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I can't have kids. So am I big sad. Congratulations to all fathers out there. Want to adopt some poor kid and give him/her a possibility to have a kind of a st

• corobo 3y ago
  > But a single man adopting is considered as pervert Is this evidence or assumption? Not challenging too hard just wondering if you've actually been called or treated like a perv or if it's something you assume will occur
  • bt4u 3y ago
    It will absolutely occur. Men who take their kids to the playground by themselves are often confronted (by moms of other kids). At some point things are so obvious that not many people are going to bother finding a peer reviewed study to cite. Maybe they should but they won't.
    • pertymcpert 3y ago
      I've never seen that happen myself, but I have heard of it. My only theory is that it happens in places which are heavily socially/politically conservative and "backwards", where women can't imagine men being an actual real parent.
      • mbg721 3y ago
        I live in a flyover state and have never had that sort of thing happen...I actually assumed the opposite, that socially/politically liberal areas would be less accustomed to seeing two-parent households and would be wealthy enough to have busybodies with too much time on their hands.
        • pertymcpert 3y ago
          Gender equality is correlated with social liberalism, so that makes it more logical of a theory than that.
      • em-bee 3y ago
        in new zealand men are not able to work as teachers or caregivers. which essentially means, men are not trusted with children. i don't think of new zealand as conservative or backwards, even though that attitude certainly is backwards, but that makes it tautological.
    • ninkendo 3y ago
      Everyone's experience is different, but my understanding (and experience) has always been the opposite: People see a dad taking his kid out to the playground and think "dad of the year" before they think of a pervert, because the bar for what it takes to be a good dad is so low. There are so many uninvolved dads out there that the smallest token gesture like taking your kids to the playground is seen as some huge accomplishment.
      • scruple 3y ago
        But it's also insulting when someone makes off-hand remarks about "giving mom a break," etc. I have 4 year old twins and a nearly 2 year old singleton. We're all busy as fuck here, but no one ever diminishes my wife's ability to be a parent.
      • antisthenes 3y ago
        It only takes 1 bad Karen to spoil the experience of many dads who love taking their kids to the playground.
    • tomatocracy 3y ago
      Not sure where you are but here in the UK I have been taking my children to the playground on my own for 10 years now and I have never seen this happen either to myself or another Dad. At the weekends I'd say it's mostly Dads in fact.
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  • cacois 3y ago
    It is theoretically possible as a single male, but there are many more restrictions - in practice its very very rare. For example, see these requirements for a very large international adoption agency: [1]. In my experience there is, as OP describes, a strong stigma against single males, not just that they are considered perverts, but also that they are considered incapable of taking on this responsibility alone, not nurturing enough, too career-focused, etc. [1] https://www.holtinternational.org/adoption/ https://www.holtinternational.org/adoption/ See "Quick overview of parental eligibility requirements" section
    • pnutjam 3y ago
      Have you considered doing volunteer work with children. Something like Big Brothers?
      • cacois 3y ago
        I don't have the problem OP has, I just know something about the system. A better way to phrase this for a useful discussion (rather than unsolicited, assumed advice) would be to say "do you know if volunteer work with children would help alter this perception?".
  • bsagdiyev 3y ago
    Not sure by bt4u's comment is dead, but I've had that exact situation happen to me. Been accused of trying to steal a child while taking my son to the playground. It is an actual thing and it sucks.
    • MaKey 3y ago
      Is this an American thing? I can't imagine that happening in Europe, but maybe I'm just a bit naive.
      • fullstop 3y ago
        It might be. I would get strange looks when I took my kids to the playground without my wife. They look like me, too.
      • bsagdiyev 3y ago
        Yes, in California at the time. Some people get weird. It isn't like it happens all the time, it was a first for me.
      • wkat4242 3y ago
        Yeah we're kinda over the traditional family thing here in Europe. I would bet two fathers taking their son to the playground would raise some eyebrows in the US too, depending on the area of course. Whereas here it wouldn't.
        • bryanlarsen 3y ago
          I think it depends on where you are in Europe. I had far more reaction doing childcare in Poland than I did in the US and Canada. Almost completely positive, though. "Your wife is so lucky, a Polish man would never change a diaper".
