Male pre school workers

[Flopsy145]

My DD is due to start pre school in September and I found out her key worker is a male. I'm very ashamed to say my first thought was not to be comfortable with it, I acknowledged and corrected my thoughts but why did it happen in the first place!
I've heard great things about him on reviews and he's got the same qualifications as the women in the setting, I'm also the first to correct people if they think a female electrician isn't as good as a male for instance. So why did I immediately feel uncomfortable with this?

To add, I now feel ok and look forward to meeting him at the next visit, and I'm also aware that the key workers really only write reports/observations on their key children and all the staff chip in with all the kids especially at that age.

I get it, I have a daughter and a son. But
are there any statistics for boys? The only thing I could find was a study in Spain which suggested contact abuse of boys was most likely to be by a woman.

"The most prevalent perpetrator is a male, although a female perpetrator is more prevalent in male victims. Most of the abuses were committed by an adult acquaintance, a strange adult, and other minors, with some gender differences."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8472568/

The one male key worker at DDs nursery was the only one who she ever ran to when she went in - if he wasn't there when she arrived we had huge tantrums and refusal to let me leave she stuck to him like glue all day and

Posted too soon...

she had a better relationship with him than with the female staff.

DS is at a school nursery so whilst his class teacher and TA are female, they have specialist lessons for music, sports, art, drama and french with all but one of those are male. Staff absence is also usually covered by the male TA from the sports department. I think it’s really nice for them to have a mix. He’s pretty independent with the toilet but it wouldn’t bother me who was helping him, they’re not exactly very private in the nursery and there’s usually a few of them in there together so it seems pretty safe to me.

When people say an electrician is male, they are assuming women can’t/dont do that job
when you are uncomfortable with your child’s key worker being male it’s because you are aware of the high volume of male sexual predators in comparison to female predators
the comparison doesn’t work and that isn’t something you should ignore or ‘correct’ your feelings on. If you are uncomfortable you need to protect your child not ‘correct’ yourself to be more ‘woke’ that is not the issue here. That’s not to say this man isn’t wonderful, but you should know the nurseries safe guarding practices regardless of who your child’s key worker is, and acknowledging the very real statistics isn’t something you should be ashamed of. Providing everything’s as safe as possible (which it should be anyway) it can be great to have a mix, and for children, especially those who may not have it at home, to have a positive and caring male figure in their lives.

When DD was at preschool she had a male key worker, he was actually the managers retired Dad.
She adored him and he never did any personal care for the girls, a female colleague did it if necessary .
He was still there when DS went a few years later and while he wasn't DS key worker he adored him as well.
It's ok to have a few doubts about anyone who is looking after our DC OP but I doubt there is an increased risk if they are male

‘Reported CSAE is heavily gendered, as expected, with males (82% of all CSAE perpetrators)’
from: https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/vkpp-launch-national-analysis-of-police-recorded-child-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-csae-crimes-report-2022#:~:text=Reported%20CSAE%20is%20heavily%20gendered,indecent%20images%20and%20younger%20children.

The pp’s point about complacency around safeguarding from women around our children is salient, and I agree parents should look at the nursery’s practices and policies. But it’s not necessary to pretend that women and men are equally likely to sexually abuse children.

@MotherofChaosandDestruction

"Man here", and I don't think your response is appalling at all.

Both things can be true:

i) only a very small proportion of men who work with children are a threat.

ii) from what data we have, it seems men are a much higher risk than women.

As parents, it's really hard to calibrate our sense of risk. Maybe the risk is small enough to disregard (and male role models for children bring many benefits too, and there are of course thousands of excellent men working with children). But ignoring a fact like the increased risk that men pose, just because it's uncomfortable, is obviously not the right approach.

There are two male key workers at my daughters' old preschool. My oldest dd got placed with him and I'm ashamed to say that I called and asked to switch to someone else. I now majorly regret that as the key worker she ended up with was crap and the male key worker was absolutely amazing.

It's hard to shake the inbuilt fear a lot of us have that man are not as trustworthy around children.

Thank you - I never said that males shouldn't be nursery workers and I agree about the role models but I just don't think people should feel bad about being uncomfortable in the first instance - we do need to address prejudice and risk assess but not totally disregard natural instincts and safeguarding either.

Pp is also right and women abusers exist and we need to ensure that we don't let our guard down with that either.

