I have an adult daughter who never got married, but would love to be a mother. I have suggested that she adopt, but she and DW insist that that is not allowed in the church. Whaaa'? Not allowed? Is it true? Anyone else know about this?

A mid-thirties single woman in my parents' ward is fostering with the intent to adopt. I haven't heard a word about church opposition, but it's possible that it has happening without my knowledge of course.

The problem with being single is that they have to work for money. And then there is no one to take care of the kid. So the kid raises himself in the daycare, or it's the tv that raises the kid. And the kid gets in trouble.

Singles don't make good parents.

>>Singles don't make good parents.

I know of some singles who are great parents. In some cases they are better than certain two parent families.

Agreed. Many times singles DO make an excellent parent! Attention, love, committment, proper gentle discipline. I have seen it many times..

Is this the "it takes a village" argument ?

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
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> Is this the "it takes a village" argument ?

Well, if that one person dies you do need a village. I've seen it happen.

>> Well, if that one person dies you do need a village. I've seen it happen.

Yeah, single parents that die are bad parents!

Boy, it amazes me what biased views you have.

I was a single mom from the time my kids were 10 years old. My husband pretty much disappeared from their lives and any time he spent with them was more about keeping the boyfriend and the kids knew it. I didn't date. I worked 2 jobs. My kids have done well. My daughter is TBM to my dismay, although she was anti-mormon up until about age 21. My son is extremely brilliant with computers and even though he has struggled with drugs and alcohol AFTER HIS WIFE LEFT HIM, not because of a single mother, he got off drugs and alcohol by himself without any help other than a doctor who prescribed suboxone for him, but he got off suboxone by himself, too.

My daughter graduated with honors from college. She wrote the training manual for her job in Alaska and they have begged her to come back for the 12th year in a row, but she got married and got a job here. Within 2 months of getting the job, she was hired to be the TRAINER for the JOB SHE JUST STARTED. She is writing the training manual for the company.

Their father is now part of their lives, but he wasn't for a long time.

My older brother raised his son and the mother wasn't very involved. My nephew was a sterling scholar and valedictorian, has a master's degree as a civil engineer.

Now tell me again that single parents aren't good parents???? Ask my kids.

My cousin died. I've talked about her. She was 3 days older than I am. She had 6 kids. Her husband remarried one month after her death. The stepmother didn't like the kids and all of them ended up being raised by their grandparents and lesbian aunt and her spouse.

There are many people out there who could make great parents and take in foster kids. From what I can see, we have a crisis in this country and there are MANY PEOPLE who would love to take care of these children, but are not allowed to.

I do know my old roommate when she didn't get married by 30s, she wanted to adopt, but, yes, the church looked down on it. She got married at 42 and was never able to have children.

❤

*likes* plus smiley emoticon.

>"Singles don't make good parents."

Yikes... That's certainly... and opinion.

No actual statistic actually backs that up. I'd list them all, but based on history, I'm guessing your mind is already made up and and facts won't change that, so I'll suggest you do some research, it honestly won't take more than 2 minutes with google to show how wrong you are.

And how insulting to the people (as shown in the responses, some on this board) who have been single parents. People who work hard to provide for their kids the same as any other parent.

>> "Singles don't make good parents."

Neither do idiots.

Roy G Biv Wrote:
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> >> "Singles don't make good parents."
>
> Neither do idiots.

Some singles make good parents but it's a lot easier for a child to end up orphaned.

>> Some singles make good parents but it's a lot easier for a child to end up orphaned.

Huh? So you're saying some single parents are OK, but the rest are more likely to abandon their kids, leaving them orphaned?

Just wait for him to produce his well researched statistics on the orphan rate of single parent kids vs double parent kids. I'm sure he's got tons of statistics to back up his claims.

I don't even know how it went from single parents being bad for kid's to orphans. None of his ramblings make any sense, especially when he starts making leaps.

