Adults who guide a child's day when parents aren't there take on enormous importance. The benefits of having men as well as women in that space are becoming more recognised.
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AS parents usher their children out of the building, “What did you do today?” is a common question.
“I played with Brad,” is often the reply.
Brad Trevarton, 21, is an assistant educator at Community Kids Lavington Early Education Centre and a rarity.
Throughout Australian childcare centres and preschools each day, arriving youngsters are greeted mostly by female, not male, staff members.
While quality care is quality care regardless of gender, industry representatives believe increasing the number of men in the sector helps in terms of role models, reflecting society and also can lead to longer term gains for all workers.
But traditional views and biases, unconscious or not, hinder such progress, as can, let’s face it, reactions to evidence many institutional abusers of children are male.
Australian government figures from 2013 found 94 per cent of the early childhood education and care workforce was female, with male representation under three per cent in preschool, long day care and family day care. The proportion of men in out of school hours care or vacation care rose to 16 and 17 per cent respectively.
Mr Trevarton entered childcare as a path into teaching nearly three years ago.
“I like that I’m making a difference,” he said. “I think it’s important for the children to have a male role model especially in a predominantly female workplace. I get to come to work, open up the door and the kids are all yelling my name and run over for a hug. They love seeing me in the morning and it’s mutual.”
He benefited from the fact another man worked at the centre when he first joined.
“I’d not spent any time with children outside of work so it was all pretty new for me coming in,” Mr Trevarton said.
“I feel like I’ve learnt more compassion, I learnt a lot about children and how integral this part of their life is.”
Centre manager Ro O'Bryan said parents had been nothing but positive about the young man’s presence.
“We’re a small centre and the families here are really tight together so he is a part of our family,” she said. “Children need that balance and they may not have that balance at home so when they come here they’ve got a male that can support them.”
I feel like I’ve learnt more compassion. I learnt a lot about children and how integral this part of their life is
- Brad Trevarton
Last weekend Ben Jackson, a Queensland educator and advocate, won the Australian Family Early Education and Care national rising star award.
“When you consider it takes a village to raise a child, and we are such a diverse country, having such a small representation of men in childcare is scary,” he said.
“I don’t think that men have an ability to do anything different to women, but we don’t have less of a capacity either.
“When I first started, I had a parent barge up to me and ask me, ‘Were there no other jobs?’. I hear that through the emails and through feedback from podcasts constantly, these little digs are made.”
Male staff members could find themselves pigeonholed into the more physical play or doing any literal heavy lifting.
“We’re perpetuating the stereotype and sending a really bad message to children that Mr Ben has to do that or Mr Ben has to be the fixer, someone that will grab a hammer or climb a ladder,” Mr Jackson said.
He said discrimination also could be more active, something no gender, race or diverse group should be facing in 2017.
“There was a service that had a petition that all of their staff had signed, that they didn’t want a man in their business,” he said. “I’m a white male ... I understand the irony but I think the big point is we are educators before we are people that have a penis so I don’t think that needs to be a big focus. Educators, whether they’re male or female, need to be viewed as professional, it’s time that those society views on what we do are viewed as essential and how we do have the opportunity to shape the world.”
Mr Trevarton does find himself often outside playing chasey or hide and seek with the children at the Lavington centre, but also feels comfortable with nurturing aspects.
“Brad’s excellent in that manner,” Miss O’Bryan said. “Children will go to him before they go to someone else, so I think that just reflects back on the time that he’s put into their relationships.”
Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page said women made great educators, but children also benefited from the care of men.
“We’d love to see more blokes coming into early childhood education and care,” she said. “It’s healthy for adults to work with a mix of genders. What I don’t want to see is men just coming in and taking the top level jobs. What we need is more men in educator roles and ensuring women have career progression opportunities that are equal to men in the sector.”
Ms Page said an increase in male educators could also assist in pay parity, as had happened in teaching and nursing.
“As men came into the profession it helped build the case for better wages and conditions,” she said. “It shouldn’t take that, but it tends to help.”
Wodonga Council family, youth and early years manager Marcia Armstrong said the council’s workplace gender equity strategy aimed to improve the male/female balance.
“The council recognises the benefit of having males represented among early years staff, as providing diversity in educational settings can be very important for a child’s development,” she said.
In February, columnist Kasey Edwards outlined in Fairfax Media her family’s rule no man would ever babysit their children.
While not saying all men were sexual predators, she felt “child abuse by men is so common that taking precautions to keep my daughters safe is a no-brainer”.
Ms Page said centres needed to make every effort to protect children.
“I don't think it’s right for us to be concerned that every man is a potential perpetrator, that’s terrible, that’s a very unhealthy attitude to have,” she said.
“The men that I know working in early childhood are incredibly protective of children, very alert, as anybody would be, to potential risks. I hate to think that there are parents who would be concerned about leaving their children with those men.
“I think we can tackle that by highlighting men who are good professionals and also reassuring parents about service delivery and the safeguards that are involved in that.”
This week Community Kids has been recognising a core principle of passion.
“It’s about our passion for our job, passion for our families and passion as a team,” Miss O’Bryan said.
The sole man certainly shares that.
“I’m really happy with where I’m at,” Mr Trevarton said.