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

[RedQuail4]

I know this will get the "bigot" and "not all men" brigade out in force, but can we please talk about actual child protection instead of feelings and equality checkboxes?

Children in care are already some of the most vulnerable kids in the country. They've often been abused, neglected, or come from chaotic backgrounds. The state has a duty to place them in the safest possible environment, not to use them as a social experiment for adult rights or to prove how progressive we are.

Look at the data on who harms children. The vast majority of serious physical and sexual abuse is committed by males. Single male households show higher risks in the statistics for child abuse, domestic violence exposure, and poorer outcomes in some studies. Women aren't perfect (far from it), but the biological and statistical reality is that men pose a higher risk, especially without a female partner in the home. A woman in the household often acts as a natural safeguard - someone who is more likely to notice, intervene, or report concerning behaviour.

We've seen too many tragic cases where single men (or gay men with access to children without proper oversight) have gone on to abuse fostered or adopted kids. Social services and adoption agencies are under huge pressure to find placements, so corners get cut and "inclusive" policies mean they bend over backwards to approve single men. The child's safety should trump everything.

Why are we gambling with kids who already lost the lottery once?

Adoption and fostering aren't a right for adults. They're not about giving men a purpose or validating lifestyles. They're about finding the most suitable, lowest-risk home for damaged children. A stable married couple (or at least a man with a woman in the home) should be the gold standard. Single women? Fine, the evidence supports they generally manage better. Single men? A male couple? No. The risk profile is different.

If a man wants to parent, he can find a wife first. Harsh? Maybe. But we're talking about other people's traumatised children, not virtue-signalling or men's feelings. Safeguarding isn't prejudice - it's pattern recognition.

This isn't about hating men. It's about not ignoring sex-based patterns in crime and abuse data when placing vulnerable kids. Same reason we don't put male staff in every girls' changing room. Thoughts? Am I being unreasonable?

This is the second lengthy AI written post on this topic I've seen in the last 24 hours. 'Safeguarding isn't prejudice - it's pattern recognition.' Classic AI. I'm just wondering why people are asking AI to write lengthy posts on this? Can't you just write what you think?

Arguably single women are the most risky adoptions as they are likely to introduce the child to a partner at some point and hetro male partners are the biggest risk to children by a long way.

When my mother split with my bio father she started a relationship with someone. That was 50 years ago and I was very young.

That man adopted me and has been my father since then and the main difference between him and bio father is that he has never beaten the shit out of my mother.

So kindly piss off with your hyperbole and generalisations. Men are a risk but there are plenty of cases of women neglecting, beating and killing their own children. So just because women are less likely to abuse than men, doesn’t make them safe in any way.

Why do you lock your door if you trust your husband to be in your house? Surely if you teust him enough to be in your home you should trust all men?

Stupid argument right?

Not all men are sex offenders or violent. But 98% of sexual crimes are committed by men.

You can find a decent man and have a child with him and still understand that the general population of men are a significantly higher danger to women and children than women.

If men are not proportionally more dangerous than women why are 96% of prisoners men?

Why are 80% to 90% of domestic violence incidents perpetrated by men.

You cannot argue with the statistics that men in general pose more of a threat and you know they do. Its the reason women are scared in taxis. Why the don't go running at dusk with headphones on. Why they get friendsbto watch their drinks whilst they go to the toilet.

Children in the care system are already vunerable to abuse (look at the grooming gang statistics for example) choosing to put them in a male centered home to tick some rainbow boxes is wrong.

I'm not sure if you meant to quote me, but I'm pointing out the ridiculousness of the op's idea that women are angels and men are devils when it comes to the care of children. I know far too well that woman can and do harm children.

Okay so we should take children away at birth from every woman just in case and have them raised by AI bots then, given that either parent could potentially be a big risk to their child.

What is your alternative for children in care? There aren't enough single women committed to celibacy to look after them, funnily enough.

Children need adopting primarily because of the failures of their Mothers so seems odd to assume as long as a woman is on the scene things should be fine.

