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?

It’s nowhere near as low as that on UK figures.

YANBU. There are studies which show children born / adopted into 2 men parent families, are more likely to suffer sexual abuse.

People can wail about that being unfair or homophobic. It is not. It is factual information, available to anyone who wants to look.

Well why would we allow men to be single parents or gay parents to their own child but not foster or adopt?

Or lets put it in even more bullshit terms.

A man and a woman adopt a child. When the child is 5, the woman dies. Do we put the adopted child back in the foster care system because now they only have an adoptive father?

Shall we destroy the child's entire security just so we can demonise all men? Would that make you happy?

Yes. That is true too.

Rose West was a victim of child sex abuse herself. She was having a sexual relationship with her father across her whole lifetime. Myra Hindley was indoctrinated into child abuse through her relationship with Ian Brady.

It's true the biggest risk factor for child abuse is a child living with an unrelated male.

But by your logic that would mean heterosexual couples shouldn't adopt or foster. And if a couple with children splits up then the woman can never have a new male partner move in until the children become adults.

Safeguarding and vigilance is important but you can't take it to extremes.

Imagine being so homophobic and against men that you would rip little children away feom their fathers (adopted or otherwise) because their mother dies.

YANBU. Children deserve a mother and a father (either adopted or biological) who are together and preferably married.

It might be “traditional” but it’s also the best.

Why did you post in AIBU? What was the point? You’ve decided YANBU!

Feel free to share it.

@RedQuail4 I can understand where you're coming from. Men (yes yes, not all men) are terrifying. And it's compelling to think that some drastic step like this could prevent any other child suffering like that poor little baby.

But of course, it's not that simple. Abusers will always find a way. I agree that it's worth looking at the evidence and asking hard questions, and my understanding is that unrelated males living with children present the most danger to those children. But the presence of women doesn't seem to reduce the risk. And, yes, I know, there are plenty of abusive women too.

To the posters who are crying homophobia, am I missing something? I'm readinh this to be about sex, not sexuality: it's about men, not gayness. If it was homophobia, lesbians would be included in OPs ban? It would have an effect on gay men, yes, but that's effect, not intent. It's not homophobic, unless lesbians don't count/ aren't victims of homophobia. It is misandrist. Which I have to say, I'm a lot more comfortable with than I am with homophobia.

And re the retort that it would preclude gay men from having children, well, yes, but having children is not a right.

I don't think the OPs idea is a good one, but not because of its impact on gay men or any other men. Just because it won't do anything to address the problem.

I haven’t said what would make me happy, it’s a complicated subject that needs a lot of thought. But making up scenarios like ‘man is with a woman and the woman dies, their child should go into foster care’ as if it’s ben suggested, when it hasn’t, helps no one.

If it was proven to be statistically safer to place a child in an all female or heterosexual family and single men and gay couples were ruled out (I haven't seen the statistics so it's a big if here) then the UK would have hundreds of extra children each year needing homes. If recruitment wasn't able to meet those numbers then would those children be statistically safer either left in their birth families or placed in children's homes? I would guess not. And I wonder if the people with these views are lining up themselves to volunteer to foster or adopt.

Can I see that research you are referring to please?

It’s never going to happen because of discrimination laws. I doubt they’d even be able to have a more robust safeguarding framework around gay men adopting, as it would still be seen as discriminatory. What needs to happen ideally is more support in the community to help prevent adoption in the first place. Preston’s mother had already had one child taken away from her and she was being raised by her maternal grandmother. Unfortunately the grandmother was going through breast cancer treatment at the time Preston required a new family and SS decided it wasn’t safe for her to take him.

It’s not about men being gay, you’re talking about dangerous predators … completely different types of people.
i personally am shocked they didn’t listen to the foster mum, she told the authorities that something wasn’t right - they did sod all … again!

Oddly I can’t see anything to back that claim up when googling it. Funny that.

Doesn't make any of them any of them any less fucking horrible and abusive.

That's debatable about Rose West.

Even so, i could tell you about my friend whose mother used to let men come in and rape her daughter for money and company. She wasnt even substance or alcohol dependent.

Another mum I knew used to get her child's fingers and bite them until they bled and one broke any time she had an argument with her latest man.

My aunt spent her entire nursing career working in a psychiatric secure unit with women who hurt or killed their kids. By her estimation, 3/4 weren't "mad", they usually hurt the kids to get back at a man and were lucky enough to be deemed insane and spend their time in hospital. Some only for a couple of years before being released.

So i should never leave my dfd with her dfd then?
Yabvu

And what about single fathers who have custody?

While my knee-jerk reaction is to agree with you, I don’t think it would stop abuse. People who want to abuse kids will find a way. Couples abuse- Hindley, West etc.

The sad fact is a lot of these abusers aren’t known until they go too far. We can’t predict the future so how would we know?

The Hart couple were a pair of white lesbians who used to starve and beat their adopted Black children. One was prosecuted for it once. Eventually they took the malnourished children, drugged them, and drove them off of a cliff.

The characteristic that makes a person a higher risk of sexually abusing a child, is being a man. Not a single man or a gay man, or a man who is not related to the child, just being a man.
So unless you're arguing that no child should be raised in a home with any man (extreme, not feasible, but at least logical) trying to protect children by excluding specific demographics of men from caring for them isn't going to achieve your aim.

Any children unable to be looked after by their mother must be put in state foster care until a female carer in a home is available.

What a silly thing to say.

Straight couples also include a man.

How do you propose a woman who adopts - or indeed gives birth to - a child with her male partner is going to ensure he doesn't ever harm the child? Should she never leave him alone with it? What does that do to the lives of women, other than keep them confined to the sphere of full-time motherhood and financial and societal disempowerment?

Are you suggesting only lesbian couples and single women should be allowed to have children?

You don't seem to understand how literally any of this stuff works. You don't understand the circumstances of abuse, the forms that abuse can take, the dynamics of couples, the statistics on adoption... nothing.