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?

In short no. One case should not be used to derive policy for all cases. Gay parents (male and female) can from experience be really good adopters. The key (and very difficult challenge), is how do we spot abusers early on. In this case we had a teacher, head of year with no prior history of abuse.

Jeez, why are you so keen to defend your position?
Bit of a bizarre Q for a discussion forum 🤨 Not a man, just a woman who's queer and also genuinely cares about kids in care. Nor sure discussion forums are for you if you get so upset if someone points out your logic isn't adding up.

Yet another post where you talk about your beliefs and your risk assessment.

What risk assessment have you done of the impacts of a lifetime moving from foster carer to foster carer on a child?

What risk assessment have you done of the impacts of a care leaver turning 18 and having no parents, no family support (emotional, educational and financial)?

What risk assessment have you done of the frequency of changes in carer for the risk of abuse? Using your own logic - a child that will live in 10 households in their childhood has ten times the chance of encountering an abuser than someone who lives in one household for their whole childhood.

But this is where you shrug your shoulders and decide it’s not your problem because you’re not a policy maker and this isn’t the House of Commons.

You're enough of a policy maker to opine on who should or should not adopt. But not enough to deal with the actual harm your approach would do to children.

That poster really doesn’t like it pointed out that their position is one of harming hundreds of kids a year.

Because then their crusade against male couples adopting is exposed as having sod all to do with safeguarding!

If you follow the OPs logic all the way, NO man should be allowed to adopt foster or have his own children. Or be allowed to be alone in a room with any child.

I'm not getting upset, though. I'm engaging in a polite manner with other posters, not resorting to insults, sarcasm or getting emotional.

My logic adds up perfectly. One man is risky, two men riskier still and two men who are unrelated to the child even riskier again.

Maybe you are being illogical by saying that you are queer.
Now while I respect that you are queer, and have no problem whatsoever with what you identify with/as, I don't see how it's relevant given the fact that this is about men (ALL men regardless of sexuality) and the fact that they are much more likely to be abusive than women.

@ConveyancingHelll Recent events have led me to believe that risk assessments may not be worth the paper they're written on.

I think that's a fair comment.
As for opining well yes I am opining so is everybody else here.
The responsibility lies with those elected to have the power to bring about change. I'm not one of them.

No indeed. But you feel sufficiently qualified to determine who should not adopt.

But constantly unwilling to answer questions about the consequences of that position. Basically you want the freedom to express an opinion but object to anyone pointing out and asking you about the actual harm to children arising from your position.

I’ll try again in a different way.

Do you see any harm to the wellbeing of children if they end up in the care system for their entire childhood?

I completely agree and am glad to see your comment. The current news story is awful, but it's clear the men went to great lengths to be around children, with one being a teacher and all the things you have to go through to adopt a child. I'm sure they were given the benefit of the doubt when they shouldn't have been, and that's the lesson that needs to be learned. Not because they were men but because they were teachers and adopters and so nothing was done even though there were bruises on their baby.
Occasionally social workers get things wrong and people are up in arms about a story where a child is removed from parents who are completely innocent, but I'd rather they err on the side of caution especially for a recently adopted child with bruises.
It's more pertinent to have discussions like that after horrible news stories, rather than jumping to homophobia/misandry.

It may not be good for a child's wellbeing to be left in care for its entire childhood.
Only less harmful than other possibilities.

One positive might be that if it is in care it might have access to trusted individuals who will keep an eye out for it whereas if it is in a home environment it is more secluded and in more danger.

Anyway, this is off topic.

It is, however, about whether or not 2 men (regardless of sexuality) should be allowed to adopt and for reasons I am not going to repeat again my opinion on that is a firm no.

No amount of whataboutery will shift my opinion on this.

And in light of recent events, it seems to me that some decisions made by professionals have led to such terrible, tragic outcomes that if they'd asked the proverbial person on the street what should happen, or decided by rolling a dice, or even by putting a range of options in front of a cat and going with what it places its paw upon it it couldn't have been much worse. In fact, Tiddles may have selected a better option.

