This topic came up a few weeks back, and Jen Deaderick just posted this on her FB page.

http://babble.com/herland-why-are-there-still-so-few-male-teachers/index.aspx

I had said then that when I was out with my friends kids I had received weird looks because I was the only adult male at the playground. This article brings up the issue of men teaching young children and young men/ men watching children. I honestly hadn’t put any thought to this before reading this article, and the blog that it links to (scary!). First, would you let a male teenager watch your children and second, would you/ will you let your teenage son be a babysitter?

As a man and one who has watched children in the past I take this a personal insult. The idea that just because I’m male I shouldn’t be *allowed* to watch my best friends 2 little girls disgusts me (not that this is an issue, because my friends aren’t crazy like some of these people). This kind of sexism, and that’s exactly what is, is wrong.

And to answer the articles question, why are there so few male teachers? My guess is that many men read these type of articles that’s why. They know going in to it that everything they do is going to be watched under a microscope and scrutinized and twisted. They know that the only way to avoid being judged like this is to avoid the profession. I’d like to get the opinion of some of our OS teachers though.

Thoughts from the playground?

There were many male teachers at the male owned preschool we considered for our child. Problem was it had a very long waiting list and was very expensive.

I find it hard to be sympathetic here, since it's the media and the court system that convince women they need to be scared of men, and women aren't running the media or the courts. Yeah, it sucks for individual men, but at the same time it functions as a handy form of social control for the patriarchy. I'm happy to work on dismantling that with you.

Until about three years ago my primary babysitters were my two male best friends and my teenaged male cousin. They kept 1st kid from age newborn to around age 3. Then sadly teenaged cousin got a job, one male friend went to grad school, other male friend got a job with a crazy schedule.

Now the primary caregiver in my house for both kids is their dad. When The Companion and I have date nights our babysitters are either my mother, my older brother, or one of male friends.

All of my nephews and male cousins were responsible for babysitting their younger siblings & cousins when they were teenaged. On both sides of my family babysitting is not dictated by gender it was dictated by age and ability. If you are teenaged and there are young family members nearby who needed watching while you are on break from school it is your job to be babysitter M-F during work hours.

I think that people who actually buy into men being a risk to small children are either profoundly ignorant or just plain stupid.

I worked in a daycare in college and there were two male teachers. The kids loved them. They were great with the kids.

At Girlie Grey's Montessori, one of the kindergarten teachers is a male and there are several male assistants. It's true, the kids respond so differently to them--they are play and teach the kids in a very different manner--they are much more physical on the playground--meaning they play sports with them. It's great.

Our first caregivers for Girlie Grey were a married couple and the man, by far, did much more of the caring than the woman. He wouldn't have hurt a flea. My mom was appalled that we were leaving her with a man and I resented her fear because it made me question whether I was making the right decision.

And the funny thing about that is that she was a teacher and she even had to take over a class that belonged to a male teacher who was on leave (and on trial) after being accused of molesting three little girls. The claims were false (and my mom fully believed this, especially after working with the accusers) and he was acquitted. But, the poor man's career was ruined and he and his wife, also a teacher (and was my 4th and 5th grade teacher) were financially ruined.

I don't know why more men aren't teachers. I'm not sure that it's because they read articles like this. I think it stems from a much earlier-in-life indoctrination that men are not teachers, that it's a woman's career (yeah, except why then are there so many more male professors than women in universities?).

Until the last few years, I hadn't really been around very many teenage boys or young men. Since I reconnected with my oldest son when he was just about to turn 17, I've had the opportunity to observe numerous younger males with my kids and in nearly every case, they are much better with them than girls are (no knocks on females here - I also know many non-moms who are great with kids).

My older son is AMAZING with kids. Besides my two boys, he has three other young brothers from his birth father and for a while, he was dating a young woman who was pregnant and was with her for about a year after the baby was born. You could see the love he had for that child and he took better care of her than her mother did. I took the best picture of him with Pie 2 over the 4th of July weekend that I'll post to my profile. You can just see the patience and love for Pie 2 in the way he hold him (course maybe that's just mushy mama feelings).

There are also several tween and teen boys at my church who do a great job of helping with the younger kids. They are gentle enough with them but still have fun and seem to truly enjoy being around the younger kids. A few of them even volunteer to help me when I teach children's church. I would trust any of these young men with my kids.

>>when there's a male, the children fall all over him

This happens to us, too, but not with male teachers (we haven't had any). But when I pick up the Dragon from daycare, I appear at the door, my kid runs to me, a couple kids come say hi, I sign him out, and we leave.

