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.

it may be discrimination and it may be predudice but i would never employ a male babysitter and i don't like men at under fives' childcare facilities.

We regularly use our 17 year old male baby sitter for our two daughters. he is responsible, sensible, and I trust him implicitly. We don't use a 17 yr old daughter of a friend because she isn't and I don't, although she does babysit for other people. Who was it who said 'there are lies, damned lies and statistics (excuse the misquote, it's nearly bath time & I'm getting distracted)

Not maybe Cos, it is discrimination and it is prejudice. Just don't complain next time somebody turns you down for a job because you are a woman.

gracie
intellectually I know what you said makes sense but my gut feeling is not to have male carers for children to young to let you know if something untoward is going on.
certainly for older kids male carers can be a positive thing but please allow me to follow my instincts for my own young kids

Tom, isn't is obvious to you that this risk exists, ie it is not some fabrication from my imagination? Yes, I do pre-judge that a tiny risk exists of every man who I do not personally know intimately being a child molester. This is based on FACTS, ie the numbers of men discovered to be involved in child abuse every year, and the fact that more are doing it and are never caught.

Furthermore, I bet that most of you wouldn't dream of hitchhiking alone from London to Bristol, or walking home alone at 2am from the railway station. Yet you seem quite happy to subject your children to a similar small risk from strangers. And don't mention checks carried out by trusted nurseries - there is no reliable way to check up on paedophiles. If there was, then the risk wouldn't exist.

Thank you Cos!

I am not doing anything to prevent you following your instincts, just pointing out that your instincts are based on prejudice. To me, it is not acceptable to justify not giving a job to a black person, an old person or anybody else solely on the basis of their sex, age, race or religion. The facts are that women are as equally likely to commit acts of violence and cruelty towards children as men are likely to abuse them.

To go back to the South African analogy, one of the key arguments used by the then Government to justify apartheid was that if Blacks had equal freedoms and rights, there would be an inevitable rise in violence. Jo'burg is now the murder capital of the world. So, does that justify apartheid????

Cos, I posted my last message before seeing yours - intellectually what Gracie says does not make sense! because there are other factors involved apart from pure discrimination and prejudice as I have been trying to demonstrate here for the past 2 days! Your gut feeling is right, and can be justified.

Sml, the hitch hiking analogy is utterly absurd. I am shocked that you would entrust the care of your children to an institution in which you had no faith that they had the mechanisms in place to prevent sexual abuse by men, or cruelty or violence from any staff member.

Gracie, what has the apartheid situation got to do with anything? That was a classic example of mis using statistics. If you can come up with some factors which negate the statistic that more men are involved in child abuse than women, then please do so.

Re the statistic that more women are violent towards children: isn't this because more women spend more time with children, so are more involved in punishing them which includes smacking, and this is counted in the statistic?

In any case, if it was a choice between a risk of the carer smacking my child or raping them, I know which risk I would rather take.

I wouldn't Gracie - that's where this whole discussion started.
The hitchhiking analogy is not absurd - it is an example of women having to restrict their choices because of the crimes of a small number of men, and that is the comparison I wish to make.

Sml, say I am a small businessman. Am I justified in not employing any women staff on the asssumption that at some point in time, I may have to pay maternity leave entitlements and keep their job open for a lengthy period of time and my business is such that that would cause me serious problems?.

Your decision not to entrust your child to a male carer is based solely on the basis of his sex. You said yourself at the outset that you sought an assurance from your nursery that they would never emply a male worker. Thus your instincts about a particular individual don't enter the equation. This is prejudice. End of story.

I am frankly apalled that someone who is married to someone from an ethnic minority should even attempt to dress it up as anythign else.

This is an utterly pointless discussion. Goodbye.

With the aim of informing the discussion, I have contacted the International men in childcare network, asking if they know of any statistics relating to the relative risks that men working in childcare pose to children. This was their response:

"I havent heard of any statistical evidence for this. In Norway there have been very few incidences of child abuse in child care. It happends mostly inside the family.

With regards Aage Jakobsen

I sending your mail to some others that may know something."

SML - the burden is on you to actually prove that the statistical risks that you are so convinced of exist. I am regularly asked to back up my opinions with evidence, and, to the best of my ability, I always do. I'd now like you to back up your opinion with some good, peer reviewed research evidence please.

Re: Norwegian men in chilcare - the picture on this page is really funny - thought you'd like it:
click here

Well, my last word on the subject is this. I had always thought that prejudice means judging somebody on the basis of their skin colour, sex, religion etc rather than their merits as an individual. I cannot possibly see how statistical probability that a certain group of people may be more inclined to act in a certain way can legitimately be used as a basis for judging an individual.

Everyone in this world deserves to be judged solely on the basis of their individual merits. Otherwise, statistical probabilities could be used to justify the most pernicious forms of discrimination against ethnic minorities.

