10 Struggles for Men in Early Years
I thought I would share with you just a few of the struggles men in childcare are faced with. I have compiled this list from my speaking to other male practitioners. It's time the men working in childcare are recognised for the positive contribution they have in children's lives in order to tackle some of these assumptions and remove the stigma attached to male practitioners.
- If you want to work with young children then your you must be a predator or pedophile.
- Assumptions that you must be homosexual to want to work with children.
- Working with children is 'women's work'.
- Men who work in childcare are 'not real men'.
- If your a man in childcare you need to demonstrate female characteristics but if you show these then that's not how a man is perceived so you must be homosexual.
- Getting all the ‘manly tasks’ such as maintenance oh and not to mention getting rid of spiders and wafting wasps out the room.
- Pay is poor and after all you’re a man so should be the 'breadwinner'.
- A man cannot care for a child because its a natural job for women to nurture children.
- You must act as a 'father figure' to all those children from single-headed families.
- The classic 'silent' thought held by others that you've only been hired because you're a man.
2 comments