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.

Tigermoth - risks not for me - for my children. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if my sons read this when they grow up - they are not English, and there are whole swathes of people in England and other countries who think the same as I and my family do.

Lets just keep our fingers crossed for a sane and equal society that there are even greater numbers out there who don't!

Tinna, that insult is uncalled for.

Tinna, I do think that was a bit uncalled for as well, everyone in this life is entitled to their own opinions, i have my own thoughts on this matter. Sml, has her own reasons and thoughts for this, respect her for this, please. We all would be very boring if we agreed with everything everyone else said, wouldn't we. Some people choose to go to church every sunday, my mother goes every sunday and thursday night, I do not go at all, unless it is for a marriage, christening or burial. I was married in church, but I do not feel I have to go every week to prove my faith. I'm not having a go, just trying to let you see that, if I don't go to church every week, does that make less of a good citizen than my mother, because i don't believe the way she does?

Well Sml that is my honest opinion. I come from a country where male nursery workers are absolutely the norm and has been for some time. As I said earlier, there is NO problem of child abuse amongst care workers across Scandinavia. I find your attitude to childcare profesional who are men distasteful and I personally would hate my little boy to be exposed to it.

I have not been in Britain very long but long enough to be shocked at many of the narrow minded attitudes on display. In my view, the country has a lot of growing up to do with regards to its treatment of children and families as part of society.

Maybe the expression was a little off but I personally don't see anything wrong in Tinna expressing a hope that the majority of people don't have a problem with men being employed in childcare. After all Sml has pointed out a number of times that hers is just a personal view and not one she would impose on anyone else.

Tinna - I respect your honest opinion, but when we are all speaking anonymously, isn't it better not to get personal? For example, how do I know that you are indeed the mother of a small child? You could be a child abuser seeking to sway people's views!!

I agree totally about this country needing to grow up in its attitudes towards the family - I personally would favour a Mediterranean style model of society though.

Following on from Croppy's last sentence, Sml,I hope this includes sons.

I know I am new around here but is child abuse really so bad in Britain that we must assume they are hiding around every corner??? Sorry for offence to you.

Tinna, No, that was an aside! No offence has been taken.

Tigermoth - I hope they will grow up capable of making judgements for themselves.

I don't have time to read all these posts but on a quick skim I agree with many of the points Croppy puts forward.

Tigger - what gets me is that people act according to the trash press rather than thinking for themselves. This applies to both victims and offenders. I think it important that someone researches an issue properly before making a statement that X is wrong. That is why Tom and others have asked Sml to provide some sort of evidence that her opinion that she is suspicious of male carers has any substance. If it is just a "feeling" she has fair enough but I think she is trying to put forward more than this.

Sml - speaking of broken bones - what about that woman in today's news who has broken the arm of that baby while she was supposedly trying to get him/her to sleep! Strange way of doing things. It is pointless trying to compare violence/abuse and to state which is worse. I was merely pointing out that there are bad aspects to both and that I really would not like to say that I'd prefer my child to have a broken arm. How do we know that mild abuse causes more damage? You are just guessing here. I was very mildly abused by my sisters ex husband. I knew he was doing something wrong but it didn't bother me. In fact I got a bit of a thrill out if it to be truthful. I think that is where a lot of guilt comes in for the abused. OK I was a young teenager at the time and here we are speaking about small children but just pointing out that the whole issue is much more complicated than it can at first appear.

I meant relatives rather than child carers simply because the child is less likely to "tell on them", the closer the relative the more so. A childminder has got a lot to lose if he/she does anything wrong. Also relatives aren't checked by anyone - we implicitly trust them. The fact is that relatives have much more access to their kids particularly if they live with them.

I really wouldn't care if there was a man employed at a nursery - I think someone working in a profession is worlds apart from strange men lurking on street corners. This isn't a valid comparison.

Anyway I've had enough of this topic so I'll leave you all to battle on!

Can I go back to the discussion of childminding v. nursery?

When my wife and I were debating childcare arrangements for our first (and we are starting to do the same now for no.2), we considered not just two options (childminding versus nursery), but three, the third being Dad. I know it sounds a bit twee, but what we wanted what to make sure that our daughter was LOVED. In that respect, Mum and Dad came tops.

Like most parents, our options are not unlimited because of financial considerations, so we had to be creative. I ended up negotiating flexitime with my job, giving me one day a week at home, in exchange for working in the evenings and at weekends a bit (i.e. working when baby asleep rather than when baby awake). My wife worked three days. That left us using a childminder for 2 days only.

