Nannied boys 'likely to be womanisers'

Baby boys who are looked after by nannies are more likely to womanise, a psychiatrist has claimed.

Dr Dennis Freidman, author of The Unsolicited Gift, said that the practice introduces young boys to the concept of 'The Other Woman', equipping them with life-long double standards concerning the opposite sex.

Dr Freidman, 86, told The Daily Telegraph: "It creates a division in his mind between the woman he knows to be his natural mother and the woman with whom he has a real hands-on relationship: the woman who bathes him and takes him to the park, and with whom he feels completely at one.

"As a result, he grows up with the idea that although he will one day go through all the social and sexual formalities of marriage, he will have at the back of his mind the notion of this other woman, who not only knows, but caters for, all his needs."

Friedman said childminders should not be employed until after a child turns one. Baby girls who are looked after by a nanny or au pair form a "vacuum of need" which they fill with things like drink, drugs, sex, and money, the doctor claimed.