Rise in male créche workers

[differentperspectivesneeded]

Has anyone else noticed a rise in male créche workers in ROI, and what's the general sentiment on it?

My DC's setting has gotten two in the last few weeks, and it's the first time we've had to think about this. Small town & typically female dominated settings before. I know it's more common in the UK, but seems relatively new here?

While I see the perspective that more positive male role models are good, it does raise questions for me as to why men would put themselves through the scrutiny of entering a historically female only career for minimum wage?

Open to different perspectives on this & interested if it's more widespread in different parts of the country.

There haven't been any in our creche but I'd be fine with it.

I understand your thinking.

In a similar small town location, my wee niece's nursery school has a male carer and I thought that an unwise idea. In terms of providing effective safeguarding (based on male pattern criminal behaviour at a population level) it's generally considered a good idea to maintain a female only staff for very young children.

Male teachers can be involved in older primary and in secondary education.

@pontipinemum can you share why you'd be comfortable with it please? I almost wish I was but it raises chills with me.

@UtopiaPlanitia I know the risk of something happening is low, but the impact would be so high I still consider it high risk if that makes sense? I did raise it with their crèche and was made to feel very unreasonable tbh. The phrases "it's great there's a man about the place for them" and "positive male role models" were used a lot.

If that's the answer you're getting from the staff then they're not taking safeguarding procedures very seriously. It sounds like they're trying so hard to be open minded that they've let their common sense take a back seat. Given that a large part of our recent Irish history dealt with the aftermath of decades of child sexual abuse from 'trusted' males such as teachers and priests, I would have thought that safeguarding procedures in this country would be informed by that history and therefore more rigorous.

Effective safeguarding is based on identifying risk and mitigating as much potential risk as possible, and not giving anyone a free pass because you like them or know them or want to break down sexist stereotypes. It's about trying to shut down loopholes that potential predators can use. It's not personal, it's objective.

I'm not saying that any man who wants to work with children is a predator and that all women who work with children are saints, I'm saying that criminal stats show us that on a societal level males are more of a risk to children than females and so we should base our child protection systems on that fact.

@UtopiaPlanitia those are my views exactly, put a lot more eloquently. The workers aren't in my DC's rooms, but it's in the back of my mind now that staff leave coverage could be a factor in the future.

I was made feel like I was close minded for questioning it, but I think if it's the case they're under the care of a male worker I'll have to be even more direct in my communication.

As a child who suffered CSA and I know it’s not every man but we went to visit nurseries for DD and sadly immediately ruled out the one with 2 male workers. I just can’t bring myself to do it and I feel so bad because chances are they are normal and safe but I just cannot take that risk after what I went through. She’s now in a forest school, in a tiny little village, with 14 female (and don’t get my wrong I’m well aware of the horrific case of the female abusing children in nursery) but I just feel nice about leaving her there, she loves it, we love it and we love the friendliness and family kind of feel to it.

You're not being close-minded, you're assessing the safeguarding situation objectively. All systems have moments where they break down or where a loophole develops. People with responsibility for children should keep this in mind - it's better for them to be paranoid because they are acting in loco parentis and have a duty of care towards the children. People were naive in the past in assuming that predators wouldn't put the years long effort into becoming priests or teachers (and building up a reputation in the community for being sound and respectable) in order to gain access to vulnerable children.

It's a sad, frustrating fact of human nature that bad things happen and there's a huge outcry so.... we make rules to stop it happening again, and then the bad thing stops happening for a while, because we're being very careful about following the rules, so we start thinking that we can loosen the rules a wee bit because, sure lookit, the bad thing hasn't happened in ages, and then following the rules become more and more lax gradually to the point where the bad thing happens again and everyone says, 'We never thought that the bad thing could happen again but we will put even more new rules in place to stop it happening', and the whole thing starts all over again....

it's generally considered a good idea to maintain a female only staff for very young children.
Could you point me to the evidence for this statement or is it just your opinion?

Male teachers can be involved in older primary and in secondary education.
All my kids had male teachers in junior and senior infants, amazing teachers.

I think it is very misguided and naïve to assume men in the care setting pose a greater risk then women because of statistics in the general population. The stats for child sex abuse in a childcare settings are thankfully very low. Your child is more at risk of poor quality care, substandard learning environment, neglect and cruelty. Services are heavily regulated have standards they must maintain. The things I would be looking for when vetting a service is not the gender of the staff, it would be staff retention, staff qualifications, safeguarding policy, a copy of their last Tusla report, their pedagogy, their facilities, their staff ratios.

The main creche controversy in Ireland was the Links crèche group and the expose in Prime Time investigates "A Breach of Trust." The issues revolved around poor management highlighting severe issues like the rough handling of children, restrictive sleeping practices, and degrading treatment.