To the poster saying I implied that 'all men are like that', nope I disagree, I know many men who are wonderful but I also know many angry abusive men so I am wary, I won't apologise for that.

I know far more abusive women than abusive men. Should I be making my DS wary of women?

Yes perhaps you should. It's always good to make your children aware of unacceptable behaviour and boundaries.HTH

I would only be comfortable if he worked in the Pre School room. I would NOT have a male working in a baby/toddler room with nappy changing and personal care.

I simply would not choose a nursery with a male in the lower two rooms.

I think it's simplistic thinking to NOT have some level of reserve about male early childhood educators, and we shouldn't be shamed out of having a realistic consideration of the risk as per data.

Adding to the post above about the disproportionate risk from men vs women, research has also shown that men with sexual interest in children are more likely than other men to work with children: https://theconversation.com/a-survey-found-1-in-6-men-admit-sexual-feelings-for-children-so-is-paedophilia-increasing-218124#:~:text=Compared%20to%20men%20with%20no,work%20with%20children

As a crime lawyer, I am extremely protective of my children and personally would not have them have a male key worker in a setting that would involve changing nappies or assisting with dressing or toileting. If my centre wouldn't allow me to change to a female key worker, I would change centres.

That study says:

One in six (or 15.1% of) Australian men aged over 18 recently surveyed said they had sexual feelings for a child or teen younger than 18 years.

One in six having sexual feelings for someone younger than 18 is very different from your implied one on six having sexual feelings for a very young child in a nursery.

That article is useless, frankly. They're attaching the same importance statistically to a 19 year old fancying a 17 year old as they do to a 50 year old having sexual feelings for a 3 year old.

So what would you do if your child was established and happy there and the staffing changed?

I can understand that, especially for girls. However, from the little I've read today it appears that young boys are most at risk from women. Even though female abusers tend not to be so gender specific as males in their abuse.

That seems to change around age 6 when for boys it's men and again in older children, where the greatest risk is then other (predominantly male)

I'm surprised the data available and the research done isn't a lot more comprehensive. It's actually quite shocking.

I though this was interesting, and runs counter to what I believed when I woke up this morning.

"Approximately 1 to 5% of the male population is estimated to have pedophilia 1,2,3], that is, a sexual interest in children 4]. Despite common misperceptions, pedophilia is neither a necessary nor sufficient precondition for sexual offending against children 5]. In fact, an unknown, but most likely substantial number of people with a sexual preference for children never commit sexual offenses 6], and an estimated 40–60 percent of sexual offenses against children are not committed by people with pedophilic interests 5,7,8,9]."

Yes, I would 100% change nurseries if a male was placed in a baby room or toddler room. I would also question the management if that was a decision they made.

My DD's were not allowed to have their nappies changed/bathed by my Dad/Brother/FILM, three men who I trust and who have not hurt me.

I would NEVER tolerate a random male changing the nappies of children, especially little girls.

I think it would be dangerous and frankly ridiculous to allow that to happen.

OP my DS had two male nursery workers and I felt exactly the same. Me and DH discussed it and said how neither of us were entirely comfortable with it, but we knew it wasn’t reasonable to say that in so many words. Statistically men commit more violent and sexual crimes so it’s not a totally unfounded worry.

I am less concerned with the male classroom assistant that he now has as he doesn’t need the same sort of personal care - that was a factor for me.

I agree with others though, all things being even it is positive for your DD to have a male too.

I think the legality of refusing to employ appropriately qualified males in certain nursery settings and parents not being in a position legally to request that males are excluded was covered in a previous thread recently.

estimated 40–60 percent of sexual offenses against children are not committed by people with pedophilic interests.

I suppose their motives for offending must be something other than sexual which is no less concerning??

Blimey this is no way to live. You must be very tired of risk assessing the world to death on the daily, even distrusting your own family members to this level!

It's perfectly natural to be more wary of men, they are more of a danger and there are over whelming statistics to prove that. It's the whole man or bear thing. My Dd has a male key worker and I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind when she first started but honestly he's been great. He's great with the kids and has children of his own. I feel perfectly safe leaving her there.

It was very clear from what I actually said (not implied) that I was citing the following point from the article:

"Compared to men with no sexual feelings for or offending against children, the 4.9% of men with sexual feelings and previous offending against children were more likely to:

• work with children"

Yeah you’re right… no child has been abused in a nursery by a woman before..