AIBU to feel uneasy about male staff in nurseries?

[Beautifulsiro56]

Males working in my cbildrends nursery- makes me feel so uncomfortable
Why would a male want to work in a nursery? Most nursery abuse cases are men.
Men shouldn't be allowed to work in nurseries? AIBU

Most CSA happening in a home is purely down to access.
Men who have sexual feelings towards children are more likely to seek work in nurseries because it provides access.

Like I said, happy for you to sacrifice your kids’ safety on the altar of your misplaced beliefs but I wouldn’t risk the safety of mine.

If you believe that safeguarding children is ineffective, despite statutory government guidance with trained senior leaders and staff then you are sacrificing the safety of your children.

If men can commit abuse and not be caught, so can women. System failure regardless of man or woman.

Did you/do you keep your children at home with you?

Because unlike a male nursery worker I know my husband intimately, and was able to judge (accurately) that he was not sexually or physically abusive, or a risk to his own children. But of course, I was aware and mindful for any red flags, as a person who is personally familiar with male sexual abuse.

It's also disproportionate in a number of ways to never allow a father to be alone with his children – it's not disproportionate to never allow a random male nursery worker to be alone with them.

The analogy doesn’t work because there is no correlation between race and sex offences as compared to the very strong correlation between sex and sex offences - 96-98% are committed by men.

No one is saying it’s all men. Nursery workers provide intimate care to non-verbal children and sex offenders seek out roles that will give them opportunities to offend. It is blatantly obvious that sex offenders would seek out these jobs (and have done - as numerous men have been convicted of doing just that). Given the tiny minority of male employees in nurseries, in my view, the risk is both disproportionately high and unnecessary since there are plenty of nurseries without male staff. Your child your choice however.

Given the amount of children starting school not toilet trained - they or the teaching assistants do.

Both could be male.

I employed a female nanny who I personally vetted and supervised as I worked from home. She was with us for 5 years and as close as a family member. My children went to a preschool attached to a school the year before they started school, when they were fully toilet trained and could speak well.

I would never use a nursery because I don’t believe that they provide effective childcare for babies and no, I don’t trust that safeguarding policies are maintained 100% given that they tend to be drastically stretched, underfunded, and staffed by a rotating group of NMW employees, many of whom have no or limited qualifications. This has been proven time and time again by the range of scandals at nurseries including sex abuse but also plain neglect.

They would call the parents to wipe arses.
My daughter is a teacher, she does not handle body fluids.

Adult single-sex dignity and safeguarding of children are totally different things. A common argument from the TRAs insisting that TIM should be freely allowed to use women's toilets is that "We just want to pee" - whereby the majority indeed probably won't be seeking to physically assault or harm the women there in any way, this is completely dismissing the dignity of the women in there who do not want to have to share with adult males.

By contrast, little boys go into the ladies' with their mums all the time, as do little girls into the gents' with their dads, as small children neither know nor care about the concept of dignity.

Incidentally, with the statistics of male nursery workers abusing children, how do you know that there aren't a great many decent men who love kids and would find it really rewarding working with them, but who feel strongly deterred from applying because of the widespread attitude that men who want to do this must have bad intentions? No good man would in his wildest nightmares want to be in a position of being suspected of being a paedophile; whereas the bad men have everything to gain in their determination to get into a job where they can access children to abuse them - so it could well be a vicious circle.

My mum worked as a primary teacher for four decades - she did not wipe kids bottoms and neither did the classroom assistants

Surely if the mother doesn’t trust the stepfather around the children should she have married him 🤷🏼‍♀️

Yes. One would think the safeguarding of children would be even more important than dignity.

Not always, especially if SEN is involved. That's why intimate care plans exist in schools.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I don't really care about the good, decent men who want to work in nurseries. They may be collateral damage, but that's because of other men. Let them sort it out.
Don't see why children have to suffer to make men feel good.

Schools are not allowed to call parents. Disability discrimination.

We've got a male member of staff in our school nursery and it's been very positive for some of the boys who have no other positive male role models in their lives. He's also an LSA in another year group in a different part of the week and runs after school sports clubs at the school. He's a great guy and is very good with the children, parents and other staff members.

My husband's mate worked in a nursery when we were in our 20s, his mum, sister, and his now wife all worked there too. Again, he's a lovely guy, he was working there after leaving uni before he got a role and did training for a different career.

True but as they are far, far less likely to abuse children it's not really a problem.

It's the combination of the fact that paedophiles are far, far more likely to be male AND that it's a low paid job that makes me wary.

If for some reason they suddenly decided to pay nursery workers a 6-figure starting salary tomorrow, I could see why men who were completely sexually normal would think 'hey I can earn 3 times as much as I do now and only have to deal with a few kids. No problem I've dealt with my own. Easy money.'

Though they'd probably quit once they realised how difficult it can be.

When my children went to Primary school, they were able to talk and knew about NSPCC pants and toileted themselves.

There is a window from a baby to primary age where I only had women looking after my children, sometimes in nursery, sometimes in my home. Of course there are other people who might CSA but that doesn't mean I can't look at statistical risk factors. I left my DC with their father but otherwise I did not leave them with any other man alone to look after. I don't think this is at all unusual. I am completely content with male paediatricians, male primary school teachers, sports coaches etc but I would not (for example) employ a male nanny.

I agree with this. YANBU, OP.

Yes this is the important thing. A man’s right to do anything he damned well pleases without pesky risk assessments.

None of my DSs or SiLs work with small children on the day job but three are involved in DBS checked voluntary work with young children. None of them get antsi about the checks or the procedures which ensure visibility of all activity because they know that statistically men are a much higher risk to children than women and that the children’s safety is more important than hurty feelz.

"Yes this is the important thing. A man’s right to do anything he damned well pleases without pesky risk assessments."

This is a straw man argument. The poster you were quoting said nothing about risk assessments.

However, it is illegal to discriminate against men by banning them outright from working in nurseries. "Hurty feelz" have nothing to do with it

Seeing as you have such intense curiosity to find out people's thoughts on this, I'll happily answer.

Yes I do think it's absurd honestly. One of those weird vestigial practices that will no doubt be overturned in another few years. Mammographers are trained clinical professionals, just like midwives, gynaecologists, nurses, radiographers. I was quite shocked when I first heard the gender restrictions to train as a mammographer, it just didn't occur to me that in this day and age that would be the case.

Interestingly it's seem as okay for a male oncologist specialising in breast cancer to exist, and for a male practice nurse to carry our cervical screenings, or a male GP do a breast exam when someone presents with a lump. But the mammographer has to be female?

It's not about making men feel good; it's about bringing children up in a society where they learn that looking after children is not just women's work; just like we now (finally) teach children that STEM is not just for boys and men.

Do you really not think that female biology and social attitudes and restrictions that have built up as a direct extension of that - "You get pregnant and give birth to the babies, so it obviously follows that it's your responsibility to look after them and bring them up (and often pay for them), whilst the men can focus on more important things like running the world and enjoying their freedom" - might have been exploited as an institutional way to keep women down and put them in their place for centuries?

I think itll be the opposite we will stop male practice nurses doing smears, with a bit of luck

Whilst all of that is true, theres no shortage of female unskilled workers to fill the roles.
Women only have to step in and sort the scientific world out because there is a shortage in that (another badly paid) career.

Nope, I was not commenting on the current state of the law I was responding to a PP who was presenting the feelings of the man as the most important aspect of the debate.

It isn’t.