Here is something I hadn't thought much about - the total lack of men working in childcare or with young kids. The article is about Ireland but I think the situation and attitudes are similar to the US.

Would anyone consider working in early childhood education or childcare after being an AHD?

Time to let them play Irish Times

MISSING: MEN IN CHILDCARE

Low wages and low status are blamed for the almost complete absence of men in Irish childcare.

Less than 1 per cent of the IPPA’s members are male and “some of those are owner/managers and don’t even work there, that is an absolutely new phenomenon,” says the association’s chief executive officer, Irene Gunning.

Traditionally, it was women motivated by the work who got involved, along with women who had not done very well in the education system and “were sort of dumped in there”, she suggests.

Yet it can be seen from Scandinavian countries that men bring a really important dimension to childcare, she says. Denmark has the highest proportion of male childcare workers, where they make up 8 per cent of the sector’s workforce, according to a 2005 study of men in childcare by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in Britain.

“It’s sad that they are missing,” says Gunning. “Every system needs men, women, children. They bring a male energy.”

Women prefer children to be quiet, she suggests. “We now know that boys like to run around and need to run around. Men are much more prone to letting them run around.

“The men will go outside quicker than the women; they will play ball games, rough and tumble play that is such a part of children’s development, particularly boys.”

Male Norwegian childcare workers have been over to talk to the IPPA.

“We see videos of these Norwegian men and they’re throwing a child from one to another, and there’s shock at first,” she admits.

“But then you realise everybody is having a great time.

“I heard one guy from Norway saying that childcare places are boring places, because of the feminisation.”

The current recession may start to change this. “We certainly have more men coming up and down to collect the children and traditionally this is how a lot of women got involved,” explains Gunning. They would start to come in the odd time to help out.

“There is no doubt,” she adds, “that men are as fascinated by their own children, and the way children learn and grow, as anybody else.”