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

Exactly. It is a fact that a child is far more likely to be abused by a biologically unrelated male in a household than by its father.

@BlueSherbet the judge would have made the decision that the grandmother wasn't fit to care for Preston, and instead be adopted, before there would have been any searches for potential adopters. No one at that point knew which families would be interested in adopting Preston, whether straight/gay/couples/singles. As much as you want to believe it's an over arching ideology, the decision wasn't grandma Vs gay adopters. It was: parents ruled out, kinship carers ruled out, plan of adoption agreed. Once that permission is granted by the judge, it's then up to the local authority and regional adoption agency to search for a family.

These are good points.

Prestons grandmother - who already cares for his sister - wanted to take him, but she asked for some time first, to recover from an illness.

Instead the state placed the child with these men, an ideologically driven move.

The state always prioritises its modern ideologies over common sense.

That preston was allowed to suffer for months before his horrific death shows the ideological blindness of the state.

No one wanted to intervene because that would be "homophobic". Just as the Pakistani muslim rape gangs were allowed to prosper for so long, because no one wanted to be "racist". Just as Henry Nowak was allowed to bleed to death in handcuffs because his killer said he was "racist" which the police obediently lapped up.

We urgently need to ditch these false modern ideologies of political correctness, equality and equity and instead go back to using common sense and recognising what is in front of us.

OP is correct, but the thread title is a convoluted way of saying every child should have a mother and father and gay couples should not be allowed to adopt children.

I don't know exactly where these stats cover, but in the area I work in the family finding social workers (who are searching for adoptive families) typically tell us that at any given time there are usually around 200-250 prospective adopters on their lists, and around 900-1000 children that need adopting, ie that they've been through the court system and the judge has agreed that plan.
I can't think of one case that I've had oversight on in the last five years where more than one set of adopters has come forward and there's been a choice of who to go with. Of course some come forward, they or the social worker decide it's not a good match and it doesn't go any further. But it just isn't the case that there's multiple options of likely matches who want one particular child and someone is deciding to pick a gay couple to fulfill a personal agenda.

I've also not had a child under the age of one adopted in a long time, and those that have been removed at birth the reason for that is partly the backlogs and delays in the court system, and judges giving parents second chances for assessment, or time to track down absent dads etc meaning that even when things seem pretty clear cut the plan for adoption isn't being agreed until the child is over a year old. And then of course, the waiting on top, due to the shortages.

I don't know what the answer is. We absolutely need more adoptive families, but it is such a big commitment I can understand why people are reluctant to do so, especially when there is still a significant lack of specialist support for those who need it when the child gets older.

Very few couples who apply to adopt, have a healthy baby placed with them, even thirty years ago when we went through the process we were the only couple out of eight being assessed at the same time, who adopted a healthy baby. One couple had a baby with significant health issues placed with them and the others had older children.

So I can't stop wondering how many heterosexual couples did they consider before deciding that these two evil men were the best match for him. Were there really compelling reasons for choosing them or did the panel just want to prove their woke credentials?

I hope this decision is haunting them because the smiling, curly-haired baby we adopted is a strapping 31 year old now with a career, a life and a girlfriend he loves, planning a baby of their own and Preston is in the ground.

Are the numbers of children raised in households with mothers vs. Households with fathers taken into consideration with these statistics?

This is the first case of parents killing their child i can remember where the mother was not found guilty too.

“If you can’t trust leaders of the nursery you use, to operate a system robustly to protect your child against male staff members, then you can’t trust them enough to protect your child against female staff members either.”

I do trust them.

They make it easy to trust them because they are so robust in their systems in protecting against male staff members that they don’t even have any.

☺️

Actually ONS puts the gender split of neglect, emotional and physical abuse as largely even between men and women!

Pretty sure some of Fred Wests victims were adopted by them….just say you’re homophobic. It’s easier than this bs.

I’m not angry at all.

Part of my professional life is safeguarding children, including in education, checking systems, procedures and policy.

If systems work to safeguard children, they do so regardless of whether staff members are male or female. The system does not differentiate.

If you can’t trust leaders of the nursery you use, to operate a system robustly to protect your child against male staff members, then you can’t trust them enough to protect your child against female staff members either.

In some ways not employing male staff is an easy out (and illegal). I wonder if they take other ‘easy options’. I would certainly be checking robustly in my role.

If a medical professional has missed horrific signs of child abuse, what has that got to do with homo/hetero relationships? The doctors were also complicit in failing Baby Preston. I very much doubt that they could have thought the child was being abused, but decided against reporting it on the basis of political correctness. That's such a ridiculous statement.

Is it ideology or are there just not enough women adopters available?

Thats my opinion. I was against adoption to an all male household before this terrible case. A small baby needs a mother figure. Twovmales or one male is not a mother figure. The need of a child are being placed second to some sort of weird ideology.

Could you explain your logic there? Because straight men can also be in to really hardcore porn. So if one man is into that vile stuff, what impact does the gender of their partner have on anything?

I just heard a bit on the news that this vile man was into really hard core porn. End adoption to an all male household must be the way forward Imho.

Hahaha - have you ever been to Pride?!
Me, my wife, and our little boy attended Pride recently and we joined the march alongside the adoption charity that made us a family. Seeing the views here (and on another thread) just proves that Pride is still very important, and very much needed. Because of knobhead opinions like this. 😂

They don’t and never have employed a male. I’m happy and in agreement with that.
I chose them specifically for that.

May I ask what makes you so angry about me choosing to not allow males (outside my husband and perhaps two other close relatives) to access my pre school children without my supervision?

No you don’t.

You don’t trust them to carry out their safeguarding role robustly. If you did you would have no qualms about any staff members that they employ.

The same tragedy that resulted in an old lady being raped to death in an NHS ward because the health service allowed a ‘trans’ person onto a female ward ?

I have a horrible feeling that this is not the last we’ll hear of this. I simply don’t believe that these two monsters weren’t paedophiles who went under the radar. They abused this little baby, physically, mentally and sexually, anally raped him and eventually took his life. They also took photographs of the abuse. Those urges don’t unfold overnight. They were there all along. Someone somewhere has fucked up - probably a mix of every safeguarding service involved. At some point this will surface again after investigation and the usual ‘everything is being done to ensure this doesn’t happen again’ will be trotted out. Only it doesn’t. Because it keeps on happening.

Yes I do and as cases over the years have proven, have done so. I doubt it had anything to do with being scared of being called homophobic to be honest, more like, stretched services miss things which leads to a tragedy.

Which is what I said. The presence of an unrelated male represents an increased risk of abuse. But it’s not as great as the risk of abuse from the childs’ own biological parents. The biggest risk is mothers - they are caregivers. And if there is an unrelated male in the home who represents a risk to the child then as far as I’m concerned that’s squarely on the shoulders of the mother for putting a dick before her own child’s safety.

Totally agree.It’s actually a fact that a bio mother is far more likely to be responsible for the abuse of their child than anyone else - they have the opportunity because they are the caregivers. We’re concentrating on sexual abuse here and forgetting that there are many other forms of abuse. Misandry on MN gets in the way of acknowledging that.