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 have made it absolutely clear that I have no issue with lesbians adopting.
So, please, stop using the phrase, 'gay couples'.

I am not a policy maker so I can't answer your question.
So you can stop with the imperious tone. This is not the House of Commons.

I do know, however, that allowing 2 men to adopt a child that is totally unrelated to them is not a good idea. In fact, I think that it's a bad idea.

If you respond to this, I will politely say that if you imply (infer? I can never remember which) that I'm a homophobe by using the term 'gay couples' again I'll ignore.

And surely the foster carers are already strangers to the baby they’re caring for?

I'm not sure where you got this idea that one can't be homophobic if they're only insulting one gender of homosexual couples as though if someone heckles slurs at lesbians they can say "oh well I don't mind gay men so I'm not a homophobe!" . You're making a baseless and stastically lazy conclusion that gay men are harmful to children which is a pretty well known homophobic trope.

No.
The sexuality of the men is not relevant.

It is purely because they are men.

Why do you have no issue with lesbian couples adopting? Do you think he'd have fared better with Frankie Smith and Jordan Hobson? Or Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt?

Being a gay male couple should not exclude people from adopting. Nor does being a woman automatically make someone a better prospective parent. Being a good, kind, responsible, emotionally mature, empathetic, rational, resilient, sane, stable human being is what matters, regardless of sex or orientation.

It may be that because women tend to be more caring and patient, produce more oxytocin etc than men, that more women, carefully scrutinised, would get through rigorous checks than men would. And that is fair enough. But it should be dependent on their qualities and suitability, nothing else.

but why aren’t you against heterosexual men adopting?

If she gets upset then she definitely is, it hit a nerve 😂

I don't much care if you ignore me or not.

So you have strong enough feelings to know, with certainty, that gay couples should not be allowed to adopt.

But when it comes to the actual impact of your position, suddenly you don't know and its not your problem because you're not a policy maker.

Ah but you see the poster doesn't care what happens to the kids, they just care about the gay men.

Type inwomen who have abused children into google You will be amazed how many there are

type into google how many women have killed children, the same

type in how many heterosexual men have abused and killed children, the same

yes you are a bigot

Ok can you send me the data to back that up that men of all demographics are equally proven to be a danger to women and children? We all know men are, but they usually tend to be people in relationships with women no? I don't think the 3 women a week murdered by men are being murdered by a gay man, they're being murdered by their partner who would presumably be a straight man. I'm genuinely interested if you have data that backs up this claim.

Hang on, so MN is letting homophobia stand but not posters calling it out? Do any of PPs comments not count as personal attacks towards gay posters?

It is absolute proof of homophobia - you are right to call it out.

Many hetero adoptive and birth parents have abused and murdered children and no one is hooting for heterosexuals not to be allowed to adopt. If they abuse children it is because they are wicked, but if gay men do... it's because they are gay? Outright homophobia.

OK. To me this is a matter of risks adding up.

Now if you will not accept that my objection has nothing to do with sexuality but is purely based on the fact that they are men then I might as well not continue.

Men are generally more abusive than women.

One man is a risk.

Two men are even more of a risk.

Two men who not related to that child are even more of a risk.

And I will reiterate that if two heterosexual men wanted to adopt a child together- can't see why they would but just for sake of argument let's say that they do-I'd feel the same.

So go ahead call me a misandrist. That's fair enough, I'll just retort and saying I'm being a realist but don't call me a homophobe because my objections have got nothing to do with sexuality.

Fair enough but it’s clearly a system with holes. I have experience in schools where we did not recommend a family when asked by an agency and they went right on ahead anyway 😔

Mumsnet is pretty shocking imo.
I called out a post on another thread (different poster) for racism that explicitly said people from specific races/cultures were more likely to commit crimes because those races/cultures were of lower intelligence. I got told it was 'strong debate' and not a breach of Mumsnet rules. So apparently eugenics is fine too, but I'll probably have this post deleted because it's about another thread!

Yes funny how MN always encourages strong debate with people posting blatant xenophobia or homophobia but you call it out and suddenly it's an attack and might hurt someone's feelings. @QuintadosMalvados could you not have used your words? You don't really get to decide you're not sounding homophobic when you're repeating homophobic tropes the same way a man doesn't get to decide he isn't being misogynist when he's repeating sexist stuff.

Having said that I once got deleted for saying someone sounded a bit daft on AIBU, apparently it's not in the spirit of debate. The standards are on the floor here.

The majority of children in care are taken from their mothers because their fathers are absent.

So what point are you making here?

Huh? That's really not true. The state doesn't take people's children because they're a single mother, don't be so ridiculous. SS will only take a child where there's a significant risk and this is usually because of drug use or being in an abusive relationship where there is a risk to the child and the mother refuses to end the relationship.

But they’re supposedly a risk so why allow one who lives with a woman? We all know how prevalent domestic abuse is, by heterosexual men. We know lots of heterosexual men abuse and kill and sexually abuse both their own and other people’s children. So why are you fine with them adopting children? I don’t buy the notion that it’s the fact that it’s two men that makes it even more risky. One abusive man with a woman will also be a huge risk to the child.

That’s not what the pp said. She said that the majority of people whose kids are taken into care are single mums.

Sorry I'm not following. The way it was worded was "because their fathers are absent". Even if we're just looking at single mums, their children will be taken due to drug use etc more so than taken off of single men but then how many single dads are there? I already said most children are taken because their mother was not a suitable caregiver, hence women aren't stastically 100% guaranteed as safe for a random baby in PPs weird analogy where we apparently need to pick from two strange couples of men and women .