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?

@QuintadosMalvados is there a reason you keep making up identities for people on here that everyone who disagreed with you is a man? Or a social worker? Maybe people are disagreeing with your logic at face value and instead of engaging with it you're throwing weird accusations at people's intentions.

If you’re worried about children being placed with unrelated men, what about foster carers? A lot of foster carer households include an unrelated male.

But if only single women/lesbian couples could foster, the whole system would break down obviously.

They’re often full of unrelated males, including older foster brothers or biological sons of the foster parents (both of which are categories of people who might cause harm). It’s so laughable that people think a gay male couple adopting is super dangerous because two men when a kid in foster care will likely encounter circa 20 unrelated men in their home across the course of their childhood.

Yes exactly, children who stay in foster care will end up living in several homes, and that will mean potentially living with that many unrelated males. Some will end up in residential care settings as well.

And yet @QuintadosMalvados thinks that a child will be safer staying in foster care than being placed for adoption, because of the risk from unrelated males.

Yes, or an orphanage. Because obviously there haven’t been multiple scandals about abuse in institutional childcare settings.

You could have orphanages staffed by nuns, all women, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, wait...

Could it not be argued though that in the case of 2 men unrelated to the child adopting it that they're both stepfathers?

As I said, while I may not generally agree with surrogacy for gay male couples, (it seems a bit vain but so what heterosexual people's reasons for having kids can be vain, too) one of them is usually at least the bio father.
I do understand that this has a protective effect.

There is also the fact that gay male couples do not tend to value monogamy as much.
Now yet again this may not be because they're gay but because they're men.
It's all about being men! I can't emphasise that enough.
So maybe as much men passing through the house as your single mother.

I've said before that this is not so much about what should be done but what is possible.
It's not really possible to stop who a woman has in her house.

Only about half- HALF- of gay male relationships are monogamous.
Yet again I attribute this to the fact that they're men, not gay.

Interestingly they have the lowest divorce rates though.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15919257/Britains-gay-dad-52-partner-32-charged-18-offences-including-paying-sexual-services-child-rape.html

Maybe but so what.
I'm just responding to the fact that if only half of these are monogamous relationships then that is a lot of opportunity for unrelated men visiting the household.

I think that you at least get that my issues with this stem from a male vs female issue not gay vs straight so thanks for that.

To be honest if only half of straight marriages were monogamous there's no way they'd be described here as 'stable', even if the openness of the marriage was decided upon by both husband and wife.

I note the 'safe, loving, home' posters have not commented on this.

You know the ones that don't realise that only HALF of relationships involving two men are monogamous.
Because they're men, not gay, just y'know, men.

So plenty of opportunity for unrelated men to be visiting half the relationships that involve 2 men's household @Glowingup

I'll comment, though:
As despicable as these crimes he's been accused of are, they do not appear to involve his own biological children.
Nor indeed the biological children of his former husband that he was a second parent to.

Briefly, there were no 2 unrelated males in sole care of their children.

That is an awful case and Drewitt-Barlow and his husband are despicable. But they have never adopted a child and all their kids are biologically related to one of them so I’m not sure what the point of posting this is apart from just spewing homophobia. While many gay men might have an open relationship, lots don’t and LOADS of heterosexual marriages also involve cheating (just that often one party doesn’t know about it). Being non-monogamous doesn’t mean that they have swingers parties or let other people be around their kids.

I don't really know why I'm replying to you because it seems to me that you are not understanding my basic premise that this is not about gay vs straight people but men vs women. Which is odd as it's a very simple premise.

You're incapable of understanding that for some reason.

Which part of my saying that the Drewitt - Barlow case is not about 2 unrelated men looking after a child are you not understanding?
I actually think that them being the bio fathers is a positive thing in light of what is being discussed here.

The non-monogamous nature of the relationship between two men is usually agreed upon. It's not cheating.
You don't appear to have a clue that the dynamics between two men in a relationship and a man and woman in a relationship are often very different. Not a clue.

The bottom line here is that if it were the case that half of relationships between a man and a woman were openly non-monogamous I suspect that there's no way anybody here would be saying they should be allowed to adopt.
Note: this only applies to monogamy, nothing else.

