On December 8, 2005, Exchange Every Day wrote that "According to a just published article, 'Females in particular had significantly more positive attitudes than males toward non-parental daycare and maternal employment, as well as higher expectations regarding the rewards of parenting.'"
Based upon this information, one might argue here that a reason why females in particular had "significantly more positive attitudes" than males is due to the lack of male child care workers and early care and education teachers.
I would venture to say that if the study were further controlled, so that men that had male child care providers had their responses segregated from males that had female-only child care providers... the "attitudes" toward child care would be much more in line with those of females.
Clearly, we, as a society, send a clear message to children that early care and education experiences are designed by females... and by indirect inference, that early care and education is thereby designed with a bias toward girls, and even further, that the early care and education universe is not a place that is intended for men to thrive...
This reasoning is not such a leap in logic as it may sound, because it is from the men in their lives that boys receive their gender "assignments". Just as these assignments tell a boy not to cry; these same assignments tell a boy that it is primarily women that care about their early school experiences.
The lack of male involvement during these early years has far-reaching effects, including stagnation and gender bias due to neglect or apathy regarding pro-active recruitment, training and retention of male ECE professionals.
Furthermore, this lack of male involvement as caregivers and professionals, parents and extended family has had an unexpected cost. It seems that our lack of male investment in early education has resulted in a lack of investment from the boys, who have become men, fathers, and consumers of child care.
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