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?

For fucks sake. Of course you are being unreasonable.

OP, are you going to answer the point a PP made earlier about single mothers?

Absolutely agree with you. Children first.

Not all men but almost always men.

Actually it seems to me that a baby not having a mother / female carer would be seen as depriving the baby of its natural human rights if babies could advocate for themselves.

All the children of gay parents I have known have had both parents around, just not in relationships with the other parent.

It’s always been a tactic of homophobes to label gay men potential paedophiles.

Honestly OP this is no different to the “get them all out” that came with the recent riots.

These are truly awful things that have happened, they really are, but you cannot and we should not take the attitude that everybody is exactly the same.

YABVU and it is attitudes like this that made me sad when my son told me he is gay as these are the attitudes he will face. And people ask why pride events are still needed…

You mean like Baby P who lived with his mother?

I think it’s normal to have a strong reaction and feel this way because it’s current news, but children being murdered is largely because of underinvestment in social work rather than men adopting. Leiland-James Corkhill was murdered by his adoptive mother. Think of all the recent high-profile murders of babies and children - most of them involved heterosexual couples, or women. The problem isn’t going to be cured by ignoring the problems within the social work field and making reactionary policies instead.

Why would being with a woman make a man less likely to abuse children? There are lots of married, sexually abusive fathers and stepfathers – and lots of women who either don’t realize their children are being abused, or who turn a blind eye to it. Not to mention women who are sexual abusers themselves. I think there are more female sexual abusers than we realize, but they’re more likely to get away with it because they can’t impregnate anyone, are less likely to cause physical damage, and generally target older boys who think of it as being “sexually initiated by an older woman.”

YABU, and I find it hugely homophobic to think that men with adult male partners will be more likely to sexually abuse children than men with adult female partners are.

If having a woman around was an effective guarantee against child abuse then I’d agree with you, but sadly many women are averse or abuse enablers.

Sadly, Star Hobson.

Pride is entirely now about:

Telling men they can become women.

And

Kink.

I haven't read the full details of this tragic case as I just cannot begin to process the horror of it BUT we need to stop with this one off horrendous incident leading to 'males should not be able to adopt'. There are lot's of children that need safe & loving homes and there are lot's of gay couples who are capable of providing this. I know a gay male couple that have 2 siblings they have adopted & their boy's are truly thriving & have been with them for nearly 10 years. Please don't punish these people because of these disgusting men.

So what about all the children murdered by women 🤔

Yes Preston Davey should have bee Left with his mother…oh wait…

Sexually yes but do you really think women are less likely to be cruel or violent to a child?

Are you even aware of the statistics on how much abuse is carried out by men?

It would be lovely if all adopted children had a mother but there are more children looking for families than there are adoptive mothers available.

And surely it’s better for two men to adopt a child already in the system than rent a womb from a surrogate and buy one?

Probably pointless posting on this thread but I think we have to stop being so reactive as a country and just accept that it is wildly unrealistic to think we can eliminate all child abuse. I don’t think we lag behind other countries in child protection and think that people need to stop baying for 100% surveillance on all parents teachers etc using ‘they must be an abuser’ as the starting point. Because that’s where we’re headed with things. Already a pp said teachers should have their hard drives checked with no thought to human beings having any need for or rights to privacy, because ‘safeguarding’. Meanwhile schools in Scotland can’t even exclude violent bullies to keep other kids safe.

Or Star Hobson who lived with two women?

The level of ignorance on this thread is astounding.

decades ago when there was an issue in america with abandoned HIV positive babies that hetero couples wouldn't adopt, couples in the gay community fostered those babies. At that time HIV was a death sentence and an unpleasant death at that.

Too late, really. Men are hugely over represented in abuse of women and children, which is data, not ‘labelling’.

The word ‘labelling’ makes it sound like this is an invention or a verbal attack, rather than a fact which is provable.

The number of men who have not been imprisoned for possession of large amounts of CSA material is mind boggling and gives you the idea that a) we need more appropriate punishments - like banning them from any private online activity and b) either individual judges or the sentencing guidelines do not take that offence seriously. This is troubling imo.