Male babysitter here.
The parents who have had me babysit have always had complete trust in me and have never had the slightest fear that I might molest their children. If you don’t completely trust someone you shouldn’t be leaving your children with them- male or female.
Although I have always deservedly had the trust of both the parents and the kids who I have babysat, there have been occasions when I have been aware of “whispers” from one or more members of the parents’ extended family. Each time that I have been aware of this, it has offended me so highly that I am considering withholding my contribution to this Thread- it is difficult for me to write about it.
I have a very close relationship with and a deep love for the children for whom I have babysat, such that any discussion of them coming to harm is not a discussion I can enter into with abstracts. The idea of them coming to harm is not an abstract social issue for me but a very real, truly horrifying prospect. For anyone to suggest that I would bring that harm upon them infuriates me- especially when that suggestion is based on no personal assessment of my interaction and history with these children, but based rather on a vague notion that it is suspicious for a man to take an interest in children at all.
O.K., bienville, take a breath. DougC is not attacking you. He doesn’t even know you. Calm down.
Basically, men have an immense amount to offer in child care and are much more capable than they are given credit for. Anyone who has children in his or her life should be encouraged to take an interest in those children and to participate in their lives. When we automatically label it as suspicious and creepy for a man to be interested in children we create a society that leaves men inadequately prepared to participate in the parenting of their own children.
All babysitters should be held to scrutiny because the responsibility they undertake is so great. But any parent who just automatically discounts any man as a possible babysitter does their children a disservice, by depriving them of the exposure to positive male role models and by programming into their children’s minds that child care is exclusively a woman’s sphere- thus we have another generation of boys grow up to be men who can not participate in child care and girls who grow up to be women who don’t know how to share child care responsibilities with their partners.
- Male
- Yes.
- No.
- No.