It's how he handles debates. He constantly uses misdirection and and changing the subject to keep spouting his personal views as if they are fact, regardless of whether or not those views make sense.

Here, going after the ability to of a single parent to, well, parent, isn't flying. So, he's arguing that it's more likely for a child to end up an orphan because only one parent needs to die for that to happen. He has no statistics or research to back this up whether or not this is an actual issue. It's just his opinion, stated, unclearly, because he thinks such a thing would be obvious.

Basically, he thinks the odds of a single parent dying somehow makes them less eligible, or less desirable for adopting a child who currently has NO parents.

>> Singles don't make good parents.

Oh boy! He's a few more in case you run out....

- Women don't make good business decisions.

- Gay's don't make good soldiers.

- Blacks don't make good neighbors.

- Jews don't make good business associates.

- Senior citizens don't make good workers.

It's not that I think you would say these so much as I can't believe what you did say.

I disagree with macaRomney ( ) I believe that marital status has nothing to do with competency in this issue.

It's sad but true

If you look at demographic studies of certain groups that have high percentage of children born out of wedlock (70% or more), they're all raised by single moms and grandmas. It's a matriarchal society with no fathers around to take part in essential development of children. As a result, poverty and crime are rampant. Single moms drop out of high school/college and work low paying jobs, never move up in society or get educated, so they're feeding their kids junk food (which damages their brain development) and just leaving them in front of the TV or to roam the neighborhoods unsupervised.

You are speaking in broad generalities. I work with impoverished people every weekday during the school year. I had one beautiful little boy as a student who was removed from his parent's home (mother and father) due to unspecified abuse in the home. He was placed with a single female family member who is doing a great job raising him, from what I can see. He had terrific attendance, was always well fed, dressed in neat, clean clothes, and his homework was always completed and turned in on time. He is a pleasant and respectful little boy as well -- just a sweet kid.

Even with single moms, the dads are often a part of the kids'
lives, more than you would imagine. It is not unusual to see dads visiting kids at school or picking them up from school. Kids talk happily about seeing their dads on the weekends.

You are right about nutrition, however. It can be haphazard. We put a big effort into educating the children about good nutrition. At my school, all kids get a free breakfast, free lunch, and even free dinner if they are in the low-cost aftercare program. It may interest you to know that former first lady Michelle Obama was instrumental in making positive, nutritional changes to school menus.

I also know teacher colleagues who are single parents. They are as vigilant as any parent can be when it comes to their children's welfare.

Here at Bigots-R-Us, it is important to read between the lines and to consider context. Jordan/Hwint, Free Man, Concerned Citizen 2.0, macaRomney and some others are sometimes subtle, but VindicatedSLC is a more conspicuous specimen of racist.

Seriously, whom does he mean when he writes of "certain groups that have high percentage of children born out of wedlock (70% or more)" in which the children are "all raised by single moms and grandmas?" He offers no sources for his claims but that does not preclude his remarkable familiarity with that demographic.

Thus "it's a matriarchal society with no fathers around to take part in essential development of children. As a result, poverty and crime are rampant. Single moms . . . are feeding their kids junk food (which damages their brain development) and just leaving them in front of the TV or to roam the neighborhoods unsupervised." Well, there's not much nuance in that!

Who exactly is VindicatedSLC describing? It's already obvious, but lest confusion remain let's look at his earlier posts, which provide enlightening context.

April 3, 2018: "Black crime is skyrocketing, unfortunately. A good 90% of the black gangs come in here from California and bring their problems." Such certitude. Such precision!

December 22, 2018: "Rose Park is the East LA of Utah. Tons of drive by shootings every day, gang wars, drug dealers out on the corners in broad daylight, rap music blaring at 2am, pawn shops, ghetto apartments, gambling, liquor stores...not a place for a family."

