The rise of the gay dad
Having two dads isn't as unusual as it used to be. Rebecca Seal meets the generation of young, gay men who are re-inventing the world of adoption
Rebecca Seal, (The Observer, 25/11/2009)
Guy, 31, and Richard, 32, have been together eight years and are in the process of adopting.
Guy: We both always knew we wanted children. We did look into surrogacy very briefly and quickly realised that it was incredibly complicated and expensive, and also knowing that there are children out there who need homes, we didn't feel comfortable with going through all that effort.
As with any couple talking about having kids, you always think: "One day, one day", but now we're really going through the steps. It's a big jump. We bought a house and as soon as we'd fixed it up, we were like: we're ready.
I'm relatively young, so I don't really know anyone else doing this. Until we joined support groups we didn't know any gay couples who have kids, although we have a few friends who are gay couples and are thinking about the same things, or about artificial insemination or surrogacy. In our support group there are older men adopting who 15 years ago found it was impossible. But still, we definitely feel like pioneers.
Richard: There is a certain lifestyle that people associate with gay men rather than gay women. It's not something I've ever identified with. That Queer as Folk lifestyle. There are some great representations of same-sex relationships, but things are often tarnished with that brush of being wild and noncommittal and brash. So it's nice to meet men who have taken that same step of wanting to or actually having kids. It's also generational. Older couples are now out of the closet – my friends have gay neighbours who are in their 60s who have been together 25 years. Ten years ago you wouldn't have seen that – they would have kept a lower profile. But nowadays you realise it's a valid choice and, no, you don't have to go out in Old Compton Street every night.
We are very early on in the process – we have made calls and enquiries, read books and talked about it for a long time, and we just had our first informal meeting with a social worker. Last week they said they would take us on and assess us. Next it's the approval process, which involves six to nine months of meetings, reports and statements from friends, prep groups, and then you hopefully get matched with a child, then there's another panel that makes sure the match is a match. This can take a lot longer for same-sex couples because the kids' social workers can sometimes disregard you in a way they wouldn't disregard others.
However, the available kids are usually black or of dual heritage, so we as a white couple can't really help them out. Most problems have been because we are Caucasian rather than both being male. I think this, in part, is because people can no longer express any homophobia directly, as it's so against their policies now. I think a lot of the local authorities are under more pressure to recruit same-sex adopters. So it's actually a positive time to do it.
Ideally we would like two children, and that also helps in terms of age range. Babies are rare. Aged two to five is the most competitive area, and there you are competing with more conventional couples. So we are open to most ages. There is such a vast difference between the ages, and it's hard to know if you don't actually have kids. At the start of everything, there are a lot of questions about what you would like and want and will or won't accept, and I find it quite surprising, as you just don't know. You are talking about individuals. An eight-year-old needs a home as much as a four-year-old.
Rodney, 41, is single and adopted Sebastian, four, in January.
There are very few men who adopt on their own. I wanted children but never met the right person to do it with. Normally single men who adopt are men who've worked with kids, or who know a particular child and then adopt them. It's quite rare to adopt like me, just because you want to have a child, although it is happening more and more. My agency had never had a single gay guy adopt. I've since been approved to have another child under two, but there are some difficulties. I'm finding it hard to get the authorities to believe that a single gay man is fully capable of bringing up more than one child.
Probably the weirdest thing was that once they've made the match and approved you, you start the process of getting to know the child by making a little storybook about yourself and a DVD of yourself, and the house and your car and their new toys and their room, where they might eat and so on, and they might watch that every day for a week, so they've got a bit of an idea of what to expect. Because I'm single I got a friend to help me, and I pretended that a stuffed giraffe was showing him round the house – it had to be age-appropriate and he was three. He called me Daddy from the start. Lots of tears – it was an incredibly emotional time. My best friend went through the process with me – to have someone at every stage was something I really needed – and then my sister moved over from Australia for 18 months to help. Plus the agency was very clear that I needed a strong support network.
The funniest thing is that 99% of people tell me how lucky Sebastian is, but I feel like the luckiest person in the world. People think we adopters are all doing something great, but it's the best thing I've ever done.
