Extreme man ban demands are poor substitutes for real child safety reforms | David Penberthy

Why don’t we ask why mothers who report postnatal depression aren’t forced to surrender their children while we’re at it, writes David Penberthy.

When my two youngest sons were in childcare there was a worker at their centre whom they both adored. His name was Justin.

He was the only bloke who worked there.

I haven’t seen Justin since the final day I picked the boys up from childcare before they started their primary schooling. I hope he gets to read this piece.

Justin was a great bloke. He was an outdoorsy guy with the kind of unkempt shovel beard you associate with craft-beer enthusiasts. Like me, he was a keen vegetable gardener with a passion for chillies and we would often crap on together at pick-up about serranos and padrons and habaneros and all the other obscure specimens we were growing that season.

The childcare centre had a lot of outdoor space and some fruit trees, and our two boys loved running around and getting dirty.

They always had a better time at childcare when Justin was there.

You have to wonder how the Justins of Australia feel this week.

Not just the Justins working in childcare but the Justins working in primary schools.

Throw into the mix the thousands of Justins who coach or volunteer at school sport and have done all the requisite background checks and working with children clearances.

The ones who are there out of nothing but love for and interest in their own kids, and a conviction that it is only through volunteering that the collective school community can share in the benefits of sport.

Karl Stefanovic and Louise Edmonds. Picture: Today

Then set that against a crushing and unavoidable statistic – said by child victim advocate Louise Edmonds, a founding member of the Independent Collective of Survivors, on the Today Show last Thursday – that 97 per cent of cases of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by men.

Consider it also against a putrid reality – that as with the clergy, the Scouts and all forms of institutionalised care, these sick bastards will always be drawn like moths to a flame to any place where they can maximise their chances of having private contact with children.

So, what’s the solution?

It most certainly isn’t the prejudiced and extremist nonsense spouted by Ms Edmonds last week.

Her solution? All men should be banned from working in childcare purely on the basis of their gender.

“We actually have to look at the safety first and foremost of our most vulnerable citizens, which are our children, and a lot of them are voiceless,” she said.

“We shouldn’t be looking at the equality space in the sector”.

Let’s just round up all the Justins out there and tell them to find a job elsewhere.

You have to wonder in this age of wokeness how it would go down if you suggested that women or members of certain races or religions should be precluded from employment on the basis of their identity for certain roles.

Or whether mothers who report with postnatal depression should be forced to surrender their child on the basis they’re statistically more likely to harm the infant.

One of many appalling things to emerge from Victoria this week is that there are proposals to make childcare safer that simply have not been implemented.

I have heard a few politicians arguing defensively this past couple of days that now is not the time to point the finger about what has or hasn’t happened since the 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

I’d say it’s the perfect time to point the finger.

It reminds me of the National Rifle Association greeting every mass shooting in the US with the declaration that now’s not the time to talk about gun control.

If we are smart enough to put a man on the moon I reckon we can come up with a means of ensuring that no baby or young child is ever alone with one person regardless of their gender. There are already calls for what’s known as “four eyes” child care where two members of staff would have to be present at moments of intimacy such as changing nappies and so forth.

The only argument against this is a cost one, which begs the question – how much are you prepared to pay to make sure your kids are safe?

Heaps of money, surely.

When did Australia decided that keeping children safe should be monetised?. Picture: iStock

This point invites a broader discussion about the role which money itself plays in child care.

At what point did we decide as a community that the care of children was something that could be monetised?

The intrusion of a profit motive into the space means that different and inappropriate considerations can be brought to bear.

There was an amazing story in Adelaide last month where an out-of-school care service was suspended after a child was left sleeping on a locked bus due to a failure by staff to do a head count.

Things like this happen when you don’t invest enough in training or don’t have enough staff to do your job properly.

But to return to the Justins of the world, the good blokes who are doing the right thing.

We already have a crisis in the lack of male role models for young boys and men in the education system.

Where fewer and fewer men study teaching. We live in a world now where as a volunteer parent at school sport you pull back when an injured child tries to hug you for comfort, where you think twice about taking a photo of your kid with his teammates.

Criminalising every man in that environment is insulting idiocy.

And perhaps we could talk about sentencing and punishments.

I reckon the Justins of the world would be happy to see the existing penalties quadrupled for this disgusting conduct.

I can think of an even tougher penalty that would match such a crime.

Originally published as Extreme man ban demands are poor substitutes for real child safety reforms | David Penberthy