Childminder vs Nursery

[Sml]

Lil, I was just joking, because I am certainly not afraid of driving with my husband! As I just said below, I think anybody is justified in not taking a risk if they feel it's statistically too great.

Tigger - I don't say that male nurses or doctors are less good than female ones. My preference for a female doctor/nurse for myself has nothing to do with the quality of the care offered.
As for care for my children, I or someone else is always present when they go to the surgery anyway, so of course I wouldn't refuse an eye exam by a male nurse.

[Croppy]

Emma, I think you are clouding the issue with the Aspergers Syndrome situation. That is a specific disability afflicting a specific child which has a number of symptons justifying a cautious approach to leaving that child with baby. That is making a judgement based on facts. This is very different from not employing a man or for that matter a muslim to look after your children because of assumptions you make about the way they are likely to behave or attitudes they may or may not have. That is what prejudice is.

I think we all agree that mens and women brains operate differently but a childcare professional is just that - a person trained to do a job.

[Lil]

Sml, you say you will only allow your children to be with their father or grandfather. As I said before the highest child abuse figures come from within the family. Fathers, grandfathers and siblings (the latter is higher than you would think)are the worst offenders. So as we've pointed out, if you are going to look at statistics, at least use them properly.

[Tigermoth]

Since I left this discussion yesterday afternoon, I've been thinking about the issues a lot. Tom, I'm very glad you're involved in this, but I too take issue with your assertion that the attitudes on this board are disgusting. I have no hard and fast views about male childminding, but it has been really informative and thought-provoking to see what other people are contributing, Sml included.

I'm with Morag. I can rarely just waltz off down the pub to let off steam or talk to a group of my peers, but I can here. Tom, you described this site as our own space!

I was also thinking that not only is it unnatural, but also totally unworkable to insist that your young children are only looked after by male members of your family. For instance, you have a babysitter. You go out for the evening with your partner, your babysitter invites her boyfriend round. Or, Your child goes to a friend's house for a visit - or a sleepover. While there, your friend has to go out for a short while, leaving her male partner in charge. Or they both do the bedtime routine with all the children, yours included, because that's what they usually do.
Incidently, how do you tell your friends that you never, ever want your child to be left alone with their male partners for fear of child abuse? I can see the reactions that would get.

I do think men and women do things differently, but I think that's becasue men are usually less practised in the day to day child care stuff, and it's a relatively new role for them. As women we can look back on generations of hands on mothers.

I'm sure I've got more to say, but I'll stop now.

[Tigger]

Tom, I didn't mean lighten up in the child abuse discussion. It is a very serious issue and should be taken very seriously by all of us. I'm with Morag as well on the pub issue, we can't just drop what we are doing and slip off down to the pub if it all gets to much for us. Also, in your reference to Sml and her nursery I would certainly say that they are breaking the law as this would be classed as discrimination. But as I said, it should not be that men and women are in a "competition" with each other regarding looking after children or working with children. My husband has different ways of doing things with the children than I have, at the end of the day it is the same thing we are doing, just differently.

[Marina]

Like Tigermoth, I'm glad this thought-provoking thread has emerged even though I don't agree with some of the sentiments expressed. My husband has driven me to vent steam on this board more than once but basically he is a loving and interested dad, whose bond with our son is very close - he has started to ask for daddy as well as mummy lately which has made all of us very happy! I would trust him, and our other close male friends, to look after our son, and that includes cuddles, swimming and nappy changes. The trust is mutual between the other couples and it makes the times we meet up socially easier in that whoever's hands are free can help out.
I think it's desperately important in these times that children grow up to know "good stranger, bad stranger" distinctions and that boy children in particularly don't get the message that being a man is a bad thing before they've even reached puberty.
Without any personal experience of this issue, I fear abuse (physical, emotional or sexual) of my child as much as anyone else on this thread. But I trust my own instincts about my nursery sufficiently to be confident that if they appointed a male carer he would be the right person for the job and, if necessary, never left on his own if this was what it took to allay parents' fears and protect him from false accusations.
I'd like to see more men in childcare professions and don't give a hoot whether the NHS staff I see are men or women so long as they are sensitive and competent. I wonder whether the paltry salaries are putting the men off as much as society's entrenched attitudes are.
I'm not surprised that Tom can find research showing men are as competent and loving with their children as their mums are. It's certainly in evidence in our house and our friends'. What I'd love to know, Tom, is how much womanly swearing, sweating, door-slamming, vodka-downing, suitcase-packing, negotiating, coaxing, seduction and bribery got them to that pleasant state. It has taken TIME in our house and it hasn't been an easy ride. No wonder some men fall by the wayside.

[Sml]

Lil - the point is that you grew up with your male relatives, and you get a carefully thought through choice at your own pace, over your future husband's family before you marry.

Croppy - in general, I don't believe there are grounds for discrimination between the sexes, but occasionally there is, based on the differences between men and women. The difference between men and women is greater than the difference between, for example a black woman and a white woman, or a disabled man and a non-disabled man. One example of this difference between men and women would be the relative numbers of women currently jailed for sexually abusing children compared with the numbers of men - and don't cloud the issue by producing statistics on black/white men, as in that case there are other factors involved as we have mentioned before. It sounds as though you are saying that you can't admit that this difference between men and women is a valid one to make decisions on, because this would open the floodgates to racial, religious, age based, and other meaningless forms of discrimination, which I don't think is the case.

