Men working in Pre-schools

[mountainboo]

I have come up against a rather contentious issue. Our nearly four year old son attends a pre-school which he has become very settled in and one that we are happy with. One afternoon when I collected my son I had noticed there was a chap working there. When my husband found out he was furious and told the owner of the pre-school that under no circumstances would our son be attending if there was a male member of staff present (He has no problem with male teachers by the way).

Out of consideration the owner has notified us of days when the male member of staff will be present in January. My husband has excluded our son on those days. He personally believes that no men should be working in that type of environment. His reasons are legitimate, however I am finding it extremely difficult to support him and think he is wildly overreacting. I disagree with his theory. The fact is that this particular school is one large room with absolutely nowhere for anyone to hide. I have tried explaining this to my husband but he refuses to budge.

He believes that I do not have our son's best interests at heart by arguing the case. I am honestly not worried about this chap. This is our son's second pre-school as the in the first he was being bullied by some older children. This is the first place I have felt entirely happy with and he has made friends. To add to this, the primary school that is attached to his pre-school is my first choice for him to attend from September.

I had planned to increase his hours from February in order to prepare him for September but this chap may well be permanently relocated to our son's school in which case I would have to drastically reduce his time there!!

I just wondered, am I in the wrong for contesting my husband's wishes? TIA

[netibiza]

....and dear, learn to control your husband.

[grasscarp]

Make a stand Mountainboo. Of course we are in support because he is being irrational and dictatorial. Your son has friends and is happy there. Why should he sit at home due to your husband's unfounded prejudice against one man. If he really cares about son he will see that he is hindering his transition into the world outside the home which includes men and women.

[jackthehat]

No, I imagine he's a Passive-Aggressive sort of chap...

Stand your ground.
Make an ally of the Head of the pre-school; She will want the best for your child, too.

[Teddy_boy]

Though not physical, some might say his behaviour could be classed as mental abuse.He certainly needs some sort of counselling or guidance.

[mountainboo]

No Jack he's definitely aggressive aggressive! I managed to rein in some of that aggression and got him to be a bit nicer to people and less suspicious, however this clearly didn't have the same effect with nursery workers!

[mountainboo]

I would love him to get professional help. My Dad is a consultant Psychotherapist and has his own opinions of my husband!! Suffice to say he would never do it

[Teddy_boy]

Has he ever hit you?

[mountainboo]

No he has never hit me. if he did i would have been out of here like a shot

[suzywootoo]

My daughter just had a supply teacher at her school and he was a very young probably just qualified teacher and the only thing I heard any of the other mothers say was they wished they had teachers like that when they were at school! Seriously though it never entered anyones head that he could be a potential paedophile. Unfortunately he has entered a profession where there are less men because of peoples prejudice

[dotty.]

I assume then that he will never allow himself to be alone with any of your little boy's nursery pals, heaven forbid he should put himself in such a vulnerable position as to allow anyone to suspect him of some foul deed, he must not ever assume other parents will trust him with their chidlren as much as he assumes others cannot be trusted with his child.

[mountainboo]

I tell you what though, all the bad press makes things ten times worse and strengthens his view

[Teddy_boy]

If i was to think as extremely as your husband, i would say your son is more at risk from your husbands influence than that of the male teacher.

[China Doll]

'I tell you what though, all the bad press makes things ten times worse and strengthens his view'

^^^ That already sounds like you starting to find reasons to give in to his view and avoid the situation. I think your husbands irrational and controlling ways and your passiveness/wanting to keep the peace is likely to be more of a problem than the nursery worker in the long run.

[jackthehat]

It is often true that we accept the those reports which reinforce our prejudices; I wonder how many hundreds/thousands of nurseries up and down the country *are not* tainted with the whiff of child abuse or paedophiles?

[albaqwerty]

Bad press is just exactly that. If he were to believe the amount of road accidents and so on, he wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

[jd_here]

He will have been CRB checked, I think your OH is paranoid.

[treetops1]

The last two cases in the papers were commited by women.

[pusskin]

Males within your family will feel so uncomforable too, if they know how he feels about males! I hope it all ends wellmountainboo x

[Mosaic]

Just to add my two penn'orth, namely the guy will be qualified and CRB checked - he happens to have gonads, is all.
My mother was of the same outlook as your husband, Mountainboo: had very odd notions of masculinity and an absolute assumption that all men would be violent towards babies and toddlers if left alone with them.
I can only assume that in both cases this view is down to a bad personal experience.
On a practical level, I assume obeying your husband's decision will have an economic impact on the family income. Make this explicit to him ie we will be X amount worse off over the next year - can you guarantee to make up this or what do we go without instead? It might shift his viewpoint.

[NOX]

The thing I personally find shocking about this is that your husband seems to have succeeded in grinding your self esteem down to the point where you assumed that we would all agree with him, because your opinion is bound to be 'foolish or wrong'.
Your husband clearly has issues and needs to get them adressed- it's not for him to ' allow' you to deal with things, that is your right as a human being in a free society and I'm really sorry but this type of ridiculous behaviour will continue on his part until there is nothing left of the real you unless you make a quiet , calm positive stand against it.
You've had some excellent advice on here and I really hope that you get the larger issues sorted as well as the paranoia about male nursery workers.