I don't trust men. You cannot trust all women either but I GUARANTEE that if all you women saying 'but, but,but....' were in an emergency situation and there were 2 cars with only room for a child on a lap, one full of women, one full of men, every single one of you would pass your children to the women

Of course I would. I also taught DS when he was little that if he got lost he should ask for help from someone who looked like a mummy. So completely agree with your car thing.

Problem is though that this is a shit analogy for what we're talking about. If you want a two cars scenario tracking what we're talking about how about this?

Car one: a car of men who as far as you are aware are very keen to look after the child and have (to the sadly poor extent possible) been checked and assessed.

Car two: a car with one woman and several men (who have had zero checks) all of whom are hoping to have sex with the woman and will find the child an irritating barrier to them doing so.

I mean ideally neither car right? But it's the single mum with shit taste in boyfriends car that's the actual biggest danger to kids.

do you have children? Sons?

I took your comment at face value. That’s why I quoted you, I may have misunderstood

On thag emergency situation, I'd probably leave my child with the people best able to provide physical protection and help to my child. The ones that could kill a wild pig if their survival hinged on it.

Wooosh.

I am pointing out the ridiculousness of people suggesting gay men shouldn’t be able to adopt when every piece of data we have shows they prove no higher risk than mixed sex couples.
Given the majority of children are likely to be abused by a mothers boyfriend why allow single women to adopt if gay men are deemed too dangerous?

No worries. I'm a little sceptical that the people on here spouting the homophobic rhetoric, practice what they preach away from the internet. It seems very much I'ma good person, they're dangerous but I'm a good judge of character who would ensure that I only pick good men. Which is exactly how conditions develop that allow abuse to happen.

She claims to have a gay son.

Oh righto! I remember her from earlier in the thread!

Thank you

Agreed. My mum has never been able to be single for long. She broke up with the abusive twat shortly before I left home at 16 and what pushed me over the edge and forced me out was her basically inviting loads of random men around to fuck. She then shacked up with one for a few years, he died suddenly, she was with one of his friends within a year who she’s still with now. She just can’t be single to the extent she’d actively choose men over her children’s wellbeing.

As I say, my own anecdotal trauma speaking but as someone with a mum who clearly didn’t want to be one- women don’t always keep children safe.

Any adult can be a risk to a child. Social services are damned if they take away the child and damned if they don’t.

There will always be children at risk of harm unfortunately. Deciding that an entire sex is unsuitable to adopt is ridiculous. Because it follows that single women would have to ensure they never brought a man (any man including uncles, grandparents etc) anywhere near their child.

And at the risk of being accused of whataboutery, given the cruelty caused by women to their children (okay it’s less likely but it still happens too often) then no adult is guaranteed safe to children

So if you have a straight son as well would you agree with banning him from having or living with his own biological children? Incestual abuse is a thing, it's surely too risky to let any man live with children in particular because it's so common that the mothers do nothing to stop it. Can we van him dating any single mothers also?

I think all.womem on here understand the risk of men at large in society. We can also just see when it's being used to push an agenda that woman are needed in the home raising children and the only ones who can possibly do that.

Exactly. Plus that’s only the sexual abuse side. What about the violence?

It’s really embarrassing that women cannot accept that men are more dangerous
Is your husband, son, brother, father etc...dangerous? Should you have been protected from all of them?

After all they are men, more dangerous, so why were you left to be around such risk?

As for sons, should they be locked as soon as they are born and raised just to be sperm donors because giving them any sort of freedom around women and children is a risk that just can't be taken?

Men are more dangerous, but the ratio of dangerous men compared to not dangerous men is very small, thankfully.

The above is a concept that is hard for some posters to grasp sadly...

Nuns like in the good old days? Nothing bad happened then...

Yeah sorry no i cant agree - i have friends who are gay, married and they are absolutely wonderful fathers, the MOTHER of the children they adopted was abusing them so...

👏 excellent point!