CHILD CARE

Child Care and Men

Name of the Writer

Name of the InstituteChild Care and Men

Introduction

Child care is an important issue in today's society. The way we raise our children is the way the turn out to be. The way we treat them now is the way they will treat us. It is at this time that all the key developments take place within a child. This is the phase of learning for every child, and both the mother and the father participate in child care. However, this has become harder in today's world where both parents work at the same time, and most children spend the majority of their time at child care centres and nurseries. Although, these child care centres take proper care of the children and play a vital role in their development. Nevertheless, they still lack one thing, and that is the touch of masculinity; since the majority of workers and teachers at the child care centres are females. This is of considerable importance given that a father's touch is of great importance in the development of a child. In this paper, the barriers of entry and the importance for males as primary care givers is discussed in detail. Moreover, the need for recruiting male child care worker will also be examined.

Discussion

The topic of child care is of considerable substance, and positive masculine involvement is of exceptional value in the later years of child's emotional, cognitive and social well being. In most of the developed countries, we can see the trend changing as more males are participating as the primary care givers to their children. However, fathering still remains much diversified (including abusive and absent fathers). Nevertheless, the 21st century dad can be seen as the one involved closely in his children's lives than the earlier generations (Roberts-Holmes, GP. 2009, pp. 281-291). More fathers report feeling as confident as their partners, when caring for their child. However, this is not the case in the child care. The atmosphere of the child care centre is still very feminine, and the majority of workers at child care centres still remain females. According to the 1991 UK census, less than 1% of the nursery nurses were male, while only 14% of the primary teachers were male. This is of prime importance since male role models are also required for proper nurturing and development of a child. With the majority of the people, living in dual income families, most of the children spend their time at the child care centres.

The major barriers for males to work in child care centres vary according to the geographic regions around the globe. However, there is one common barrier that is hurdling men from getting into childcare i.e. monetary incentive. According to a research conducted in Australia of students that are studying for degrees in early childcare, majority of students belong to a homogeneous group of females (97%) (Thorpe, Boyd, Ailwood & Brownlee, 2011, pp. 281-291).

SEX

CATEGORY

n

PERCENTAGE %

MALE

2

3.0

FEMALE

53

97.0

However, majority of students believed that males and females have equal ...