When *Alan* does the pick-up, kids clamber all over him, shouting, "Daddy! Daddy!" It's fascinating, and a little sad.

I don't know why more men don't go into teaching. It's probably a combination of all the things mentioned: the low pay, the "stigma," the fear of false accusations, insidious stereotypes of acceptable professions, etc.

I hadn't thought much about it before. Thanks for posting the link. Good food for thought.

One of the best caregivers I had was a 20-year-old guy. He worked with then-4-year-old Younger Son. He was in school for education and worked at the daycare/preschool on the side. The kids liked him so much (and he was so well-trained and responsible) that he became an overnight sitter for me.

I've had my share of good and bad babysitters and daycare teachers. Sex seems to NOT be the defining characteristic of someone who is "bad" or "good". Rather, it seems (at least to me) to be about why you are in that profession/pursuit to begin with. Being female doesn't mean a lot when all you are doing is trying to get a paycheck. The "good" ones are there because they want to work with children.

I also assess why I have a person there. For instance, I have one sitter that the kids don't really like much because she's not really one to play with them. But, she is responsible and follows all my rules. Sure it would be great if she taught them French while she was there too but you're only going to get so much for a few bucks an hour.

I was told once that males are more likely to be sexual abusers than females -- I have no idea if this is true or not, but that may be why some people shy away from using a male caregiver.

In terms of what I'll let my own boys do -- I'm not sure yet. But I did tell my older brother, who is a Scout leader without kids of his own, that he needs to be extremely careful to never be alone with any of the boys to limit his own liability. Parents are rightfully wary of many individuals who are around their kids so I think that if you are going to work with kids you need to be mindful that the rules are often there to protect both the kids from harm and the adults from allegations of inappropriate behavior.

Sad that we have to think like that, but there you go.

When I was young and single with a small person I had a male babysitter-he was a friend that offered to babysit for me while I was in school. We ended up dating for a few years. We are still really great friends-he and my husband get along really well and he has been able to continue his friendship with my oldest son.

We also had a teenage male babysitter for years. At one point he even moved in with us. He was great! But he grew up and moved away to Las Vegas. We still miss him, but he keeps in touch and we love to hear from him and my kids all love him to bits.

The US experienced a massive wave of daycare/sexual abuse/satanic worship hysteria in the 1980s-90s (find an interesting summary of the cases in Wikipedia) that has abated somewhat but left deep social scars - the wholesale demonization of men who want to work as caregivers chief among them, perhaps.

An easy pop psych analysis of this particular hysteria would be that US society had not gotten over the idea of mothers working outside the house and so had to conjure up an extreme moral evil to point to as an outcome of the "unnaturalness" of daycare.

Having been on the Dark Side, I can tell you that male teachers are often groomed for administration. Compare the male-female teacher ratio against male-female principal ratio.

what about all the mature female teachers who end up in court for screwing a teenage boy? It goes both ways i think... I read somewhere the ongoing emotional damage from being abused by a male was worse than it was for those abused by females. Maybe that's why it's demonised? It's the worser of two evils?

I can't really understand the gap myself, i'm a female, and i can't bear the idea of being in a room full of kids. I used to date a guy who was training to be a primary school teacher (er, grade school? ages 5 to 12?) he said there were barely any other guys in his uni year level, maybe 8 guys and about 40 women, i think it was. He was, in fact, a sexual deviant, but not a predator. As far as i know.

I think what muttermutter and I are trying to say is that of course in REALITY male caregivers or teachers are any more dangerous, but CULTURALLY the media has made them into the bogeyamn. Part of this is likely the fact that a grown man molesting small children is an ultimate taboo, while there's a weird segment of people who think it's totally natural for a 14 year old boy to want to have sex with his teacher. It's not as appalling, for whatever fucked up reason.

Yes, it's totally not that male caregivers _should_ be more demonized - I was just pointing out a reason why they _have_ been. The witchhunt in daycare centers in the 80s and 90s -- mostly as the result of what were later shown to be coerced testimony and some implanted false memories about daycare workers sacrificing animals and drinking blood while molesting children -- had an effect that wasn't about the logic of the situation, it was just hysteria. And men were the particular target of it.

On a slightly separate subject, has anyone stopped to think about Nabokov's Lolita since becoming a parent? Thinking about some sections of that book totally kept me up the other night - kidnapping and child rape as great literature, aggh.

There were several typos in my previous post, including forgetting the very important word *not* in male caregivers are NOT any more dangerous, and then typoing man. Whatevs, seems like muttermutter got the intention anyway.

I never cared for Lolita, less so once I became a parent. There's a lot of stuff I view differently now that I have a kid. Sometimes it totally ruins the fun. :)