          • wkat4242 3y ago
            Oh ok, that surprises me, Poland has a reputation of being very strongly anti-LGBT (and Hungary too). Guess it depends on the area. When I was in Ireland there were many people against single parents "Lone parents" they call them there, it was a real witch hunt in the media. So yeah we get these things here but it tends to be localised.
  • bitcharmer 3y ago
    Whenever I see a comment like that I always wonder how it's possible that someone might actually challenge what we all know well and experienced multiple times throughout our adult lives. Trolling or genuine question from a person that never witnessed what everyone else did?
    • corobo 3y ago
      I'm not a parent, I live in a small town in the UK, I've literally never seen this happen. I've never even heard of it happening outside of Reddit. I figured maybe it might just be redditors coming off as creepy in general, but seeing the sentiment here too I figured I'd ask. A solo dad out with their kid would probably go home with a pocket full of phone numbers here haha Different people have different information mate. If I start trolling on HN I promise I'll make the comments more interesting than a pretty mild question :)
      • bitcharmer 3y ago
        Thanks for your reply and insight. I'm in my 40s and having lived in 4 countries on 3 continents this theme is pretty consistent across cultures. Ask your friends and family if they'd feel as confident employing a male child minder as a female one. Then ponder on the answers. In child custody cases the man stands no chance unless the mother is an addict and a criminal. Or at least that's the case everywhere I've been.
• fouc 3y ago
  It's becoming more and more common for single men to adopt children. But yeah, expect some scrutiny. Otherwise we failed as a society.
  • defrost 3y ago
    HN is a global forum spanning multiple countries and even more societal mores. To your point though, "we" already failed as a society by not sufficienty scrutinising the bulk of adoptions to ostensibly stable 'ideal' families in decades past. A number of these adoptions turned out fine, many did not.
    • mcphage 3y ago
      > "we" already failed as a society by not sufficienty scrutinising the bulk of adoptions to ostensibly stable 'ideal' families in decades past That is correct, and what is trying to be corrected for now.
      • defrost 3y ago
        Sure .. just as long as crazy assumptons aren't made such as automatically flagging single men, single women or homosexual couples. The social history I'm most familiar with had a wide systemic issue with wealthy elite pillar of the community power couples adopting in "unwanted children" trained for menial servant roles as nannies and living breathing sex dolls .. not that you can accuse chief justices and their scaly mates down the yacht club of that kind of thing, of course.
        • em-bee 3y ago
          that sounds like something from movies. was that really that widespread? screening is really a challenge. i mean the only thing you can really do is to analyze the motivation of why someone wants to adopt. but most people that you would not want to allow to adopt can go and have their own children anyways. when does preventing adoption turn into preventing to have children? or why should anyone who could have their own children be prevented from adopting? short of a clear misaligned motivation or mental (and other serious) health issues anyone should be able to adopt.
• fullstop 3y ago
  Does fostering have less of a barrier of entry? You may also be able to participate in a mentoring program like Big Brothers Big Sisters.
  • em-bee 3y ago
    i actually think fostering should have a higher barrier because foster kids usually come from difficult situations and eventually go back to their parents and they need to be raised and taken care of in a way that enables that. for adoption it should be more like: you are capable to be parents, here is your kid. off you go.
    • fullstop 3y ago
      I hear what you're saying, but the legal aspects of being a parent likely outweigh that. With foster children the state retains legal custody. Adoption is not just finding suitable parent(s) for a child, it is transferring both legal rights and obligations. I'm saying this through a US centric lens, of course.
      • em-bee 3y ago
        i understand why things are that way, but it is exactly the legal situation that makes me think it should be otherwise. when adopting you are giving parents the full responsibility to raise the children as they see fit. so obviously they should be capable, but that is all that is needed, just as if they had kids of their own. for foster children the state retains a continuous responsibility for these children, and foster parents need to be able to go along with that. i think part of the reason why it is otherwise is because it is easier to take foster children away, so if a mistake was made, it can be undone, or so the thinking goes, but i actually think that is wrong. the most suffering foster children experience comes from changing families all to frequently. it hurts their ability to form trusting relationships. the adopted kids will be fine even if the parents make a mistake here or there, but the foster kids who are moved to another family because the foster parents made that same mistake have their world shattered.