Who says single men can't adopt?

I have an article in the Times about single men who choose to adopt. It's really very interesting indeed (trust me!)
Here is the link...
Or here is the text.....

Who says lone men can’t adopt?
The number of single male adopters in Britain is small but growing. Sarah Ebner talks to three happy fathers

Last year 3,700 children were adopted from care. Many more, desperate for a family, were disappointed – but adoption agencies have begun to look farther afield. Unmarried heterosexual and gay couples can now adopt jointly, while another small but growing part of the adoptive parent network is single people. And while it’s true that most single adopters are female, there are some men, too.

Single men are probably the most maligned group of adoptive parents, and are subjected to intense questioning about why they want to become fathers.

Although it is not illegal for a single man to adopt a female child, it happens rarely. Single male adopters tend to adopt boys who are slightly older than the average. As in any adoption, the child’s needs must be paramount.

David Holmes, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), says: “It is a myth that single men can’t adopt. The number of single male adopters is small but growing. What children need most is security and stability, and in most cases this is more important than the gender of the carer.

“We know that single people can do just as well as couples, and we encourage adoption agencies to think about what single men and women have to offer. The national minimum standards for adoption state that people who are interested in becoming adoptive parents will be welcomed without prejudice.”

Here, three single men recount how they became adoptive fathers.



— Richard Stuart, 42, lives in Sandhurst, Berkshire, with his two adopted sons, Paul, 18, and Aron, 12. Richard, who also fosters two teenage boys, looks after the children full-time.

“I thought I’d have all the normal things in life – kids, a wife and a dog – but it doesn’t always work out like that,” he says. “When I was 23, a close friend died. I took her loss badly. I got to 27 and hadn’t had any serious relationships since her death. But I’m an impatient person and wasn’t happy. I had always wanted to be a dad, and began to think that I would never have kids.

“I was surprised when I found out that single men could adopt. However, my local authority said that although they were legally obliged to carry out all the checks on me, they had never taken on a single male adopter before.

“It took me three years with different agencies to be approved. Eventually I went to an independent adoption service and they took me on. I had to be thoroughly checked, but that didn’t bother me. If you can’t put up with the checks and intrusiveness then you shouldn’t try to adopt in the first place. I’d have given everything I had to be a dad, so I was prepared to be harassed.

“Once I was approved, I went to a matching panel. Paul, who was nearly 10, had been in a care home and I was his last chance. He really wanted a family, and there was something about him that made me want him. We clicked.

“Everything changed after Paul came. I had no social life and couldn’t go anywhere without him following me. But it was what I wanted. I chose to do it. However, it was an issue that I was a single man. I ran a huge Cub pack, and once Paul came the numbers nosedived. People thought that I must be odd, or that Paul was potentially dangerous.

“I lost some friends when Paul arrived but made new ones, too. I didn’t really care what people thought of me but I did care what they thought of Paul.

“Two years later I got Aron, who was then 6, and I now sit on an adoption panel. I don’t have relationships because I don’t have time, but I don’t think the boys miss having a mum. I’d have liked to adopt a girl but it was difficult enough getting a boy as a single man.

“I’m exceptionally proud of the boys, even though they completely wind me up. They really do complete my life, and I have no regrets.”


— Thierry Lambert, 34, lives in Wiltshire with his adopted son, Liam, 8. He works for Wiltshire police. “I first met Liam in April last year. I walked into the room at his foster home and he looked up and said, ‘Hello Dad, I’m just having a sandwich, I’ll be there in a minute’. It felt incredible. When I left, I shed more tears than I’d ever done in my life. I was so happy.

“I had always wanted children and was in a seven-year relationship where we were planning to have them, but we broke up in 2003. I was just turning 30 and wasn’t keen to start over again. What if I met someone new, then waited more years to have a child, only for it not to happen again?

“I came across adoption on the internet and it seemed like a great idea. For me, the child was more important than the partner, and adoption cut out that relationship completely. I contacted Wiltshire social services and they didn’t think it was a problem. I went on a course which was very female-orientated (everything was about mothers), but I met nice people and no one was especially negative. However, some people did ask if I was gay.