So there it is. In his posts in this thread, predictably devoid of actual data, VindicatedSLC expresses a general discomfort with African Americans and, among other things, their "rap music" and "ghetto apartments." I'm sure he would have chimed in when Jordan was criticizing fist bumps and high fives, which he described as "ethnic" gestures. VindicatedSLC would probably also have joined Concerned Citizen in "warning" us, as a public service, that his nephew on the Mexico border had encountered Congolese immigrants who were quarantined for suspected Ebola--a claim that was roundly debunked as right-wing propaganda by the US government and hence deleted by the moderators as the racist excrement it was.

But VindicatedSLC is not just hostile to black people; he is an equal-opportunity bigot. Thus on June 24, 2018, he wrote: "Don’t understand all of the whining about the wall. They broke the law, kick them out. We don’t need anymore welfare moochers." Here is the usual conflation of all immigrants and refugees on the one hand with those, on the other, who may have broken the law; and the confusion of both categories with "welfare moochers." No subtlety here: innocent and guilty, diligent taxpayers and the indolent: they are all elided on the basis of ethnicity and birthplace.

We need to call this bigotry out. VindicatedSLC and his ilk are speaking in code we all understand. Good manners may militate in favor of coded responses, but at some point someone has to pull back the tarp and reveal the rotting flesh that these posts represent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2019 03:30AM by Lot's Wife.

Or the kid is raised in a hostile, foster-like, deviant, poor, drug infested, filthy environment - possibly - having never been adopted by anyone.

As an adoptee, having been adopted by a single Mormon mother, I can say that my life was MUCH better because of her impact, example, ability to provide for me (i.e. education). Yeah I was a latch key kid, but you know I later found out that my birth mother (a 19 year old at the time of my birth) married a very abusive man - and my siblings were physically abused by him. So yeah, a single LDS woman can adopt and do extremely well as a parent. At the time of my adoption, she was married, but shortly thereafter (maybe a year or so) ended up divorcing my adopted father. So I was raised by a single LDS mother. God bless her. A wonderful mother - just an angel, and although I am not in the church any longer, she continues to be an angel mother whom I love very much as my mother and friend.

I've been a single mother of two by choice and I assure you I am a great parent!! And they were definitely raised in a very loving happy home without their dad being involved in their lives. They are now 22 and almost 18 and both very responsible and amazing kids. The important thing is kids have good male role models in their lives, which my kids did from my dad and brothers, brother in laws, etc.

Very few adoption services favor giving individuals, rather than couple, adoption rights. Especially not men, because we know that so called gender equality disfavors them in practise.

I already know the answer to this question, but your statistics for this are?

A quick google search shows that adoption agencies are fine with single parent adoptions and that as much as 25% of adoptions are to single parents.

Resources:
"AdoptHelp welcomes anyone who wants to become a parent and we don’t have age restrictions within our program. AdoptHelp believes that this is may be the best time for single parents to adopt domestically. Statistics reveal that nearly one-quarter of children are growing up in single-parent households, while almost 25% of adoptions are single-parent adoptions. It is not just the numbers that lend credence to domestic single parent adoption. Plenty of research studies have shown that children raised by single parents have experienced just as positive outcomes as children adopted by couples."
https://www.adopthelp.com/what-you-should-know-about-single-parent-adoption/

A whopping 25%? Hardly a majority but considerably more than round here. If you were a single male and wanted to adopt a child, you would have people questioning your motives even before you went through the door. Now that is "everyday sexism".

>"If you were a single male and wanted to adopt a child, you would have people questioning your motives"

Again, what is your research to back up any of this? You have none, it's just your opinion. Personally, I think you're projecting your sexism on those around you.

Finally Free! Wrote:
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> >"If you were a single male and wanted to adopt a
> child, you would have people questioning your
> motives"
>
> Again, what is your research to back up any of
> this? You have none, it's just your opinion.
> Personally, I think you're projecting your sexism
> on those around you.

I wish I was. Modern society assumes men are "toxic".

