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.

Well there’s a hefty vetting process for adoption OP, and I’m guessing the social workers can do their jobs.

So.. this is misandry (and curtain twitchy)

I can understand as two men in a couple who want to give a loving home and create a family. I’ve just read so many awful things that my view of men that a single man taking on a disabled girl (who rejected by about 20 others) had my spidey senses going :(

I know women who've adopted young children out of care.

I bet you don't wonder the same (horrible) things about them.

I think it's really sad that so many people's immediate response is to be suspicious of this and other very kind decent men who adopt or foster a child,
would the same be said about a single woman who obviously could also be abusive.
I know a gay couple who long term foster a young tween age girl and they are bloody awesome parents , and even though its sad she's fostered in the first place she is truly blessed to have them as her parents.

I hope so. I wanted to discuss to as a thought process in general. As mumsnet in general had a large number of women concerned about trans men in women’s toilets I was interested in views on single man adoption. Hopefully there was a LOT of vetting and he is a very unusual, kind hearted man who was incredibly broody.
Oh and the concern is because of how men aren’t as naturally maternal and I guess it’s so hard being a single parent let alone to a disabled child.

I agree it could and should be wonderful. I never used to feel this way. I read so much about abuse these days it just seems so unusual for a man who hasn’t even got a girlfriend to want to adopt a disabled baby. I think I have become very negative to the world.

Yeah this. I do find it odd that any SINGLE man wants to adopt a child at all.

People are allowed to have reservations, and according to this thread, many people do. Especially with the girl having additional needs.

My dc is a social worker in Birmingham - she said single foster or adoptive dads never cause any abuse
That’s quite a statement…

I would feel much more comfortable if he was gay. Awful of me isn’t it? A straight, single man just makes me feel strange .

I have many, many kind men in my life. I also had one man, who I thought was lovely for years, who took the opportunity when it presented itself to abuse a child. There was no warning at all. We thought when he married a woman who already had children he was a lovely guy who’d fallen in love. He was convicted of sharing images of children and physically abusing his stepdaughter.

Of course there are lots more checks on men adopting than men getting married, but pedophiles do seek opportunities to be close to children and disabled children are super vulnerable. I work with teenagers with DS and it’s so much more difficult to keep them safe than most children as they struggle to understand social interactions, they can’t see when someone has poor intentions towards them and they can’t retell events accurately so it’s very difficult for them to seek help, and very easy for others to dismiss them.

People are all different, yes it’s unusual but that doesn’t mean his a predator.

In fact, to go though the entire vetting process, go public with the adoption etc… he’d either have to be monumentally arrogant or monumentally stupid if his soul plan all along was abuse.

The father has gone through the whole adoption process, which involves a hell of a lot of safeguarding processes. Why do you think anything would have been different for this parent and child?

So how do you feel about single fathers who take over full care for their children because their mothers have died, or left, or become seriously ill? Would you find that odd?

I follow someone who regularly fosters/adopts children who are difficult to place and it’s because he was in the care system himself.

He cares more about giving back and raising these kids than he does having a relationship.

It probably isn’t the most healthiest mindset but I think many of us are just behaving in ways which we lacked ourselves growing up.

My first thought was I wonder if this man was in the care system or had some sort of trauma growing up but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Many men do sexually abuse kids all of the time but I can imagine there are much easier ways to do this than going through an adoption process, especially one where the child is such high needs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41830166

I think the process of adoption is pretty stringent and he will have been subject to very heavy vetting. Sadly, the little girl is probably more at risk if she is in care - children usually go through a lot of foster homes until they reach 18 and children's homes have a high turnover of young, badly paid staff. She is far more likely to experience abuse in these settings.

In the interests of balance there was a similar case where the woman was the killer

However, the wilful insistence that men and women are the same when it comes to violent and sexual offences against children is depressing, and unsurprising.

Its a bit like the XL bully threads where spaniels apparently pose the same level of risk.

Adoptive parents' lies led to boy's murder - coroner https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-68927561

I think we need to remember that there is no sacred caste in safeguarding terms.

A single man isn’t less of a threat because he’s adopting a disabled child. If anything he’s slightly more of a threat because of the predators drawn to accessible prey thing.

That doesn’t mean it’s not far more likely that he’s a good man with good intentions.

And it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be alert to risks.

I can remember this one as well, but it took me a while to remember Rubys name.

www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/mum-killed-baby-adopted-5-8820527.amp

I’m confused about what’s being insinuated here? That a single man can’t yearn to be a father? So much so that his plan is to raise a disabled child from a baby so that he can go on to sexually abuse her?

Because he’s a social worker who was already part of the system. He may have colleagues/friends who skipped a few checks/procedures.

My dh and I adopted our son. He was an older child and had already had three other potential adoptions fall through. We were thoroughly vetted, as, I know, everyone who adopts is, but even I feel slightly uneasy about this single man adopting a girl, even though I know he will have had to jump through the same hoops we did with social services (and rightly so). Sadly, people who aren't fit to adopt or foster do slip through the net. When we did the bridging period at our son's foster home, the first time we visited, the foster father hadn't been expecting to find us sat there when he arrived home from work. There was horror on his face after he'd walked in smoking (not allowed in foster homes) and shouting and swearing explicitly at the foster kids, only to find us two sitting awkwardly in his lounge trying to bond with our son. I bet he didn't behave like that during his foster carers assessment. When I complained to our social worker I was told they had to turn a blind eye to stuff like that as they were so desperate for foster carers.

Everyone goes through the same procedure, our social worker wasn’t allowed to adopt his children from the LA or any agency he had worked with previously. It also isn’t social workers or fellow colleagues who make decisions, its the courts.

Surely you can say the same of any man who wants to be a father, that his motivation could be purely to provide himself with a victim?