Male nannies/childminders

[Lottapianos]

Just listening to a discussion on the radio about male nannies. The general feeling is that having men work with young children is a good thing. No argument there!

However, the reason given is not because men are 50% of the population and it's good for children to spend time with both men and women so they can start to see both sexes as equal. The reason is that 'men and women play differently' - men are more 'rough and tumble' and kids love that Oh and some boys are growing up without a man in the home and they need a male role model in order to develop normally and not grow up gay. Or something

I really do get sick of all this essentialism - men do this, women do that - in the same way as I can't stand people talking about how boys and girls are inherently different. I really think that putting people into boxes based on their biological sex is stifling and unfair - what happens to people who don't 'perform' in the way they are expected?

Any thoughts on this issue?

Eats, I am sure that not all men or women who abuse children are caught and convicted. But presumably all who are caught and convicted end up on the register and since those are the people against whom a case had been proven, it seemed a reasonable basis for an argument. What statistics are the basis of your argument?

You have linked to a document about labour statistics - I don't understand the relevance of this.

The document of labour statistics is simply to say that your stat using 65 million adults is not helpful. Many of those 65 million are young children or very elderly adults.

Eh? I didn't say 65 million adults. I said 56.1m people.

I agree that of the 56.1m not all are of working age. Even doubling the percentage I calculated, however, gives a very small percentage.

Sorry typo, yes 56.1. It is still a lot of men

EBAL I just want them to understand the real risks.

Quite so, and presumably leave it up to them to make their choice, and not be dictated to by law?

Incidentally, how do you address the concerns of rosabud

If you are going to argue that there is an incresed risk rom a certain group (men as abusers therefore riskier to employ male childminder than female childminder) which justifies certain other groups from not taking that risk (mothers who must put their child's safety above everything) then you must also, logically, make that argument in other situations too. Therefore the fact that some groups pose a greater risk in some situations than others (MUslims more likely to be suicide bombers on planes/ black men more likely to shoplift/ women more likely to need time off work due to pregnancy) means that you must accept other groups are justified in not wishing to take this greater risk (mothers with children refusing to get on planes with Muslims/ shopkeepers not allowing black men in their shops/ companies not employing women)

I've met women who are reluctant to employ other women because of maternity issues; two of them eventually decided to alter the skill profiles and fill the post with agency staff.

I have already pointed out that it is a falsa analogy. About 15? men were suicide bombers. I wish only 15 men had sexually raped and abused children!

Yes there are a lot of men in the UK.

What percentage of men do you think sexually molest children and what statistics are you using for this?