AIBU to think adopted children need a mother figure?

[Bertiebiscuit]

Men should not be allowed to adopt children. All children need a mother.

Tell us more about this supposed queue jumping?

Why would you think gay, black or disabled people would 'queue jump'?
There isn't a queue.

I'm sure you've got some evidence for that queue jumping. Otherwise it looks like you're just being racist, ableist, and homophobic

Any straight couple who wants to adopt but can't wouldnt have passed the vigorous screening.

I used to see posts from an adoption group and a lot of women who were considering adoption were put off by the fact the child must know they are adopted from an early age and that they may have the right to access with siblings.

Social media also means that a lot of adopted children seek out their birth parents as soon as they can, even when it is truly wholly inappropriate and dangerous for them to do so. This seemed to also put a lot of people off of the idea.

They wanted a baby that they could have as their own and not still have to facilitate any part of their old life.

People think there is a line and when you get to the front, they hand you a baby.

Children should be fostered or adopted by loving caregivers. They can be single parents, same
sex couples etc, if the child
is loved and cherished I can’t see an issue.

Have you seen the amount of mums that allow their children to be murdered?

Shit parents can be both male and female. My own mum was far more abusive than my dad.

I know personally at least 5 single dads with full custody of their children, the mums have very little to no contact with their children. There are bad mums and there are bad dads. There are bad people in all walks of life.

I know men who have adopted and heterosexual couples that have adopted. Neither of them have abused their children. A bad pair doesn't speak for everyone.

What seems clear to me is that the most vulnerable children and those at greatest risk don't have a mother, for whatever reason, who prioritises them and puts them first. In most cases, the number one person who is interested in, supportive of and protective of their children is their mother. It is rare that anyone else shows the same level of care and interest in children as their mother does, even in apparently supportive, heterosexual relationships. Most fathers, even if they care about their children, just don't tend to put them first to the same degree.

But that's not to say that there aren't some who do and some fathers who, for whatever reason, are much better parents than their child's mother. And some who step up due to bereavement or family breakdown and parent alone. But imo children who have an involved, loving mother are usually much safer than those who don't. And where this isn't the case, those children need extra support and protection and this should be recognised.

Gay men adopt loads of children from care.

Any women on here who believe they would be better and safer than any gay man surely need to step up and put their adoption application in???

No good banning men from adopting if women aren't going to step up to take their place.

There is nothing anyone could ever say to make me think that a child doesn't need a mother and I wish we'd stop putting adult's feelings first.

Great, as a single adoptive parent of nearly 20 years, can I please pause my two adoptions? I’d love to hand over my highly complex and disabled children to much superior two-parent families so I can get back to work and pay in some pension contributions before I have to retire in penury.

Well, the options may be (a) a succession of foster placements or (b) a loving committed adoption placement in a household that happens not to contain a mother.

This again?

Kids need loving parent/s. Their biological sex is irrelevant.

History suggests a woman is just as capable of abusing a child as a man.

My wife died. Should I remarry so our children have a mother figure?

Do you think I'm doing the wrong thing by my children to bring them up on my own?

Step dads are one of the highest groups of child abusers. Should women not be allowed to remarry?

You do realise there’s a huge shortage of people, male and female, who want to adopt. It’s not a case of prioritising anyone over someone else, it’s a case of who on our list of potential adopters will be able to meet this child’s needs - that can be a uk wide search if need be but people aren’t queuing to adopt.

There are t many babies because the process of permanence planning takes a long time, they may have been babies when removed from their birth family but sit in foster care for a couple of years before they can be considered for adoption.

Just a queue of 3,000 children in England waiting for their forever homes. But it’s great to see that MN is single-handedly solving the adoption crisis. HQ should get on the blower to Josh MacAlister.

Yeah because Baby P’s mother was wonderful! Also two women who killed their little boy, Liam. 2 mother figures and they hit the kid hard enough to burst his heart…

My comment isn't about your personal circumstances, the internet doesn't exist just for you.

Are they the only options? What are you talking about?

Maybe take a breath, grow a bit of basic humility, and recognise that, while you are pontificating about something you know nothing about, other posters are weighing in with their own lived experience and those of the children they've adopted?

Actually, it just looks like they're being obtuse, ill-informed, or both. Or possibly stupid.

In the UK there are actually very few healthy white babies freed for adoption, although that's what most UK heterosexual couples wanting to adopt are really looking for. I know this, because I've gone through the evaluation process myself and sat through three months of weekly night classes before I withdrew.

For obvious reasons, social workers will try and match children with families from similar backgrounds so yeah: if you've got a mixed race older child with a disability up for adoption (possibly because they've been abandoned by the birth parents because of those very characteristics) then people of colour with experience of that disability are probably going to be a better match than a childless middle class white couple looking for an almost non-existent healthy white baby.

I haven't read all the replies, sorry, but I wanted to say that sws love gay adopters for two reasons:

1. there are two grown men around when the child is a teen. Mothers are a bit more vulnerable. But two men can feel containing to an out of control teenage boy, both physically and mentally. There is barely any meaningful support on offer to adopters - two men can give the impression of being able to cope, given the backgrounds of those being adopted.

2. adoption can be tricky for children who miss/blame/hate their birth mother and there can be transference onto the adoptive mother. Two dads misses this out.

I’m a single female adopter so we could make ourselves MN-approved as a bona fide couple by getting better acquainted?!

What are the other options?