This turned out – and I exaggerate not – as a pivotal decision in my life. Staying a whole day alone with our daughter was absolutely brilliant (though doing it every day would drive me witless – and there were some disastrous days when I just waited for my wife to come home!) There is something about really getting on the same wavelength and rhythm as a child. (And I did do all the phone calls anyway, during the daily two hour nap!) I never got anything close to this feeling of shared wavelength with my wife present. Since then, I have slowly renegotiated my entire working life around being at home as much as possible. (And I have never been so productive and successful at work in all my life.) I can’t wait to start the same with no.2 (fed her with a bottle for first time ever this afternoon!!)

All this came about not because of some grand plan or in response to any specific advice. There is absolutely no advice out there for parents about creative ways of parenting for both mothers and fathers. And every single family’s circumstances will require a different arrangement – but if there is one thing I really do advocate is: Dad, spend time alone with your child and make it as long a time as possible.

When we chose a childminder, we looked for an instinct to love our child. When we made the choice, what swung it was her 11 year old son asking us quite genuinely “please can we look after her”. (Boys can be so lovely with babies, provided no friends are looking!) We have become good friends with that family – the childminder is now our daughter’s fairy godmother!

An aside. Had a funny experience this morning. Went into the school on Friday to read to the nursery class (world book day or something). Head Mistress phoned today to say how wonderful it was that a father should come in and could I come again – it was so important for the children that I should! All I did was read “My Mum and Dad make me laugh”! But I will definitely take up the offer – reading to 20 wide-eyed adoring 4-year olds about silly parents was magic!

It is really interesting how the pressure for fathers to become involved in childcare often comes most strongly from women (as does the main opposition!) Fathers don't have much to say on the matter either way, except the occasional weirdo like me and Tom (and any other dads out there reading this discussion and not joining in! Any theories about why this is?!

Duncan, yours and a number of other parents efforts at flexible working seem to focus in part on working when the baby is asleep (i.e. evenings). Do you find this has been a problem as far as your relationship with your wife is concerned? I only ask because evenings are the only time my husband and I get to spend time alone together. We wouldn't go away without our son because we both work full time and always feel we want more time with our child.

Time not doing chores or reading bedtime stories is short however and I think I would struggle to reduce it further.

I think if more employers were willing to adopt flexible working hours for parents this could work fantastically. My husband works three different shift patterns and this enables me to change my hours too. His shifts are earlies - 8.00 am to 4.30 pm, days - 9.00 am to 5.30 pm and lates - 12.00 to 9.00 pm. When he is on a day shift or a late shift I can work from 8.00 am to 4.30 pm. This arrangement means that three weeks out of four my husband spends a lot of time with our son in the mornings and takes him to his childminder etc and I get to finish earlier so I can spend extra time in the evening. I think we all benefit - it makes a real change to be able to get home from work and take our child to the park instead of having to get straight in and start dinner. I know my husband enjoys his mornings too, they will go for a walk around the town or again, go to the park.

The changes in the hours worked during the day are subtle (OK, apart from lates), and I feel could be easily accommodated by most employers. My thoughts are that if you don't ask you don't get - how many parents have tried a shift in working hours for maximum benefit for all the family? I hate this British attitude to working hours, that we have to do the 9 to 5, that to get on you have to be seen to putting in extra time, raised eyebrows if you leave `early'. My maxim is that family and health come above anything else. Your family are the most important people in the world and if you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything.

Duncan is absolutely spot on.

Eulalia - I don't really want to reopen the original discussion, especially as I have already repeated several times the basis of my original decision. But on the subject of child abuse you shouldn't say that I am just guessing. I too was mildly abused, by another child at primary school when I was about 5. It was a horrible experience - and I remember the little boy looking at me with sly laughter in his eyes because he knew that there was no way I could get back at him. So don't play down child abuse by suggesting that children find it exciting and it's too complicated to make a judgement about. I never thought of telling my parents of course, and they never asked whether I had any problems of that sort. My parents attitude was that "well, it happens and there is nothing you can do about it!" Needless to say, this is an attitude that I don't share! This kind of thing is very, very damaging for a child's self confidence. Children need to see that their parents actively stand up for them and protect them. They need to have faith in their parents' ability to cope with good and bad in life in order to grow up confident themselves. That is why "mild" child abuse such as touching and kissing, which is frequently undetected by parents, is so damaging to children.