Ha ha Tom - thanks for that. Maybe Fathersdirect should consider publsihing some research on men in childcare. Seem to be some pretty deep seated views on the subject out there.

I think we should knock this one on the head! I think everyone would agree we all want to do what's best for our children and not knowingly put them in any danger of any kind. You can come up with lots of different scenarios and lots of different answers without sounding hypocritical. What I'm trying to say is each situation we come across is different and should be dealt with individually.

I went to the men in childcare website - great picture! - and lots of interesting stuff, but nothing that I could find tackling the issue of how can a concerned parent be sure that their childminder does not fall into the tiny % of men who are child abusers.
Tom, I assume you are not disputing that a very small number of men are child abusers and therefore pose a threat to children, so on a more positive note, maybe the men in childcare group should come up with better checks on child minders than currently exist. Police checks and so on are totally inadequate to protect children given the mobility of people and the fact that a large number of paedophiles are never even caught. References can easily be faked, especially by fellow paedophiles in a network, and don't cover a person's whole life anyway. Because, in the absence of such checks, many people like me, who don't have the time or resources to find out about someone's life, are not going to be able to make valid judgments on individual strangers, which means deciding one way or the other using a blunt instrument like statistics.

a social worker once told me that she would never never have a male babysitter because of the admittedly small risk of sexual abuse. this has stuck in my mind. I would rather be considered predudiced than put my children at risk. I dont fell this is the same as racial discrimination.

I've joined Mumsnet so I could add to this one.

I trained to be a teacher (11-18) a few years ago. I was shocked when the men were told to be very careful with the year 7's (11/12 yr olds) as they may be the first men they had encountered esp if they came from single parent (mother only) families. The lads were told not to shout and to never be alone with them. Now some of that advice is usefull but in a society where we complain because our boys are not doing as well as girls could this be a reason. No male role models at all until they reach 11.

I want my son to have male role models in his nursey and when he goes to school. We compain because our husbands don't go 50-50 with the caring and cleaning and then stop men from doing it as a profession! If we want caring valued we have to let men do it. Obviously men (and women) who have been checked out.

My nephew is being brought up in Denmark and he has had male staff since he went to nursey at 9 months. If we don't want to fail our sons we have to let them know its alright to be a man. And if we don't want to fail our daughters we have to let boys see men being careing so they take it on board and grow up to be just like TOM.

This extract from "Guidelines for the Evaluation of Sexual Abuse of Children: Subject Review (RE9819)" by the AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS
Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect I found interesting.

www.aap.org/policy/re9819.html
"studies have suggested that approximately 1% of children experience some form of sexual abuse each year, resulting in the sexual victimization of 12% to 25% of girls and 8% to 10% of boys by age 18.3 Children may be sexually abused by family members or nonfamily members and are more frequently abused by males. Boys may be victimized nearly as often as girls, but may not be as likely to disclose the abuse. Adolescents are perpetrators in at least 20% of reported cases; women may be perpetrators, but only a small minority of sexual abuse allegations involve women"

Thanks Snowy - my feelings exactly, although I wouldn't put myself up as any great example.
Cos - I don't think those stats are in dispute - but I still havn't seen any statistics relating to child abuse by men in childcare.

Tom, come up with the statistics that men do not abuse children in childcare. There are some parts of this discussion that have got very deep, and at sometimes got very touchy on certain issues. There are some points being made that are very close to a lot of peoples hearts. Still in this day and age some people make a mockery of male hairdressers, the snide remarks that they have to endure are vile. If my son went to Nursery after the summer and there was a male there, I would ask lots of questions about him , if he was a stranger to me and make it known I was doing so. We are lucky in our area, everyone knows everyone, and if someone new comes into the area, well the local gossips have whoever it is all there family history, who their granny was etc out of them!!. I can see both points of view, although I do not agree with some of the points made, but then if we all agreed the world would be a very boring place to be.

Yes, Tigger, we need some reliable figures. Without knowing if abuse by male nursery careworkers is a reality, we're dancing in the dark.

However much we protect our young children and are there for them 24/7, at some point they have to go out in to the big world. Can anyoune honestly say that when you leave a child for the first time with a babysitter/ at nursery etc that you do so without a backward glance? Surely it a parent's instinct to be wary. You just have to trust the nursery or childminder you have carefully chosen. And they have to earn that trust by letting you see and approve the methods they use to check and choose the carers (male and female) who will be looking after your child. And this has to be ongoing. You should also feel you have access to your children while they are being cared for without making an appointment. Of course we could go even further: webcams in every corner so you can log on to the internet to see how your child is being cared for. A bit 'Big Brother' but it could reduce fears about carers and it's happening already in some places isn't it? I don't know if I approve though.

Like snowy, I hope our society encourages men to take on caring roles in the family and at work. How else can we set an example for our sons and daughters?

Funnily enough Cos, a social worker once told me she wouldn't employ a Jamaican childminder. What stuck in my mind was that she was a bigot.