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

Imagine a scenario where you have a child in your arms: for whatever reason you cannot care for that child.

There are 4 people in front of you.

A couple of women and a couple of men.

You have to entrust one of these two couples with the child's care. There is no other alternative.

You know nothing about them: including their sexuality.
You only have your knowledge that men are far more likely to abuse and be violent then women.

Who are you going to pick?
No need to answer but we all know the answer is the women. Of course it is.

In what way is the presence of a woman going to prevent abuse? Most children are abused with a woman present in the household, either colluding or oblivious to it

One report I read said gran wanted to support mum in keeping Preston, which alone may have ruled her out if the courts decided mum couldn't have any contact.

When decisions were made about Preston's care it wasn't just about what would be best as a little baby - they had to consider had he been exposed to drugs/alcohol in the womb, was there a family history of learning difficulties, mental health conditions etc. He had a very uncertain future.
A single, elderly woman in poor health may not have been considered as suitable to care long term for a child who might be a very challenging teenager.

It was cancer, so not a short illness, and presumably one where you don't know what your recovery will be. That, coupled with the fact she already had caring commitments to another child (we don't know what their needs are but they would have to be considered) and she was 66 and the child was a newborn. The assessor, and then the judge, would have had to consider whether she could realistically provide a home for the rest of Preston's childhood, and that's a tall order for someone in their sixties even if they had been in good health.

I didnt see the video of her looking frail, but she could have hardly have been worse than whom they gave Preston to?

I daresay Preston's sister could have helped out.

to be fair there’s a video of her coming out of court and she looks frail and not like she’d be able to care for such a young child. Preston’s sister is a teenager by now. I think they probably made the right call by discounting the grandmother as a carer.

But there wasn’t anything in his background that would have raised a red flag. What would it have been that should have alerted people before Preston was placed with them? Neither of them had any convictions, they had a nice house, good jobs, good incomes and were middle class and educated. It’s not like one of them had a conviction for violence or rape and the social workers just ignored it because they wanted to be kind and inclusive. People aren’t mind readers.

I only want to believe what is true.

Certainly its true that an intervention might have come - after repeated hospital visits - had the parents not been a gay couple.

I dont see how they could say the gran "was not fit" given she is already a successful carer for Prestons sister?

It was reported in the media she was willing to take him, but needed a short time to get ready (get over some illness?) but I appreciate we can believe everthing we read.

I'm also not sure if there might have been an element of cultural blindness and also an element of fear of challenge.
The murderer was white, a teacher and operated in safeguarding, and would be in a strong position, maybe even with contacts in the child safeguarding department of the same authority. Was he hand- waved through?

Having historically worked in this area it would not entirely surprise me

Disagree.
Most women feel a protective instinct towards children even if not their own.

I have absolutely no idea why women here are so keen to defend the rights of the class of people. men who are far far more likely to be violent and abusive than the other class of people i.e. women.

There's outliers, nobody's saying there isn't, but so what.

I mean yes - of course a heterosexual couple would have got away with it. We know this because of the many children killed by one of their straight parents where safeguarding failures occurred.

And the fact that you just made up that it was ‘political correctness’ that caused signs to be missed with no evidence.

Indeed. Sadistic horrific cruelty, perpetrated by women. Sometimes with a sexual element like forcing them to strip and humiliating them. I have no idea where the idea that women are inherently kind and nurturing comes from. Maybe towards their own children for most but plenty of mums are cruel and indifferent to kids who aren’t their own.

You mean sexual abuse rather than abuse in general? Because I don’t think the statistics show that women are less likely to abuse children than men. Yes men are more likely to sexually abuse a child but abuse covers a broad range of behaviours.

Magdalen laundries come round mind

Unfortunately, there's not much we can do to stop abusive males breeding with women.

What we can do, though, is only allow lesbian couples to adopt.
I'm absolutely fine with that.
Though the child would need a male role model but being from the class of people - women! - who are generally more kind, they'd sort that out.

No statistics as this is a hunch not facts but -

I think that if you look at all abused children in uk - the majority would have been abused by heterosexual men .

i think more abuse is perpetuated by men than women

i think there are far more heterosexual men than gay men in the uk .

so by the OP logic - no hetro male whether married or not should adopt or father children as I think statistically they are ‘most likely’ to abuse.

but this is crazy - Men don’t abuse because they are hetro male - they abuse because they are sick and depraved and evil specimens of humanity.

Anyone who abuses a child is absolutely sick and deserve great punishment.

but let’s not have a knee jerk reaction to men adopting because one pair of evil men have been caught.

so many kids are stuck in the care system for years who deserve a loving family. Everyone who adopts is subjected to a massive scrutiny program and there are so many hurdles to jump to prove yourselves as worthy parents and get to panel to be approved and then matched

surely we need to look at the process and see how these evil 2 slipped through the net and how this can be prevented happening again rather than banning all men?

I don't care what other people's views are.
My view is that a child is likely to be safer in the care of two women than two men.
Indeed it is likely to be safer with two women than a man and a woman!

I won't be cowed by anybody calling me a homophobe.

Im clear about this you see: it's not about who is attracted to who. It's about their gender.

Someone else on this thread or the other one has explicitly said that lesbians should not be able to adopt as a child needs a father and gay people can’t naturally have kids so aren’t meant to raise them. And yes it is homophobia.

Absolutely agree.

As far as I'm concerned, anybody who was involved in this adoption process of him should feel terrible forever more. I don't know how they can sleep at night.
In fact I don't care if they ever sleep again.

So much support for women that two a week are murdered in the uk by their male ex/ partner…
I assume the number of men murdered by their female partner must be even higher. Oh wait.

As others have pointed out this is not homophobia as you are not suggesting two lesbians should not adopt, or indeed that a gay man could not adopt with a lesbian/straight woman.

It's not about who fancies who, it's about 2 people who are from the class who are much more likely to abuse - men having access to a vulnerable child.

Yanbu.

Indeed it is far far from homophobia as it could be argued that two women raising a child is safer for the child!!!

It only goes to show that there's a knee jerk unthinking response to the situation, doesn't it? Nasty homophobe nonsense.
How so? Lesbians are fine in this situation.

”Some sort of weird ideology” - aka gay people existing

I think this is too general, in my experience from some work in this area over 10-15 years in the families we supported most physical abuse (and emotional) was done by the mothers than the fathers. In the majority of domestic abuse cases we supported it was the wife abusing the husband. We think this is partly because there was so much support for the ladies, all they had to do was threaten the husband that they would go to the police and be believed while v few would believe the husband if he was the victim.

I think your cognitive reasoning is impaired if you think that 1 x gay male couple = all gay males are child abusers. Or even that most gay males are child abusers. Surely you can see that is ridiculous? Does one black man committing murder mean all black men are murderers? Oh wait....Recent events in this country would imply there are others who think like you! I wait with baited breath for all the indignant posts and riots the next time a white woman commits a crime. Or will you even know about it? Depends which 'media' you are consuming and if they have the same bias as you (likely, if you are reading it).