Single man adopting a girl with Down’s syndrome

[Lelophants]

I saw something on social media recently about this wonderful single man who decided to adopt a little girl with Down syndrome. It was hailed as the most wonderful lovely thing and he must be a great man. Loads of the comments were positive but a number expressed concern.

As awful as it may sound, I also wasn’t sure. Am I just tainted by the horrors of today? Are there really good single men out there who just want to adopt a single special needs child? I’d love to believe he was pure hearted but I read so much about awful things men do. Do you think this is possible that good men would want to do this on their own?

my husband is a lovely good man but he said he wouldn’t do it on his own.

I think he adopted her as a baby

Sexist much?

I had the same thought process as you when I read your title.
I do hope he is genuine.

People with intellectual disabilities are so vulnerable, and of course women and girls are vulnerable so the combination places someone in a really vulnerable situation. You would hope others around her would be alert for her safety but it doesn’t sound great. That said to be a girl with intellectual disability and not have birth family for support is an awful situation really.

There are lots of single men or male couples who want to adopt for the right reasons. Some people are open to or want to adopt children with additional needs because of a plethora of valid reasons. Assuming that a man who is open to adopting a child with additional needs is an abuser is not fair.

Odd how all the people I hear of who don’t like men adopting children have adopted zero children. So you want to control who adopts, and reduce the chance of a child/ren being adopted, but adopting yourself is beneath you.

Someone saying they wouldn’t do it alone is essentially say they don’t see parenting as their job, but something they just sometimes help with. No one should become a parent unless they’re happy and willing to do it alone, as otherwise if they become a single parent they would be unable to meet their child/rens needs.

A lot of single men who adopt are gay. It’s super rare for a straight man to do it. There’s also the point about process weaning the bad eggs out. My dc is a social worker in Birmingham - she said single foster or adoptive dads never cause any abuse and are more likely to self-refer than single mums for support.

I saw a thing about a single man who had adopted a girl with Down's syndrome and several other children with SEN. He was a teacher and I thought it was great that he lifted several children out of the care system.

I saw this a few years ago, wonder if sane case? No one wanted her, he was low on the list as a single man (below married couples).

Yes it’s peculiar. I’ve had these sort of discussions with men, they find this sort of thing weird as well.

Statistically men abuse far more than women.

Predators also position themselves to increase their access to vulnerable people, so in any population with increased access, there will be a higher proportion of abusers.

That’s why my mind went where yours did OP.

I was a foster carer when a married foster carer in my area was prosecuted for abusing his children/foster children. Despite all the supervision and safeguarding, and the presence of his wife (equally groomed, she supported him through it all).

I don’t know what to think except we can’t prevent all abuse. We can only make it harder.

Statistically speaking the risk to her is still extremely small. She has an excellent chance of being extremely well supported and supervised as a child with a care background and a disability.

She's an incredibly vulnerable child, so I’m not completely comfortable with it. I just hope all safeguarding procedures have been followed.

This was a thing in England when gay adoption was introduced, rather than matching appropriately it was common for gay potential adopters to be matched with children with the greatest need or hard to place, as it was felt they were less likely to say no as they were unlikely to have other options. I don’t actually know if we have any more recent data on this, or recent data on preferences in the health questionaire.

Our son wasn’t expected to be adopted by social services and the plan was longterm foster care due to his needs, I do think we have an issue with too low expectations for children in care. Now as a nine year old his needs aren’t currently that different to a child who hasn’t required intervention of care, looking at the adoption group we attended until recently he was definitely one of the more low needs children, despite the fact that he had been written off at 18 months old.

But the reality of course is no man is subject to stringent safeguarding checks before making a child of his own 🤷‍♀️

But he will always have an extremely involved partner protecting the child.

Some men are amazing. They are amazing foster parents. They are amazing parents too.

And yes I get why you have that reaction.
But by the same token, a father is automatically left with his dc Wo any checks done on them. If we wanted to go down the route ‘men are too dangerous and shouldn’t be left with young children, esp if they are disabled’ then we should do that with fathers too.
Would you really be happy for that to happen? Do you really think it would be a good thing?

I’d be more worried about the man in your own home than a man who has passed the criteria to adopt.

Why will he? Do single parents and bereaved parents not exist where you live? Why extremely involved? Our sons birth mother was extremely involved in actively abusing and neglecting him.

I was living in America in the early 90's and it was news then that the first gay male couples had been allowed to foster children. The reason was that the children had HIV, had been born with it and abandoned and no one else wanted them. The couples didn't have HIV themselves. I don't know whether gay female couples also were involved.

Really?
Since when are mothers always ‘extremely involved’?
Since when having a woman in the house is a protection against rape or sexual assault? Is that also one of our role then? Not just nurturing agd caring for our dcs but also constantly keeping an eye on our partner assuming they are going to rape their own child? That would a really sad life to live tbh.

And really if you dint think you can trust your partner to not abuse your child, you’re better not having children in the first place.

I'm so sad that you've never met any kind men OP. I have met so many good men in my life. I don't think this man needs people to fawn over him for bringing up a baby with complex needs but I don't naturally assume he has nefarious plans.

Sadly, this is not the case.

Mothers who ignore, enable or even facilitate abuse of children by their fathers (or other male figures in their lives) are really common. I personally know two people who experienced this as children and similar stories are often in the news. It’s naive to think otherwise.

I mean it happens, but ‘really common’?

@KnitFastDieWarm @MtClair and @Simonjt

That was a specific response to the vetting of men.

“But the reality of course is no man is subject to stringent safeguarding checks before making a child of his own 🤷‍♀️”

Men don’t get to have a baby without someone else’s involvement. There will always be a mother, at least initially and short of tragedy. He can’t just get a baby without vetting -without involving a woman who at least initially is almost always extremely protective.

It’s like a built in safeguard.

Of course some mothers abuse, die or are useless. That’s not the point about vetting men.

I agree. It’s incredibly sexist of me!