I also think people are just peddling the misogynistic trope that only women can do low paid, low qualified caring roles. Utter rubbish. We need to encourage men into the sector to normalise it and move away from the ridiculous attitude that it is a female only domain.

Unpick the logic of your final question, OP — why men would enter a historically female job sector for minimum wage. Surely for the same reason women do? It requires minimal qualifications and there are always jobs, and it’s physically less demanding than many of the historically male minimum wage jobs, like construction labourers.

@differentperspectivesneeded
People are in general horrible at assessing risk.

In general is would have said this is a low risk but incredibly high impact issue so I would be uncomfortable with it.

However layer on the fact that

• 90% of young men now consume what was in the 90s considered extreme porn (anal, choking, violence, etc)
• this is not arbitrary thaley arent randomly assigned jobs. They have specifically sought out this setting... so its in no way comparable to your child being with a Childmimdrr and her husband is in the house (although I've seen people on here incorrectake the comparison as of its the same... it's just not)

I'd be deeply uncomfortable

male midwives of which there are 200 in the uk "only" 0.5% -0.8% are convicted of sex offenders that is still much higher than general male pop. Meaning they are statistically more likely to be perverts who wish you harm...

In the same vein these guys in nursery are statistically more like to be paedophiles.

I think it is very misguided and naïve to assume men in the care setting do not pose a greater risk then women because historically men havent had unsupervised access to children in this way and violent porn had never been so prolific. We do know mem are significantly more like to commit sex offenses (98%)

It's a hard no from me.

Respectfully, this posts suggests you’re equally ‘horrible’ at assessing risk.

I would be comfortable with it because some men are very caring and love children. I trust that my creche - in ballygonowhere - would take safeguarding seriously.

And unfortunately, yes I do know exactly what child S.A. is from my own childhood and it didn't happen in a school setting. It happened at home with an unvetted shit head my mother decided was suitable for us to live with

Why do preverbal children need male role models?

Female staff can abuse children too. Those against men in playgroups what about male teachers? Norland college the prestigious nanny academy accepts male students.

Preverbal means they can’t speak about the abuse. It’s different to school kids.

Sorry English MNer wondering over here…

Unfortunately men ARE more likely (I mean, much more likely!) to be a sexual predator than women. That’s a fact.

It’s all about mitigating risk. Why would I potentially increase my child to being sexually abused? Well I wouldn’t.

Being a teacher on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. How often are they doing personal care? They don’t enter the profession with 25% of their job expectation being personal care.

It’s bit like having a XL bully as a family pet. It’s not all dogs that attack, and I’m sure some are lovely but why put your baby in potential harms way when they’re known to attack? Oh, and dogs are always good around kids until they’re not and then it’s too late.

We had children in a Scandinavian nursery before moving to UK. 50% of the staff were male and with safeguarding for all staff worked really well.
Our youngst went to nursery in UK and we chose a local one with both male and female staff.

I would not send my child to a nursery that had male nursery staff. In this country we have gone so far we cater to the minority at every stage. My child’s safety trumps your equality in the workplace policy.

Because they need robust safeguarding whether or not there are men. If you don't trust those enough to allow a man, then there are gaps a woman could exploit if she wanted. Yes, that's less likely but still possible.

Male staff a minority?

There is one at the nursery my kid was at.
He played the guitar, got all the kids sat round him singing songs and making them laugh. Played it when he wanted them to tidy up or be calm for lunch.
He was also really sporty and got them all engaged.
Hands down one of the best EYP they had.

I am fine with male teachers and male nursery staff, in fact my children had multiple male nursery workers. None of them gave me an odd vibe, and my children seemed to like them a lot. However, I totally understand parents who wouldn't want their children to be cared for by men. I think a reasonable compromise would be to have male nursery staff do everything apart from personal care.

I definitely think numbers of male nursery workers are on the rise because it's a job that's easy to get into and is less physically demanding than other low-paid jobs.
Male midwives, on the other hand, really give me the creeps. It just feels totally wrong.

I was and am perfectly fine with it.

If the main concern is child sexual abuse than it is most likely to happen by family and friends (account for 70% plus) so if you are concerned about male nursery workers are you as concerned about your husband, father, brother, uncle etc or is this just another sensationalist sentiment?

If I were you I would also watch out for male doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, teaching assistants etc.

All will have access to your children and will have the same safeguarding regulations and inability to be with your child by themselves.

You posted almost word for word what I was going to write.

Male midwives, on the other hand, really give me the creeps. It just feels totally wrong.
Do you feel the same way about male gynecologists?
My friend is a male midwife can you explain what is creepy? Are you suggesting he went into the profession to get access to a woman's vulva?
I'm pretty aghast at this thread, some of you must mix with very strange men