rife.

Most childminders go into the profession because they want to be able to stay at home with their own children, not because they care about and want to look after children. And then those children are mostly treated as an inconvenience.

The reason why childminder rates are dropping is because they’re now expected to be more accountable, and most of them didn’t sign up for that.

And then there are the numerous counts of nursery workers having been charged with all manner of crimes from sexual abuse, in both men and women, to physical abuse/assault/manslaughter/murder. And in all of those cases, the perpitrators have been women.

Why not just face the truth.

Parents need to start adjusting their priorities and stay home with their children.

But nobody wants to acknowledge the reality that children weren’t meant to be farmed out at such an early age. It’s nature for parents to raise their own children. In many societies children are raised by parents and wider family, but in this society we’ve traded that for lifestyle in many instances.

It’s not wrong per se. But truth is that if you have children and you want to continue your career, then you have to choose what is most important.

Your career or the uncertainty that your children will be safe in a childcare setting where you have no control over what is happening to them.

This isn’t about just sexual abuse.

It’s about whether we should be putting children into childcare settings and deferring parenting to strangers at all.

My kids are safe with their childminder

That is the risk when leaving vulnerable children with strangers.

There are no stats to show this because it is absolutely untrue. And I question the motives of anyone making this ridiculous claim.
Men are responsible for 98% of sex crimes across the board.

💯 Your child in someone else’s house who you have no idea who visits during that time or what goes on??AND no one else is there to report or observe anything bad happening. CM’s don’t even exist in my area.

As a former Nursery Teacher,I feel they are very safe. We 90 per cent of the time we're with other Adults.There was a couple of lovely Young chaps too.they would often take the children to play ,while we did Nappies.mums often requested this.i think unless you are going to veto any CC setting ,you won't send DC to School ,Cubs, swimming and so on unless all staff are female!

Over 45% of physical abuse is done by fathers according to the ONS.

So if they aren’t ’farmed out’ then presumably the only option is for women to go back to being stuck at home? Wow.

I decided to go looking for some data on sexual abuse committed by men in childcare. Precious little for the UK, but there was some data from the US and this Australian case suggesting men are disproportionately likely to commit sexual abuse.https://theconversation.com/childcare-sexual-abuse-is-mostly-committed-by-men-failing-to-recognise-that-puts-children-at-risk-260292
I have yet to see any data cited by the posters who claim women are more likely or just as likely to sexually abuse young kids in childcare. I suspect there is none. Given men commit 98% of all sexual crimes.

Some posters have argued:
What about your son?

I have one. I don't think he should be working in a nursery, because men as a sex pose too much of a risk.
What about your family members?
My DC went to an all female nursery and were only left with DH.
What about school and guides etc?
They were talking by then. So they could tell me.
What about other abuse?
We are talking about sexual abuse. Lets not deflect.

I don't know about child minders, but I think it's perfectly fine for anyone not to send their kids to a nursery with male workers.

I wouldn’t touch childminders with a barge pole. No supervision, no real accountability, much easier for maltreatment to occur undetected. Not to mention I don’t see how one person can possibly provide for a potentially wide range of ages, and you’re at mercy of them being sick or going on holiday and not having cover, which nurseries do.

If it’s men you’re worried about, most nurseries are still majority or fully staffed by females as it’s a female dominated profession.

There’s really no information you have to prove this.

There was an article yesterday on Facebook about a female nursery worker (think she was a manager); abusing a child. I think it was to do with physical rather than sexual abuse but still disgusting.
So it's not just men in childcare you need to be wary of. I personally put my trust in the people I leave my child with. He's 5 and still pre verbal so what should I do? Never send him to school as abuse could happen there or trust that these cases are thankfully rare and most people involved with children whether nursery staff, childminders or teachers are in the job because they care about children and want to help them learn and develop.

I think the number of nurseries employing male staff is very small though. I would be wary too, but surely it's easy to mitigate the risk by asking the question upfront?

I think you've missed point entirely with this case. The safeguarding system failed catestrohphicly. Complaints were made number of times, which should have been escalated and they weren't and more children went on to be abused as a result. Clearly the systems in place are not currently robust enough and certainly some of his offences were preventable. Those individuals need to be held accountable. He's the monster but what excuse do those have that looked the other way?

Well i do trust her 100%

Trusting anyone 100% is dangerous, especially someone you hardly know. A sensible level of caution and suspicion is always best when it comes to child protection.

any sort of “they would never” means people let their guard down too much and don’t spot warning signs

That does not make my statement incorrect.

I've worked in nurseries and wouldn't send mine for that reason! Too many that just aren't very good IMO. Women can be abusing children and sending the photos to men who aren't at the nursery - there don't have to be men there for CSA to be taking place. I think that's what was happening at Ted's in Plymouth wasn't it? It's horrific and hopefully very rare - but we have no idea if there are people who just haven't been caught.

I know a couple of fantastic childminders - but i would want to have watched them out and about with children in their care ie at toddler groups and have a lot of recommendations before I left my child with anyone. I also wouldn't leave my child unless they were old enough to tell me anything that was happening - but I was lucky enough to be able to be a SAHM.

Childminders can't have random relatives/men popping in to see them when they're working and anyone who is over 16 and lives at their house would have to be DBS checked. For me I'd rather have an older, experienced CM with her own kids than a nursery full of poorly paid 19 year olds that don't have a clue. But it very much depends on the individuals. DS went to a lovely preschool when he was three, I knew the staff and for me that was key.

Good luck finding a childminder that doesn’t live with a bloke.!