So firstly - the monogamy or otherwise of any relationship is explored fully as part of an adoption assessment. So while I know it is alien to you as a concept - we can actually assess individual applicants rather than deciding to plunge hundreds of kids into a lifetime of unstable foster care based on generalisations.

Second, you ignore that lesbian couples also have higher rates of consensual non-monogamy than straight couples.

Third, you present stats for gay couples generally but not specifically for gay adopters.

Fourth you assume without basis that consensual non-monogamy involves bringing partners to the family home. Of the consensual non-monogamy I’m aware of among friends - all of them have ground rules in place and this usually means keeping activity outside the home. This is among childless couples but I would expect that would be doubly the case for those with kids.

Nice try though to distract from your indifference to the hundreds of kids you want to stay in foster care.

It's not about homophobia, its about child sex offenses and the fact that MEN seem much happier to share their abuse with other men.
If a man suggested to his wife 'hey lets abuse a kid together 'I guarantee most would call the police but it seems that paedo minded men just seem to find each other!!

But why do you think that non-monogamous relationships mean that the sex takes place in the family/marital home? It usually doesn’t at all and those in open relationships don’t tend to introduce the other people to their kids.

How do you possibly know if people are telling the truth about monogamy?

What you do know, though, is that half of gay male couples are in non-monogamous relationships.

Are you one of those people who believe what people tell you instead of what you know?

There is something else I've read whereby for 2 men wishing to adopt any non-monogamy is accepted as part of their culture so disregarded as an issue. To be fair, I'm going to have to clarify this as I'm not completely sure.

I don't give a fig about whether lesbians are monogamous or not.

They're unlikely to be cheating with the class of people i.e. MEN that are statistically much more likely to harm others are they?

It is, and always has been, about men.

Most will accept that one man can be abusive, but put two of them in a relationship and everything magically becomes good. That line of thinking makes no sense to me.

Gay, straight, bi, pansexual, call them what you like they are still MEN.

Most will accept that one man can be abusive, but put two of them in a relationship and everything magically becomes good. That line of thinking makes no sense to me

But they don't magically become good when in a relationship with a women either. I've seen no evidence that men are less likely to abuse children if there is a woman in the house.

No but women are more likely to protect and report? How many men knew that Gisele Peticot was being sexually abused by her husband but chose to join him in raping her rather than reporting? How long do you think it would have taken for it to be reported if every man involved told their wives? Pretty quickly.

Or the mob of hundreds of men who joined in mass assaulting Lara Logan in Cairo rather than helping her?

These 2 men were perverts. And they fostered a child as ...I can't even bring myself to say it, a way to gratify themselves.

In general men cannot be trusted around women and kids. Its just the fucking truth.

If 98% of sexual crimes are commited by men and men are more likely to offend against a child that is not biologically theirs then statistically placing a foster baby with 2 unrelated males must be substantially more risky?

What's going on with those who refuse to acknowledge this?

The recognition that stepfathers can be a danger is there but two men who are in effect stepfathers as they have no biological link is most definitely not.

When in fact it's literally doubling the amount of non-related men who live in the household as parental figures.

That's puzzling.

I think that the clue lies in what I perceive to be the sneery tone about single mothers.

Note how single mums are not mentioned as having the sense to keep strange men out of the household but relationships that consist of two males oh well any extra marital (loose term of word 'marital' - doesn't matter if married as such, cohabiting applies) can't possibly be conducted at home.
They're saints you see. (sarcasm, obviously)

I think that this is down to several factors:
Men who experience attraction to other men are now revered amongst certain women.
'Gay best friend' and other bullshit.

Why not lesbians, well you see they're women. Who cares?

Relationships between heterosexual people have broken down that all hopes and dreams are now pinned on relationships between two people with the same sex.

Now with lesbians, that's great. Bring it on.

Two men, though? Downright risky.

Star Hobson was murdered by her mother's lesbian partner.

And sadly, another mum who did not choose to safeguard her child. Accused of murder and allowing the death of her young child.

RIP Isabelle Rose

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qy7zp7qj3o?app-referrer=deep-link

@Plimfoot
No but women are more likely to protect and report?

I don't agree this is true and would be vet interested in what stats you have to back this up? It's rare enough when the woman/mother actually does protect the children from her abusive partner that it's usually a news story.