Like most people I was appalled to the point of nausea by the eruption of Victoria’s child care abuse crisis this week.
Not just by the grim details of the allegations but also by how the system could let it happen.
I’m saddened but not surprised by the calls for bans on male workers, or by one provider banning them changing nappies or helping kids use the toilet.
Of course people are frightened. The vast majority of child sex offenders are male.
But I wouldn’t call them men. Not real men. Can we please make that distinction?
I know the point in my life when I truly became a man. It was at age 30, when I was entrusted with the care of a baby, the first of my three sons.
You don’t have to be a dad to be a man of course, but there’s something about stepping up to care for someone vulnerable that can make a young male grow a man’s heart.
It’s not just about you anymore.
Most child sex offenders are male. But none – not one of them – is a real man, not as I define one.
And if we are going to grow more real men for the world that so dearly needs them, we need men caring for kids from as early as possible.
I have so cherished the work of the handful of men, utterly outnumbered by women, who’ve looked after my boys in early years and primary school (as well as high school where they’re more commonly employed).
I am of course forever thankful also to the many caring capable women who have nurtured and taught my boys.
Each of these men, however, undoubtedly gave the son of mine in his care something only another male could.
To use the gender equity phrase, if my sons – and all the other boys – could see him, they could be him.
Not just a male professional who works with kids, but a role model of male caring, of robust tender masculinity.
In fact one of my sons wants to be a prep teacher, has done so for years now. And his grade 6 teacher – his first male teacher in 7 years – has been a guiding light to him.
Not just this year, either. He and his brothers have been coming home telling us about this man since they arrived at the school.
He got a ball out of a tree. He stopped a fight. He comforted a crying kid. He told a joke.
Boys notice the men around them, even if it’s just through seeing them on yard duty. Or working the room next door at childcare.
I hate to think that these kind, gentle men who’ve made such a difference as a minority will be looked at with greater suspicion now, for a while at least.
One criminal from off the scale of humanity has hurt so many kids, not just directly, but via the conflagration of fear of men he has surely stoked up.
This issue of fearing men is dear to my heart for another reason: I too am a man employed in early childhood work. I have worked in perinatal and early family mental health care since 2007.
The stigma that has come with my gender has at times required quiet determination and a sense of humour. I have laughed at the awful mugshot on my Working With Children Check card. I have smiled awkwardly as I surprised female clinicians using the men’s toilets at early childhood conferences by, well, existing.
It’s been humbling to be in such a glaring minority at work. At the early parenting centre where I worked for a decade, there was one other male clinician who ran the weekly dads’ program I designed, Babies, Blokes and BBQ. Otherwise if there was a male worker on site it was to fix something.
That said I’ve always felt blessed by the staff in maternity and early childhood work who have been so welcoming of me. It’s meant so much to be a safe man for them, going about my job in a place of so much vulnerability.
Yes, I have had to accept that some women and families won’t agree to see a man, usually because a man hurt them in the past or even the present.
That my maleness is scary just by being, is sad to me. But I get it.
The painful irony in all this is that we know you raise healthy men who are safer with women and children by role modelling good male caregiving from the outset.
Accordingly we have never needed men in paid caring roles more.
This awful business will I fear set us back a long way; The only way it won’t is with strong leadership from all levels.
A clear message must be sent: a rare crime committed by a warped male requires us to review safety measures with great care.
But it mustn’t stop ordinary men from being welcomed into caregiving environments, as parents or as workers
With thanks to those working in early childhood education, mental health and corrections who have assisted with this piece.
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