to not want a male worker to take my daughter to the toilet?

[DebiDean]

Hi there,

My daughter wet herself in the nursery toilets yesterday, when I asked her about it at dinner she mentioned that it was a male worker who took her to the toilet. I spoke to a few friends about it who had different opinions about whether it was right or wrong (opinion was a 50/50 split!) and I decided that as I wasn't comfortable with the idea that I would contact the nursery and explain that I would rather a female worker take her to the toilet.

I was very clear with the nursery that I was supportive of having male role models within the nursery however I felt that to maintain my daughters dignity it would be more appropriate for a female worker to take her to the toilet.

I had a rather rude reply accusing me of being discriminative and that they would refuse to discriminate against him.

I was so shocked as I do support men working with children, but felt there should be limitations within that, or the nursery should at least consider my wishes (especially as it costs me £45 a day!!!).

Whats the opinion? Any ideas of what I could/should do?

"I'm a male nursery nurse by the way. I've had that attitude expressed before about me. It's not something I've ever really been bothered by and I doubt the man and other staff at the nursery will care much about Debi's opinions either. Everybody in the nursery will have such a low opinion of her that people will pretty much ignore her. If I were her I would consider getting somebody else to drop off DD to save her the embarrassment of showing her face there again."

What a disgusting post.

Debi has stated that there has been abuse in her background.

As a nursery worker, you would do well to think why a parent might have a concern about a male carer, because I'm betting that those who have will have reasons relating to their own life stories for feeling this way.

I certainly don't believe the overwhelming majority of males are abusers but the way people are responding on here you would swear that no man has ever, ever abused a child in a childcare setting ((waits to be flamed as woman was involved in recent nursery case)).

Here is the dinosaur in the room on this thread.. we know that many women and men have suffered abuse in childhood. We know that men are statistically more likely to abuse children than women. We know that at least some of those men will assume positions where they can be alone with children and will take the opportunity to abuse them. This does not mean that all men are abusers but it does explain why some people feel uncomfortable about men caring for children in intimate settings.

I feel it.. on some level. I sincerely hope that I won't let my kids know I feel it, but I do. I know it's 'wrong' and 'discriminatory' and all of that.. but there was sexual abuse in my father's family and he himself was abused by a priest in Ireland, and I know he certainly was and is wary of men who worked with small children and I guess that passed down to me.

I can understand that it's uncomfortable for people to accept that there are many people out there with this feeling but the extent of flaming on it is absolutely ridiculous. The OP has not suggested that all men be flayed alive on submitting an application form to work in a nursery as they are clearly paedophiles.. but she has a discomfort which has arisen from actual events.

Some men do abuse, you know.

yip toccata me too.

MrsBean - off to bed but wanted to say I agree totally. You just said it far better than I could.

Also:

"I'm a male nursery nurse by the way. I've had that attitude expressed before about me. It's not something I've ever really been bothered by and I doubt the man and other staff at the nursery will care much about Debi's opinions either. Everybody in the nursery will have such a low opinion of her that people will pretty much ignore her. If I were her I would consider getting somebody else to drop off DD to save her the embarrassment of showing her face there again."

could really put someone off expressing true concerns to a nursery if they think they'll just get ridiculed. That would be a shame.

What is so disgusting mrsbean78 about stating what is felt by a nursery worker?

On intimate examinations I would always prefer a female rather than male dorctor. having said that my gynea is a man and I still - after 12 years - feel really embarrassed when i have to have intimate examinations. Particularly so when I have had c sections and am lying almost naked and just know he is fishing about down there.

I do think it is primitive and stupid but there it is - I worry about all sorts of thing sbut not abuse - that it is too hairy/too shaved/i am too fat/ heaven forbid too smelly ( i always wash manically before ) /I dont'know what.

There is always a female nurse present during these examinations too which does make me feel better.

One thing that never fails to amaze me - when my gynea is examining my breasts he of course has to touch them all over. Not with me but wiht someone else - what if he found them attraactive? Would he not get an erection or do doctors switch off to such an extent wiht patients that they really could not find such a situation attractive?

I didn't like the tone of that post at all either.

mrs bean I put this to debi myself a few pages back. She didn't reply but had said right from about page 2 it was the fact it was not her keyworker (one of the old family friends) who took dd to toilet but a 'stranger' (who works in the nursery).

Abuse is scarring - got that t shirt - but the opening title is pretty blunt and story changed so we are now confused.

welcome to the thread tho.

Scurrfunge:
"Everybody in the nursery will have such a low opinion of her that people will pretty much ignore her. If I were her I would consider getting somebody else to drop off DD to save her the embarrassment of showing her face there again"

This is like something I would expect a 15 year old bully to write. That was what I referred to as disgusting, given the context that a parent expressed concerns which she later linked to experience with abuse in her own life.

No mresbean it isn't because he's a male but because DD didn't know him.

The OP was apparently just her putting it badly.

This is what debi has said

But to have a low oopinion of someone because of their prejudices is not something the poster can help. Acting on it may be different. If someone expresses prejudiced views then I couldn't help but feel aggrieved.

