Should men be banned from working in nurseries?

This is not about men working in any other caring profession. It’s purely about men working in nurseries. ( as the thread title states )
And of course we can’t ban men from working in nurseries. It was an hypothetical question.

We can choose to include further caring roles, Kandinsky. thank you for the O/P, but you cant personally control any thread,

and it's well within reasonable bounds of caring including the very young children, since its the opinion of many, it's a general issue as well as a specific one

Enhanced checks etc are a waste of time! The ones to worry about are those who haven't been caught. If males can't work in nurersies because they 'might' abuse children, should we ban Male nurses, midwives, even doctors 'just in case'. Don't put every man into the same abusing category.

Yes.

I worked in nurseries through the 70s and 80s. We had some very caring young men who were great with the children. They provided male role models for children who grew up without dads at home. As time went by most of them left to pursue jobs in education and social work and were able to take their experience to inform their new jobs. They were replaced by young women, mostly caring, but a couple were vindictive and demonstrated unpleasantness to the children and their parents. Some people go into childcare to play out their desires: to punish parents for their own childhoods, or to abuse children because of envy or jealousy. Or very rarely for sexual gratification. Children are open to abuse from any worker and the only way to tackle it is for managers and senior staff to be vigilant and act upon suspicion immediately. Our nursery would have been a poorer place without those young men.

I don't think a ban is feasible or even reasonable but I do agree that there should be extra measures in place when performing intimate care whether a male or female carer is in place. Obviously this would increase costs which again would be a problem with the cost of already expensive child care.

I agree with an earlier post about not using nurseries before a child is articulate enough to tell you about their time away.
My mother was a bit odd and I didn't trust her with my children unless my father was there.

On the contrary, I think more men should be working with children. Women aren't the only nurturing ones on the planet and it gives a rather bleak message if only females are expected to work in childcare. Surely we've moved on from that? The worst abuse case in recent years was a woman working in a nursery (Plymouth, was it? Can't remember)

If enhanced checks are a 'waste of time', then the checks are part of the problem. The checks need to be re-vamped. Much better to devise effective checks, than to ban men from the job.

No.

There are no effective checks for people who haven't been caught. None.

I think that one thing that might help is to have , as they do for prisons, properly vetted people that can be trusted, who can go in at any time and be entitled to spot check at any time of day or night, with no letters or informing the nursery in advance. It would not solve everything, and there needs to be more care checking references, and finding ways that mean that there are more times when there are at least two people in any area at once, as an ongoing check, but think that the idea of the ability of someone to walk in and check on the spot, and possible speak to the children too.

I worked in a nursery 30 years ago. Even then we had a policy of two members of staff taking a child to the toilet.

Astitchintime

So are we only going to have female paediatricians, children’s nurses, neonatal unit staff? The two nurses who inflicted the worst abuse imaginable on defenceless babies and children were both females.

If this were the case, we would clearly be turning the clock back to the days when child-care was solely the province of women.

Would we then ban men from nursing, working in care homes. as midwives, but still accept them as obstetricians or gynaeocologists?

The truth of the matter is that normal, decent people of either (or any sex, for what would you do with men identifying as women or women as men) do not, and never have abused children.

So either we demand that more time during nursery school and school teachers' children's nurses, and paediatricians' training is devoted to ethics and morality, or given to psycological screening of these people, or we demand CCT cameras in all institutions, or two people at least always present where children (or adults with diminished responsibility) are being cared for.

Men who identify as women are men. There is no issue there.

Grandmabatty

I don't think a blanket ban would be a good thing. Perhaps nurseries needs to look at intimate care policies and ensure that two adults are always there when changing children. Of course that has staffing issues

Totally agree Grandmabatty.
Sounds over the top to some. But what about CCTV as well?

Just a wee bit concerned about CCTV. Prefer the previous practice, described upthread, of two Workers at a time dealing with the variety of toileting issues.
Still think an improved check should be devised, to include checking online behaviour.
An improved check could come about before a law would be passed to ban men. No guarantee such a ban would become law.

You CAN'T have CCTV in compromising situations. That's illegal.

Women are guilty of sexual abuse also. (Just check the current American news!) And most people are fine with male doctors, nurses, aides, etc.

The only way I can see of protecting infants is to do more thorough checks before hiring, and maybe have inspections at unannounced times.

Just seen on the BBC news that a 38 year old doctor has been charged with sexual assault on children so should we ban male doctors working with children ? Of course not

Kandinsky

I’m being completely serious.
How many women worked when their children were babies back in our day ( 50’s / 60’s ) not many.
Women would get a job when the children started school.
I grew up in the 60’s / 70’s - no one I knew had been to a nursery. These big nursery chains didn’t even exist.
It was the Thatcher era that changed everything. We suddenly wanted more so that meant both parents working.
I personally don’t think children should be anywhere other than with their parents until they’re around 4 years old.
Nursery is not necessary.

I totally agree. When my children were born in the 70s I stayed at home. I would never have considered leaving them with anyone except my husband or our parents. And to the poster who said I was lucky to be the only person to change my children’s nappies - yes, and this was because we accepted being poor which meant cooking from scratch, eating hardly any meat and walking to save bus fares. I had a 2nd-hand twin-tub washing machine and used towelling nappies. The children’s clothes were 2nd-hand unless my parents bought them. Sorry but most of today’s parents would not be prepared to live the way we did.

lemsip

the thousands of male doctors nurses paediatricians ect would not have been working in day nurseries in the local towns ! they would all have more intelligence

abusive medics could do it at work in some small town hospital, how "intelligent" is that?

today's news

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd5z3qdjv4o

A doctor has been charged with sexually assaulting 38 patients while working at major hospitals in the West Midlands, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has said.

Nathaniel Spencer, 38, of Quinton, Birmingham, has been charged with 15 counts of sexual assault, 17 counts of assault by penetration and nine counts of sexual assault of a child under 13.

Mr Spencer also faces three counts of assault of a child under 13 by penetration, and one count of attempting to assault by penetration.

I totally agree with you. I would never have let my children go to a nursery with any male staff. Some of the things that have happened are truly sickening.

I wasn't advocating the ban.

I've worked in nursery s In one with outstanding from Ofsted I saw awful bullying from female in charge I think their should be cameras around nursery s and two staff involved in taking children to the toilet It should also be easier for those working in nursery s to be able to inform Ofsted of concerns but be able to remain anonymous