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?

I specifically chose my children’s nursery because there are no male staff there.

They can employ one at any time. Are you on the waiting list at others?

I couldn't agree more, OP. There is no world in which this was an appropriate placement from the off. Imagine your own child needed to be adopted. Without knowing any other information about them, would you choose two men, or two women / a man and a woman together to take your child in? I would veto the first because of what we know, with stacks of evidence, about the most likely characteristics of perpetrators of serious child abuse. Having a child placed with two men escalates risk in an unacceptable way in my view. I have no idea why we are doing this.

There is also no way I'd allow a man who isn't my children's father to provide intimate care. I also chose very consciously a no male staff childcare setting to minimise risk.

You're finding a lot in the OP that doesn't exist but sure, crack on with your bullshit.

OP, I agree.

The wild invented edge cases aside, the stark fact remains that as social class, men are dangerous.

They just are, whether that danger is sexual, psychological, emotional, physical, and whether the violence is aimed at other men, at women, or at children.

Obviously all due diligence and care should be taken with any prospective adoptive or foster family (in an ideal world where resources are infinite, as they clearly are not), but on average women, especially women without a male partner, are simply a safer bet.

We all wish that wasn't so, but attacking you won't make it happen.

I’d just have them at home.
Saying that, the nursery has never employed male staff. Ever.
So I think they quietly agree with me.

This is a toddler level of analysis and what about ism. Engage brain!

Adoption is about the state consciously deciding: with which unrelated people should we place this child who has already suffered by way of being born into an unsafe family? There is a level of procedure and decision-making involved here that is not like other scenarios where abuse also occurs.

A breakdown in the immediate initial family unit through a death, or a mother choosing to bring a male partner into the home involves the child still living with biological parents. Some biological parents actively abuse their children or make grave errors in who they invite into the family unit. What does this have to do with risk assessing potential adoptive parents and choosing the lowest possible risk option for the child to be adopted? Nothing

I’m not sold completely on the Op’s argument, but the fact you can name all the abusive females you’ve ever heard of surely is a proof in itself that it is very rarely a woman. Try a male list for comparison?

Greater numbers proportionally?

Anyway, you haven’t made me any less suspicious.

I’m suspicious of them. I’m allowed to be.

You’re adding a lot of arms and legs to that.

Women are certainly less likely to commit violent or sexual offences against children. But emotional abuse, neglect, physical abuse? Or do you think those aren't important?
There are many, many families where women are present and children are harmed. 75-80% of child protection plans are category emotional harm or neglect. Only 3% are sexual abuse (and that includes sexual abuse from other children, not just from adults and not just from males)

Lesbian couples have also abused adopted children, as have heterosexual couples. Gay men have been wonderful adoptive parents as have lesbian and heterosexual couples. You can't generalise.

I agree the checks need to be more rigorous, particularly post-adoption where they tend to drop off. My observations (of a relatively small sample) suggest to me that checks should continue for at least a year post-adoption, and support should be ongoing. And that's for all couples.

Sexually abuse from women is rare but physical or emotional abuse towards children from women really isn't rare. I couldn't name all the women who have been convicted of harming or killing their children over the years. There are some that stick out, eg Emma Tustin and Constance Marten, but there are plenty more.

We dont have room on the thread for the list of male killers

This is very true. We do often hear of women who turn a blind eye to what their male partner is doing. Other women genuinely don’t know what’s going on (which was the case with my DM when my F was sexually abusing my DSis and me.

Yes, it’s obviously the case that men commit the vast majority of sexual offences towards children. But the presence of a woman in itself doesn’t prevent it from happening.

Has anyone advocating against gay couples adopting told us their plan for the hundreds of children each year who will not be adopted?

Or is that still being studiously avoided?

A previous post has said they should be ‘given to lesbians’ and ‘put in foster care’… both of which are not reliable options.

these people are too fixated on their homophobia and man hating that they cannot think logically about the impact of their so called safeguarding.

I think the focus needs to be more on the medical professionals and social workers who AGAIN missed many opportunities to protect this poor little soul from evil, same with Baby P.

So you have no confidence in the safeguarding systems in the nursery where you leave your child?

Safeguarding systems, policy and practice are there to protect children, yet you are saying they do not.

Why do you leave your child in a nursery where you do not trust their safeguarding of children?

I do have confidence in their safeguarding system.

I wrote that was why I SPECIFICALLY chose that nursery.

Well that's okay then. Never mind, eh?

I cannot believe that I have just read a post excusing Rose West and Myra Hindley for the abuse and murder they played a part in, written by a woman.

Totally agree

I am an avid feminist who has an active disdain for men but YAB totally U!! Gay men and men are more than capable of raising a child without abusing or neglecting them and in a vast majority of cases do so.

Unfortunately we don't have a massive list of people wanting to adopt children, let alone troubled children who may have attachment disorders and trauma. The process is rigorous to adopt but if people have not committed a crime beforehand then you cannot know - predators hide in plain sight.

Should more checks be completed on adoptees, absolutely yes. Could something have been done to intervene in this case? Absolutely yes. It is a tragic awful case.

Do you have proof for that last sentence. Asking as a survivor of child rape by a relative.
That baby was absolutely let down by social services yet again. He'd been to hospital on more than one occasion with injuries and nothing was done. The hospital reported it and all we're going to hear is lessons will be learned, but they won't will they because they never are.
Yet another vulnerable child dead.

Maybe if the NHS had been more focused on safeguarding than being politically correct when faced with a baby adopted by a gay couple, the child would still be alive. Varley explained away the child’s broken elbow to two different doctors, using two completely different reasons. Why was that not flagged up ? Where exactly was the safeguarding there ? Do you think a heterosexual couple would have got away with that ?