AIBU - Men should not be allowed to adopt or foster children unless they're with a woman. Safeguarding first.

😂as if you think that's a gotcha. I wouldn't give a baby to strangers. HTH.

What a ridiculous response. It's a straight question that for some reason you refuse to answer. I wonder why.

Well, stop giving babies to strangers then.

Why would you concede that?

There is absolutely no oversight of surrogacy. Unfortunately there have also been recent cases of such men procuring children to sexually abuse. The abuse isn't as simple as genetic material preventing it.

This study refers to surrogate parents but actually means adoptive, foster, step or actual parent's intimate partner. The findings showed a stark increase in the risk of murder of children by these male surrogate parents compared with their male biological parents:

www.researchgate.net/publication/353804591_Comparing_Fatal_Child_Abuse_Involving_Biological_and_Surrogate_Parents

See the thing is that while I'm generally not for gay male couples using a surrogate, I will concede that as at least of them is the father the child is at less risk of abuse.

Putting a child with two men neither of which are related to it, hmm...

It's all about odds, isn't it?

Safeguarding procedures are obviously not fit for purpose.

It's not an analogy, it's a question-maybe your reply is dumb as it doesn't recognise the difference.

You think it's pointless. I don't. I think it's extremely relevant.

What a dumb analogy. The majority of children in care are taken off of their mother's because they're unfit, on drugs, prioritise abusive boyfriends etc etc so it's not ever an easy assumption that the women we know nothing about would automatically be safer. We can know statistically the dangers face from men as a woman and still weigh up a bunch of other factors to assess a safe environment. No one's ever making such a blanket decision in this way of choosing an adopter based on solely their gender or sexuality so it's a really silly example to give.

I haven't seen anyone defending men as a gender here, it's just silly reading people do the most basic statistical analysis of men = danger therefore no gay men can adopt because they don't actually want to spend the time looking into the data and statistics and forming a proper understanding. Instead they can type out a blanket homophobic statement which would also result in thousands more children staying in an awful life in care while they wait for solely lesbian couples to adopt them and then give themselves a pat on the back for how smart their unresearched idea is.

Because it's a pointless question!

Private adoption doesn't legally exist in the UK, in the sense of private/profit making businesses. The organisation that recruited Preston's adopters (Adoption now) is a partnership between local authorities. They're inspected and regulated by Ofsted just the same. They're usually a joining up of councils within the same geographic region.

That's not answering the question.

Tell that to Rhys Cameron.

Louise Cameron - Murder

Ideally a child should have both a mother and a father.

But children who need to be adopted already aren’t in an ideal situation. A caring parent, or parents, of any sex or gender is surely better than them remaining in care.

if there were failures in this particular case then that needs to be investigated. But the response shouldn’t be a knee jerk reaction against any specific characteristic.

They certainly do. But as many as shit fathers. I think not.

It’s clearly not. Emma Tustin is not on there for instance. Theres umpteen threads on Mumsnet about people who are NC with their emotionally and sometimes physically abusive mothers. There’s lots about abusive stepmothers as well. The idea that someone is kind and nurturing because they’re female is total fantasy.

Where did i say the list was exhaustive?

Safeguarding is everything, what is needed is a lot more monitoring and intervention. The perpetrator was trained in safeguarding but that just means he was trained in spotting abuse and reporting abuse. Maybe more psychological profiling is needed? I don’t pretend to have answers, the poor baby was doomed from the start, if two kind and caring blokes had adopted him it would have been a success story. I’d like to know more about private adoption agencies and who monitors them.

Better a good father than a shit mother. Shit mothers do exist.

They do have a birth mother but that person will not be suited to care for them. Children raised by same sex adoptive parents (including men) do not fare worse than those raised by heterosexuals. So yes it is homophobia.

It's not. A child should have a mother. It's a huge disadvantage to a child not have a mother. Men cant be mothers.

typo in my above post and I can't edit, obviously I meant the system isn't *perfect

Many on this thread think the ideal is a man and a woman though. And that’s what historically everyone has thought and those were the only people allowed to adopt. Despite men’s propensity for abuse and violence and the frequency of domestic abuse, the witnessing of which is a form of child abuse in itself.

It’s when the police are reading the statement. The grandmother is being flanked by Preston’s mum and a man. She doesn’t look well.
Making a 13 year old girl a carer thankfully isn’t something social services would see as an ideal solution. The grandmother is 66 now and would be late 70s by the time Preston is a teen.
It wasn’t a choice between the gran and Jamie Varley. It was a choice between the gran and placement for adoption. Obviously it wasn’t the intention that he would be placed with murderous abusers. Most adoptive parents are selfless amazing people.

How is that analogy in any way relevant to finding homes for vulnerable children? Yes the system is perfect, given how complicated humans are, but we've come a long way from leaving babies in baskets on strangers doorsteps. And as a few have pointed out on other threads, institutions set up to care for children run entirely by women didn't keep children safe either.