I repeat, what is your research to back up any of this? You have none, it's just your opinion. Personally, I think you're projecting your sexism on those around you.

Finally Free! Wrote:
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> I repeat, what is your research to back up any of
> this?

Jordan has a point.

for perhaps the most glaring example, there's a Federal-level Violence Against Women Act, even though

(a) men are more likely to be victims of violence;

(b) men are at least equally likely to be victims of domestic violence at the hands of women as vice-versa;

(c) even though women commit a disproportionate share of child abuse, neglect and homicides even after adjusting for single mothers, the greater number of female caretakers of children, etc.

(d) One of the largest studies of child sex abuse found that 40% of boys who are molested were abused by a woman.

violence by men against women is TERRIBLE.

violence against men is invisible, regardless of the perpetrator

violence against children is TERRIBLE when it's committed by a man, but invisible when committed by a woman

(a) see Bureau of Justice Statstics (bjs.gov); typically about 75% of murder victims are male and "Males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault."

(b) John Archer, Sex Differences in Aggression in Real-World Settings:A Meta-Analytic Review. Review of General Psychiatry Vol. 8, No. 4, 291–322 (2004). See also Martin Fiebert's exhaustive "REFERENCES EXAMINING ASSAULTS BY WOMEN ON THEIR SPOUSES OR MALE PARTNERS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY" (over 250 peer-reviewed studies from around the world showing women tend to inflict as much domestic abuse/violence as they receive)

(c) see "Perpetrators of Child Abuse & Neglect" on ChildWelfare.gov.

(d) Shanta Dube et al, "Long-Term Consequences of Childhood SexualAbuse by Gender of Victim". Am J Prev Med 2005;28(5)

Actually, you're not supposed to post this kind of stuff. It weakens faith.

Why don't you and Jordan/Hwint/CanuckExmo/LogicalCanuckExmo get a room and do whatever it is misogynists do to comfort each other when freed of the odious presence of women?

>> I wish I was. Modern society assumes men are "toxic".

Well that explains the hazmat suit I got for Fathers Day!

Of course single people can make good parents.

But why on earth would anyone single want to raise other people's children ???

Call me selfish, but there is so much fun stuff single people can do without taking on someone else's problems.

Why not help out at an animal shelter and adopt from there??
At least, if the animal bites you there is a way to take it back LOL

I know two separate single LDS guys that never married and in their early 40's adopted asian kids. Each (neither of them know each other) adopted a boy and from all appearances are having a great time.

Both guys are staunch active LDS and are raising their boys the same way.

I have a TBM friend in England who in her 50's adopted a baby. She has never married.

Only problem she has faced is the church won't allow him to be sealed to her. Need two active parents for that.

Single adults can legally adopt in Utah. Our legislature, in an effort to stomp on the gay rights movement, amended the law roughly a decade ago to not allow same-sex couples to adopt. Singles were (and are) still able to adopt.

The Utah ban on same-sex adoptions died with the Kitchen v Herbert decision.

So Much depends on the local would-be leaders (sometimes Mo-Naziis)

When the first-tier leader (BP) makes a decision 'based on inspiration / discernment, Yeah RIGHT' higher ups are very reluctant to reverse it; that would question the "decision" of the first-tier guy, Can't Have That!!!

the leaked 2006 manual for bishops/stake presidents says about adoption:

page 173:

- contact with or knowing identities of birth parents is discouraged, except for medical purposes

- relevant laws should be followed and those seeking to adopt are encouraged to work with reputable licensed organizations.