Cdc and child welfare services

Fathers are frequently accused but this is found to be false / vexatious almost entirely but the cases of proven abuse and removal of children for their protection is from mothers

Cases of reported abuse by the children is almost exclusively against mothers

More than 2000 trafficked children go missing from the care system each year?

https://www.ecpat.org.uk/news/new-report-highlights-urgent-need-to-protect-trafficked-and-unaccompanied-children-going-missing-from-care-in-the-uk

This is not safer than banning gay couples from providing safe, loving homes just because they are men. There is a damn sight more to safeguarding than men=bad.

@LilyWriter apologies, I meant to quote the post below yours from @QuintadosMalvados

It’s not off topic. The alternative to adoption is very much relevant to a suggestion that hundreds of kids each year should be denied adoption.

There is no world in which anyone advocating for for the wellbeing of children would want hundreds of them (every year) in foster care for their whole childhood instead of in safe, stable and loving homes on the basis of an infinitesimally small chance of their adopters turning out to be abusers.

Homphobic rubbish

I have nothing against homphs!

It's not infinitesimally small, though. Far from it.
I'm getting a bit annoyed by this safe, stable, loving homes line.

Placing a baby with two men who are unrelated to it is, in my opinion, not worth the risk. It's just too high.

If these, 'safe, happy, loving homes' consisted of two lesbians, I'd be at peace with it, absolutely better than foster care (though I'd hope there was a male role model somewhere. Still a minor quibble compared to what is being discussed here) not 2 men, though.

I don't know why you're continue to argue with me about it: you must have 'skin in the game' regarding this.
(Disclaimer: I am no way suggesting that there is anything unpleasant and untoward about that. Absolutely not. I repeat: absolutely not.)
Maybe you're a social worker. I don't know and I don't want an answer.

Anyway, I'm done with this discussion now.
Really, I have nothing else to say about it.

I'm also getting a bit annoyed by those posters who do not know the difference between sexuality and sex/gender.

It's amazing how common this is.

Anyway, It's men not whether they're gay or heterosexual. Just men.

So I've got to leave this thread because the drive - by shoutings (to borrow a line from HMHB) of 'homophobia' are getting on my wick.

There's been plenty of cases of men and women both carrying out abuse together.

Go on then - quantify the risk.

If you can state with certainty that it is too high you must be able to quantify it? Otherwise how can you arrive at your ‘too high’ claim?

Really?

Can you give links?

Mothers are more likely to be primary caregivers so that might skew stats.

Re Groth & Birnbaum, these were convicted or referred offenders.
They weren't randomly sampled from all offenders or from the general population.

But I agree with everything else you wrote. 2 men or 1 man alone should not adopt.

You don't think lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children (or have them otherwise)? Or just gay men? I don't think gay men (or single men) should adopt so would agree there.

I do think that same sex couples should try to ensure children have contact with their other bio parent (in non adopting situations)

See @MathildaJane 's post and @Jane379 's.
They're only a few posts back. I'm not going to repeat them word for word.

They articulate it perfectly well.

Instinctively, my hackles have always risen at two men wanting to adopt a child that is totally unrelated to either of them. Gay or straight men.
It just seems so off to me. I don't know why others don't feel the same, maybe they do but they won't say.
Of course two straight men who wanted to raise a child would (and, should be treated with suspicion, too.)

Maybe they don't have the words to articulate the difference between homophobia and all men. Too afraid of being ostracised. Or sacked. Indoctrination.
And our gutless government do nothing.

You don't understand why anyone would want to care for a child who isn't related to them? Most humans have the ability to feel care and nurture to others that goes beyond a biological drive to further their own genetic material. I find it a little disconcerting, if not surprising, that you can't empathise with that.

That's not what I'm saying and you know it. Given how I've explained my reasoning over and over again.