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The Daily News
January 29, 1997
Society suffering as males run scared of abuse accusations
Massey University researcher Sarah Farquhar may have exposed more than she
realises with her investigation into male under-representation in
kindergartens and childcare centres. Dr Farquhar's interviews with with 20
male and 20 female workers in this area has disclosed that fear of being
wrongly accused of sex abuse is scaring men away from this career.
In the light of publicity given to Christchurch Civic Centre worker Peter
Ellis, and Wellington
Hospital childcare
centre teacher Peter Scott, this is hardly surprising. Both got lengthy
prison terms for child sex abuse. These examples and others like them, have
left public perception of the problem quivering at the extreme alarm level.
While this has its benefits in discouraging others from similar crimes and
alerting parents and care-givers to the particularly unpleasant risks, it
also has a significant downside, as Dr Farquhar's research shows. There is a
strong likelihood of such awareness seriously damaging relations between
adult males and children outside the education system.
There is no doubt that many men are being made to think twice before putting
themselves into situations with children which could be misunderstood or
misinterpreted. This, sadly, includes fathers and other close male relatives.
Having just got over Victorian inhibitions about showing affection, men find
themselves facing new checks to the desire to cuddle or use other forms of
showing their feelings in a natural physical manner.
While such inhibitions are obviously not as damaging to the child as
molestation, they can take a toll on relationship and leave children confused
and deprived of natural bond-building contact. Taken to extremes, such
depravation may inhibit the child's ability to show affection for, or relax
with, the opposite sex.
In pre-school classrooms, the results can be even more obvious. Children
under five are in their most impressionable years and any absence of male
teachers can leave a quiet incorrect impression on the roles of the different
sexes. This is doubly serious in a society with so many solo mothers raising
children. It deprives these youngsters of of another opportunity for
beneficial male association.
The most unfortunate thing about this whole situation is that there is no
evidence that men in early childhood centres are more dangerous to children
than women. Dr Farquhar's call for an end to discrimination on this basis
needs support. So does a rethink about our tendency to over-react to the risk
of molestation. Because of it we may be turning potentially warn and caring
individuals into cold, hyper-conscious, adults, shunning physical contact for
fear of what others might think.
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