- LDS leadership should not assist with informal foster-care type placement of children

page 188:

- when unwed parents get pregnant, marriage is the preferred option but adoption can be a viable alternative in some cases (preferably adoption by a married couple)

page 86:

- children who have been born in covenant or sealed to parents can't be sealed to anyone else, even if the child is legally adopted

page 30:

-after a legal adoption, children can be sealed to adoptive parents under the adoptive parent's name (unless child was born in covenant or previously sealed to other parents as outlined on p 86)

that's it. no direct prohibition on a single LDS parent adopting a child as of 2006, might be discouraged or looked-down-upon, but doesn't appear to be enough to result in a Court of Love or being disfellowshiped.

the 2006 manual is online at Wikileaks and other

and Their objection to open adoptions is so stupid. I’ve seen a number of very healthy open adoptions, including my own daughter who placed my birth grandson 21 years ago.

I m a single mom to a chihuahua. The point is, if you got the time and money, you can do what ever you want. For get if the cult has a rule against it.

frankie Wrote:
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> I m a single mom to a chihuahua. The point is, if
> you got the time and money, you can do what ever
> you want. For get if the cult has a rule against
> it.

Hahahahahaha! I believe you are a wonderful mom to that furry little baby!:D

One of the old LDS Manuals was against single women being artificially inseminated.

(A single lady in her 40s consulted our bishop about it in the 1990s and got really upset when she heard it was not OK.)

As for adoption, I don't know for sure. I know an active LDS lady who adopted a couple of years ago. She was in her late 40s and has never had the "privilege" of finding a worthy Peter Priesthood to marry her. She adopted twin sisters. They are doing well, and going to the LDS Church.

I, too, am of German aristocracy. My full name is Myron Baron von Donner und Balken.

Keeping a stereotype bright and polished is not work for weak people! But those who are up for it have the unstinting praise, and admiration, of their ignorant, dead and rotting ancestors.

What do you 'modern' people have going for you, eh? I say again, "eh?"

A lady in my mom’s ward (her father was our bishop and SP when I was growing up) has adopted three. She’s never married and is very active.

I didn’t think single women in the church were in “good standing” to begin with.

Like>> CateS!

A never-married woman in her 40's adopted a child. The RS women who told me about it said, "...BUT the girl was not a Mormon, almost 18, and the single woman is a licensed social worker. The girl has problems that they have been working on, so the church approves of this."

I assumed that the cult disapproves of a single person adopting an LDS child. I assumed the reason for that is because single people are more likely to leave the cult! One less Mormon child=future tithe-payer, and all its progeny!

If the child is not Mormon and doesn't come from LDS Social Services, then the cult thinks it's great to give any child a chance to become a future Mormon tithe-payer, even with a single parent. That's the bottom line.

Me: Single Mom
Kids: I can't write enough good things about them--wonderful, loving, happy human beings! Turned out far better than the married Mormon neighbors' kids.

Their sense of independence helped them develop leadership qualities and a good work ethic. (They were not aware of how closely I was supervising them. They stood by me, and family is the #1 priority to them. We are closer than families who are pulled apart by bickering parents who force their kids to take sides, or neglected by both parents who put the cult as their #1 priority over their children. No father was abusing them (after he left). No one was belittling them. It was as if my children were good because they WANTED to be. They could see the natural consequences of bad behavior. They enjoyed learning and improving and growing. They had empathy, and liked to help others. They had true hearts, and real integrity. They are now in successful careers, are great parents with (adorable IMO) happy children of their own, beautiful houses, etc. I have the family of my dreams!

You people who have never been a single parent don't know what you're talking about. My children were too busy for TV or all that other stuff. They had jobs--because they wanted jobs--babysitting, paper routes, yard work--until they were old enough to work at a ski shop, and in retail--then they worked their way through the University of Utah--still having fun with friends and each other, skiing, sports, helping me around the house, etc. We loved our family conversations, and the laughter--great communication, always.

My excellent parents lived away, but we visited each other often, and kept in touch, and they had a tremendous positive influence on my children!

We singles don't live in a vacuum!

I think the key is unconditional love--something that Nelson and the Mormon cult thinks is "anti-Christ". Cl2 is a great example of someone who loves her children and others unconditionally.