With One Headline, the Media Casually Dismiss Most Child Abuse

How They Handle The Childcare Scandal

I have previously covered the scandal in the childcare industry here, as more and more allegations, video footage and testimony of children being abused and neglected by childcare workers surfaces. I made the point that according to industry figures the workforce is 92% female, which is why the video footage of children being slapped, traumatized, dragged, yelled at or ignored while they wander off is consistently video of women doing these things.

The Four Corners episode that shone a light on all this referenced 26,000 serious incidents at childcare centres nationally in 2024, a figure that is rising, including over 3000 leading to hospitalization. One might think that such horrific numbers might start a conversation about whether it is safe to have women around children.

Our conversations around violence normally centre on domestic violence, and the worst type of violence - murder - is committed against children more by mothers than any other group: indeed, children are almost never murdered by any woman other than a mother/grandmother. I mentioned this in my recent thinkpiece on banning mothers from buying knives.

And from a domestic violence perspective, mothers commit not only the most murders, but also the bulk of neglect and emotional abuse, and at least half of the physical violence.

So to find that women with a non-maternal relationship - indeed, a purely professional association - with children are still abusing and neglecting them in such huge numbers is extremely concerning, and should invite discussion about allowing women near children.

Of course, we are talking about the minority of women - most mothers, female workers and women in general are more likely to be protective of children than abusive - but it's still a conversation worth having.

Yet it is tragically unsurprising that the media have done the exact opposite. Ignoring practically all of the 26,000 serious incidents, the Sydney Morning Herald has focused on the tiny proportion that involve sexual abuse.

They are not alone - doubtless you have noticed many headlines in recent days about a childcare worker caught sexually abusing eight infants, with follow up stories about horrified parents having their children tested for STDs because he had ‘contaminated their food with his bodily fluids’. This sort of combination - parental fear, sexual deviance and children at risk - will always find a spot on the front page. ‘Everyday’ acts of nastiness, cruelty and neglect, like slapping a child or dragging it around, are quickly forgotten, even as they happen by their thousands and their tens of thousands.

The SMH article (which does not seem to be behind a paywall, they want everyone to see it?) focusses on the perpetrators of this sexual abuse, which to put it in perspective is:

Between 2 and 4 per cent of Australia’s early childcare educators and pre-school teachers are male. Of the 142 sexual offences on non-school educational premises in NSW in the year to March 2025, all but two of the alleged offenders were men.

142, from NSW - comparable numbers from other states. Far, far too many - but as I said, a tiny proportion of 26,000.

And on the back of this, we get our headline:

Ignore that this is an overwhelmingly female issue by salaciously focusing on the one form of abuse that is done by men - sexual abuse - which is also the least common form of abuse (other than murder), and casually ignore the 92% of female staff who are the perpetrators of the massively greater numbers of non-sexual abuse.

In fact, I will go so far as to say they may have no examples whatsoever of men perpetrating the neglect, physical violence or cruelty, because if they had, it would almost certainly have dominated the footage shown.

This is how the media behave. I have been doing this long enough to be able to read at least as much from what is not shown, as from what is.

Admittedly, in discussing whether to ban men from childcare roles, the SMH article is balanced, mentioning both how small the numbers are and the problems men already face in the industry. Experts are cited who disagree with the headline.

But by framing this as a men’s issue - “should we ban men? Probably not, but think of them as the problem while we discuss it!” - they ignore, once again, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators according to their own footage and stories, and the overwhelming majority of the abuse cases that are not sexual.

When it is mentioned, they frame it as a systemic problem:

Others argue a ban is not the answer, saying sexual offending – which, crime statistics show, is primarily perpetrated by men – is not the only type of abuse plaguing childcare centres, and that the system must be strengthened to ensure all kinds of child maltreatment are either prevented, or quickly identified, reported and acted upon.

So it's either men, or the system - and the first articles that covered the story always included male owners of childcare centre or preschools, even if they were clearly described as family-run businesses, so when you thought of the system, you thought of men.

It’s the male workers or the males who are responsible for the system. Never the women.

Never the overwhelmingly female perpetrators. But they do need a pay-rise!

If you think that I am trying to be sarcastic, just look at what happened with the Royal Commission into the abuses in the predominantly female Disability sector workforce, and also with the Royal Commission into the abuses in the predominantly female Aged Care sector workforce. Blame the ‘system’, ignore gender unless it is to discuss women as victims, and give the female workers a pay rise. I covered this more fully here.

The SMH is the first outlet I found pushing this line, but not the only one. News.com.au covered a discussion between the survivor’s advocate Louise Edmonds who called for men to be banned, and a ‘fiery’ Karl Stefanovic on channel 9. The included footage is not fiery and is mostly Karl saying a variant of, “not all men!”

Of course, no one is saying that it’s all men. But it is only men they are talking about. That’s the problem.

Special thanks to my editor who worked extra hard, while sick, to make sure we got this out the same day as the article appeared.