I find it amusing that the OP seems to believe that only boys and girls get into sexual exploration together. Or, alternatively, that girls do this together but that that doesn't matter - when it's with a boy then it's a concern.

OP, what you need to teach your daughter is that nobody gets to touch her in her 'bathing suit areas' except adults who are helping her to do certain tasks, such as changing clothes, washing, medical examinations etc. Not that no male should ever see those areas.

She might well turn out to be a lesbian. Will you then not be worried about the fact that she has 'flashed her tuppence' at female carers all the time and therefore might have learnt that sexual exploration with females is okay?

YABU. End of.

thank goodness the male carer my dd had was kindness itself. He was the loveliest person. If I had any concerns at all, I would have told him and I know I would have been listened to and not been brushed off and ignored.

He cried when dd left. He was a great bear of a man and had a heart of gold. He would never have wanted a parent to feel too embarrassed to go there, I have no doubt about that at all.

I think if you are a nursery worker you need to care about people surely, about the dc and have some understanding for the concerns of their dp. How can you expect dp not to worry about their dc and want to talk through any concerns? What are we? - Robots that produce dc and hand them over and that's the end of it, we just keep quiet?

Look OP's concerns may seem odd to a nursery worker but that doesn't mean they are not valid for her and she is not a weirdo because she worries about something and wants to talk about it. I don't know if she went about it in the best way, doesn't sound like it

mumbar, then it makes even more sense that it would be related to issues in debi's life. She isn't comfortable with the idea of a stranger being with her child in a toileting context (male or female).

I agree also with custardo's post e.g. that it is not beyond the bounds of probability that a 4 year old would find it hard 'to go' while being watched by a stranger. My dh can't if I walk into the bathroom.. I think it's relatively normal and nothing to do with sexual embarrassment, more awareness that toileting is a private thing - and sometimes smelly .

Scurryfunge, to be fair, the post I referred to was blatantly aggressive and bullying and I will stand by the fact I think it was an inappropriate response for someone to make as a nursery worker. You don't have to agree!

ok...will agree to disagree....let's hope the child concerned can get over the issues the mother has created for her and tha she feels comfortable with qualified and supportive workers who have her interests at heart.

omg look at the time.

have to hit the sack. One strange thread altogether this one

I have a pervy gynaecologist story but wasn't sure whether to add it...

think the thread can do without it...

new thread tomorrow maybe

Firstly, why is any nursery staff 'watching' any child go to the toilet.
Surely the child can close the cubicle door, unless i've misunderstood.
At this age, I would fully expect a child to take themselves off to the toilet themselves.

Unfortunately this kind of discrimination is still rife.
I work in a care environment and whilst the bosses are happy to have females take care of males, they would not have males take care of the females.

Good for the nursery for taking a stand over this.

If the OP was a woman whose culture or religion segregated men and women for these functions, how would you all react then I wonder? Would that be U or not?

"If the OP was a woman whose culture or religion segregated men and women for these functions, how would you all react then I wonder? Would that be U or not?"

such a demand is simply not feasible in modern britain. As I said before, imagine the public demanding that NHS staff is divided into two groups -male and female- and only care for their respective gender. What sort of chaos would that create. Can you imagine health professionals being employed according to gender? NO. It's the same thing. Neither the OP or other posters who have said that they wouldn't like their dd cared for by a male have responded about whether they'd be happy with a female caring for their DS.

Cultures that segregate men and women do not involve very young children as they have to be cared for by their parents at least, right? And parents usually come in two flavours

didn't mean the cultures don't involve children at all

Looking after children is womens work anyway.

gobsmackedmetal - there are situations in which discrimination on the basis of sex is allowed due to privacy and decency:

www.northumberland.gov.uk/idoc.ashx?docid=6298a3fe-0945-488c-97b0-f3bb27b8e14d&ve rsion=-1.

I am no legal eagle but can see that the OP might have difficulties applying this case law in her case as there is arguably no physical contact.. but then again, given that she is certainly not asking for this man to be unemployed and she is, as she says, paying for her child to go to this nursery, I wonder whether getting a female nursery worker who is known to the child to take her child to the toilet is really such a terribly unreasonable request.

It doesn't make sense to me that it would be acceptable legally for, say, a South Asian British person to ask for this arrangement on the basis of cultural differences that might make her/him uncomfortable with a male undertaking this role, that it is considered so utterly wrong and ludicrous for a woman (or indeed man) who has had a history of abuse to prefer for a man not to undertake this one minor task.

I personally do not see how this infringes on the male nursery worker's human rights or employability. If the OP was requesting that male workers were not employed or able to work with her child in the open nursery, you might have a different situation. If not taking a child to the toilet was going to impede the male nursery worker's future career prospects or deny him an opportunity for learning or development, then it would also be unreasonable. I don't think this is a likely outcome.

I work in an area where the local community is predominantly a South Asian/British Asian mix. I suspect that many of the families I work with would be uncomfortable with a man who was not a family member taking their little girl to the toilet. Would posters on here flame these families for their views or is it deemed okay to have culturally - vs personally - mandated perspectives on sex roles and toileting?