To all those people who are so against sexism, let me put this to you: if you were on your own with no mobile phone, and your car broke down in a lonely place at night, and two cars stopped simultaneously to offer you a lift, one driven by a man on his own, and one driven by a woman on her own, which one would you feel safer accepting? Why?
If you would choose the woman then are you being sexist? Are you being anti - men?
If you say that you would regard them both the same, then do you acknowlege that there is a very small risk that you might be attacked if you took a lift with the man? Is this a risk you would be happy for your children to take?

[Croppy]

I don't accept the analogy. The 2 people in question are complete strangers not childcare professionals employed by an institution at which you are happy to leave your children for long periods of time.

[Bells]

Sml, I would choose the woman simply because the man is likely to be physically larger than me. That doesn't mean I would bar people from an entire profession simply on the basis of their sex though

[Sml]

Tigermoth - It's just a question of being careful. I personally wouldn't let my children go on a sleepover at friends until they're old enough to tell me what they've been up to. And I wouldn't leave my children with a baby sitter who would have her boyfriend round. If she's working that night, then she shouldn't be inviting him round anyway. Sounds draconian, but listen to some stories from children who've been abused in similar situations.

[Croppy]

Marina, thanks for the tip of Ferudi's book on "Paranoid Parenting". His thesis sounds like it is music to my ears and I have placed my order.

[Sml]

Bells, do you consider that you would be sexist to choose the woman based on that probability then?

Who said anything about barring men from an entire profession? My point was simply that I would not employ a male carer to look after my children because of a very small possibility...what others choose is up to them. I would certainly not support a law banning men from becoming child carers as long as we have the freedom to choose who looks after our children.

Croppy - it's not meant to be a totally parallel analogy, just to get people thinking about what exactly is sexism and can it ever be justified.

[Croppy]

SML, this discussion kicked off with you stating that you sought confirmation from your nursery that they would never employ. As I'm sure you are aware, this is illegal on the basis of discrimination and it suggests to me that you don't think men should be employed as nursery workers.

[Bells]

Actually Sml, on reflection I would probably weigh up the two options and go with my instincts. If the woman was covered in tattoos, had a shaved head and multiple nose piercings and the man looked like an actuary then no doubt I would choose the latter! But all this is irrelevant. We are not talking about making decisions based on actual facts that are presented to you, rather making a decision based solely on a person's sex without taking other factors into account. I can accept that women may be more cautious where male carers are concerned (after all they are unfortunately rare) but personally wouldn't feel comfortable in suggesting that a person isn't a suitable carer simply because they are male.

[Tigermoth]

Sml, at what age do you think children can reliably tell you what they got up to at sleepovers? My guess would be around 5 years old. But, if you begin to relax your rules then, aren't these older kids at least as likely to be abused, if not more so? does anyone know at what children's age child abuse peaks and is this different for boys and girls?

[Sml]

Bells, isn't that meaningless discrimination against people with tattoos and earrings.....

Croppy, no, just that I personally would not let my children go to that nursery.

Tigermoth, I think you're right as to the age, but at least they can tell you what happened after they're about 5. Child abusers aren't stupid, they tend to pick on children where they think they will get away with it, maybe because the child has no parents, or the parents don't bother to talk to the child and check up, or because the child's too young to communicate.

[Gracie]

Ok , I personally don't think that muslims should be allowed to teach British girls. How does that sound?

[Sml]

Gracie, I am not aware of any arguments, statistical or otherwise, which provide a valid support for that view.

[Gracie]

If I were so minded, I could easily construct such an argument based on the position of women in muslim countries. However it would be as specious as any argument based on the statement that I am unwilling to have a man look after my child.

[Sml]

Gracie, there is a basic fallacy there... the position of women in muslim countries varies from country to country and is down to local culture, not religion. This may surprise you, but Islam liberated women when it was created, because the conditions under which they were living in that part of the world at that time were very, very bad.

[Gracie]

Of course they vary enormously. As far as property rights, marriage, divorce and child custody are concerned however, women in muslim countries tend not to enjoy the same rights under law as men. Don't ge me wrong Sml, I abhor any discrimination. In fact, the only thing I hate more is hypocrisy.

[Sml]

A subject close to my heart - see my previous postings in Relationships/having a baby alone!

[Tom]

I don't think the problem is discrimination - we all need to be discriminating, especially when it concerns the welfare of our children - the problem is prejudice - pre-judging i.e. Men are judged before any facts about individuals are known. The same goes for prejudice about lone parents, blacks, whites, women, disabled people etc. If you can understand the prejudice some of these groups experience, Sml (as you clearly can), it makes it even more dissapointing that you don't question your own prejudice regarding men.

[Croppy]

Well expressed Tom. I must say, I had been a bit sceptical over some of your earlier comments regarding attitudes to men in society - Not any more!!

[Sml]

At the risk of repeating myself, I am not pre-judging anyone. I am saying, when I look at a male child minder, the overwhelming likelihood is that he is NOT a child abuser, however, I am not prepared to let my children take the tiny risk that he might be, because the consequences would be so grave for them if he were. Where's the pre-judgment there?

[Tom]

The pre-judgement is on all the individual men who work in childcare. You judge them to be a risk to your children in a way that women are not. Isn't that obvious?