Emmam - totally agree - I hate to go on again about how marvellous IT firms are, but there are several people in my office who work flexible hours for different personal reasons. It's got to be the way forward.

Sml, I interpreted Eulalia's comments to suggest that a child who had suffered violence / cruelty at the hands of a female carer could potentially suffer more in the long term than a child in the playground who had another child put his hand up her skirt or similar. I am sorry you had such an experience but surely the lasting impact depends hugely on individuals and the particular circumstances. Surely what Eulalia is saying is that it is impossible and surely pointless to even try and draw conclusions at which is worse.

I would never downplay the impact of sexabuse on children but I certainly suffered as a child what would now be termed "abuse" by the experts from another child. It was really very mild and to my mind, was just part of growing up. As it happens, it had no lasting impact on me although I am sure this wouldn't necessarily be the case for everyone.

Well Sml, at least we finally understand the root of your view on abuse, its a shame what happened to you. But do you agree that your experience as a child has lead to this extreme sensitivity to men and abuse? and that your experience shows that you can't protect your children from sexual abuse, its all around. All you can do is bring them up with a healthy attitude to life, and to encourage them to stand up for themselves. And as someone else has already said, its the mother that has that influence and that legislating against men in general is clearly not the answer.

Lil, this is not the root of my views on abuse, merely one factor. My previous postings show clearly that I am not in favour of any legislation on this subject. And, I certainly don't agree that abuse is a part of growing up, or that I have an extreme sensitivity on the subject. At my daughter's school, many Asian parents request that their daughters don't play with the little boys, or are very closely supervised when they do. These girls grow up into confident, English Asian women, their attitude to life is perfectly healthy. I prefer to talk to my daughter (without mentioning abuse of course) so that she tells me all about the other children, what she has done all day etc.

I live in the centre of London's largest Asian community. The attitude of Asian mothers towards their little girls not playing with boys has nothing to do with sex abuse and everything to do with cultural norms. In the Asian community, incest and child abuse are often kept behind closed doors and it would never be considered appropriate for it to be discussed in public. I wish I could share your perception that all these girls grow into confident women. As one who has done extensive charity work with Asian women (admittedly at the more disadvantaged end of the scale), this hasn't been my experience. Sure there are many many happy, confident Asian English young women. But there is a significant proportion who are tyrannised by their fathers and husbands and accorded few rights and freedoms.

I'm just back from a week's ski-ing where our little boy was looked after by a number of nannies, including one who was male. I have to say that I am really shocked by some of the views expressed on this board regarding men working with children. I am sure I would have 100% backing when I say that no parent wants to see their child the victim of abuse but that doesn't mean that only women should look after them. All people who look after children should be police checked and social services checked and every precaution possible should be taken to ensure the safety of all our children.
I am really sorry for anyone who has been the victim of abuse. I had a terrifying experience with a man in a public toilet in France when I was 11 and I was emotionally abused by one of the nuns at school but I have held on to the thought that these were very bad individuals.
Please don't pre-judge 50% of the population on whatever grounds, be it women map-readers or male nannies.

Sml don't you think its the way the our society revile sexual abuse that makes people screwed up when it happens to them? I mean, if people are told that any sexual abuse will ruin your life and you'll never have a normal sex life etc then it is a self-fufilling prophecy? If Sml you had felt that it was 'less of a taboo' you could have spoken to someone about it at the time and it might not still evoke the emotions it does. Like Bugsy has done by telling herself these were a few bad individuals rather than 'my god any man might abuse me, I'LL AVOID THEM ALL?'

Lil, Bugsy and so on, I guess we should at least take heart from the fact that the majority of Mumsnet members seem to be supportive of men becoming more involved in professional childcare!

Lil, I don't really recognise any of my feelings in that paragraph! Actually I never bother to think about that episode normally. It is just one of many things that shape a person's life. That one happens to be negative and avoidable.

Gracie, what do you think is the basis of the cultural norm that little girls shouldn't be playing unsupervised with little boys?

Bugsy, I can assure you that my decision not to employ a male childminder for my toddlers is totally mainstream thinking in some other countries - ask any Algerian woman doctor, engineer, farmer, architect, university don...

Yes, but we live in the UK. I respect other countries traditions, although I don't always agree with them (afterall some countries still publicly execute people). But here in the UK, as far as I am aware, we are working towards sexual equality. We should look at people as individuals, not a sex, colour or religion. If I am not happy with a nanny, doctor, lawyer etc, then I will say so but I deal with people as I find them and not before meeting them.