Having two dads isn't as unusual as it used to be. Rebecca Seal meets the generation of young, gay men who are re-inventing the world of adoption
Rebecca Seal, (The Observer, 25/11/2009)
Guy, 31, and Richard, 32, have been together eight years and are in the process of adopting.
Guy: We both always knew we wanted children. We did look into surrogacy very briefly and quickly realised that it was incredibly complicated and expensive, and also knowing that there are children out there who need homes, we didn't feel comfortable with going through all that effort.As with any couple talking about having kids, you always think: "One day, one day", but now we're really going through the steps. It's a big jump. We bought a house and as soon as we'd fixed it up, we were like: we're ready.
I'm relatively young, so I don't really know anyone else doing this. Until we joined support groups we didn't know any gay couples who have kids, although we have a few friends who are gay couples and are thinking about the same things, or about artificial insemination or surrogacy. In our support group there are older men adopting who 15 years ago found it was impossible. But still, we definitely feel like pioneers.
Richard: There is a certain lifestyle that people associate with gay men rather than gay women. It's not something I've ever identified with. That Queer as Folk lifestyle. There are some great representations of same-sex relationships, but things are often tarnished with that brush of being wild and noncommittal and brash. So it's nice to meet men who have taken that same step of wanting to or actually having kids. It's also generational. Older couples are now out of the closet – my friends have gay neighbours who are in their 60s who have been together 25 years. Ten years ago you wouldn't have seen that – they would have kept a lower profile. But nowadays you realise it's a valid choice and, no, you don't have to go out in Old Compton Street every night.
We are very early on in the process – we have made calls and enquiries, read books and talked about it for a long time, and we just had our first informal meeting with a social worker. Last week they said they would take us on and assess us. Next it's the approval process, which involves six to nine months of meetings, reports and statements from friends, prep groups, and then you hopefully get matched with a child, then there's another panel that makes sure the match is a match. This can take a lot longer for same-sex couples because the kids' social workers can sometimes disregard you in a way they wouldn't disregard others.
However, the available kids are usually black or of dual heritage, so we as a white couple can't really help them out. Most problems have been because we are Caucasian rather than both being male. I think this, in part, is because people can no longer express any homophobia directly, as it's so against their policies now. I think a lot of the local authorities are under more pressure to recruit same-sex adopters. So it's actually a positive time to do it.
Ideally we would like two children, and that also helps in terms of age range. Babies are rare. Aged two to five is the most competitive area, and there you are competing with more conventional couples. So we are open to most ages. There is such a vast difference between the ages, and it's hard to know if you don't actually have kids. At the start of everything, there are a lot of questions about what you would like and want and will or won't accept, and I find it quite surprising, as you just don't know. You are talking about individuals. An eight-year-old needs a home as much as a four-year-old.
Rodney, 41, is single and adopted Sebastian, four, in January.
There are very few men who adopt on their own. I wanted children but never met the right person to do it with. Normally single men who adopt are men who've worked with kids, or who know a particular child and then adopt them. It's quite rare to adopt like me, just because you want to have a child, although it is happening more and more. My agency had never had a single gay guy adopt. I've since been approved to have another child under two, but there are some difficulties. I'm finding it hard to get the authorities to believe that a single gay man is fully capable of bringing up more than one child.
Probably the weirdest thing was that once they've made the match and approved you, you start the process of getting to know the child by making a little storybook about yourself and a DVD of yourself, and the house and your car and their new toys and their room, where they might eat and so on, and they might watch that every day for a week, so they've got a bit of an idea of what to expect. Because I'm single I got a friend to help me, and I pretended that a stuffed giraffe was showing him round the house – it had to be age-appropriate and he was three. He called me Daddy from the start. Lots of tears – it was an incredibly emotional time. My best friend went through the process with me – to have someone at every stage was something I really needed – and then my sister moved over from Australia for 18 months to help. Plus the agency was very clear that I needed a strong support network.
The funniest thing is that 99% of people tell me how lucky Sebastian is, but I feel like the luckiest person in the world. People think we adopters are all doing something great, but it's the best thing I've ever done.
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