“I also had an in-depth assessment. Every angle was covered – my social group, my work, what support I had, even how a child would cope with me being diabetic.

“It took nearly a year to get approval. I did have relationships during that time but they didn’t last. The adoption was my priority.

“Liam’s father had died and he hadn’t had a particularly good experience with his mother. Because of this he found it difficult to trust women. He needed a father.

“I was sent the forms of 20 possible children, and when I saw Liam I said, ‘That’s the one. That’s my son’.

“Liam moved in last May and I’ve had to adjust more than him – being more tired, more responsible, making sure that he gets fed and bathed and does his homework.

“But it’s completely worth it. Liam makes me laugh every day and I feel I’ve known him since he was born. I adopted him on October 10, 2006 and he says that I’m his real dad. I feel this was meant to be.”

— John Williams*, 47, lives on Anglesey in Wales with his two adopted sons, *Keith, 21, and *Jamie, 20. He also fosters two boys aged 11 and 12, and looks after the children full-time.

“When I was told that I would be adopting two brothers aged 9 and 10, I was concerned. They sounded so grown-up and I thought that they would have missed out on so much. But when I met the boys I couldn’t believe how small they were. I knew they were the ones for me.

“I’ve always loved children but although I was married briefly, we had no kids. After we broke up in 1992 I began thinking about adoption. I wanted a family but wasn’t keen on another relationship and didn’t want to risk getting hurt again.

“I contacted Barnardo’s, who gave me a very thorough assessment. It wasn’t easy but I don’t think that it should be easy. I told my social worker right from the start that I would be open and honest. I had nothing to hide, and wanted to be a father more than anything. However, it is hard when you read so much about male abusers. You want to say, ‘That’s not every man’.

“At that time I worked for the Ministry of Defence, and because I worked I was told that I would have to adopt school-age children. I was expecting a five-year-old!

“The boys had been in foster care for more than three years. They felt very much that they were treated differently from the foster carer’s children and wanted a family of their own. Keith had written a letter saying that he wanted to live in the country with animals, and I was delighted to read that. It was my situation exactly, and he has loved being outdoors from Day 1. Meanwhile, Jamie, who barely spoke when he was with the foster carer, hasn’t stopped talking since he came here! He knew immediately that he belonged.

“I told Jamie and Keith that there were lots of other children who would like to be adopted, but it was important to them that their adoption was special. They suggested fostering.

“I wouldn’t change what I have for the world. I think how empty my life was before and take great pleasure in my sons’ achievements. Yes, I would have liked to have met someone and had children, but that didn’t happen. I haven’t had relationships since getting the boys, but my life is full and we are happy. I definitely feel that the boys are mine.”

* Names have been changed.

Hired Gunn

Today I have an interview with Ali Gunn in the Guardian. She is the literary agent who now advises the Tories on lifestyle and women's issues. We met up a few weeks ago, and although I was expecting her to be very scary, she actually wasn't! I think that might be because she was worried about how she came across. She told me a few times that she didn't like talking about herself. "I like talking about other people," she said. "That's what I do."

Anyway, here is the interview...(or to see it online, cut and paste this link:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,,2096420,00.html)

Hired Gunn
One of London's leading literary agents, Ali Gunn has been advising the Conservative party on 'lifestyle' issues for the past year. Sarah Ebner hears her views on class, Cameron and the women's vote

Sarah Ebner
Wednesday June 6, 2007

Guardian

Ali Gunn is a reluctant interviewee. It has taken months of cajoling to persuade the Tories' first "Head of lifestyle and features" to talk, and she is visibly uncomfortable. "This whole thing is terrifying me," she says, with only a half smile. "In 20 years of dealing with the media, I have only ever done one other interview, and that was for Publishing News. Now I won't give one for another 20 years."
Gunn has long been known in the publishing world as a tough literary agent, noted for the huge advances she negotiates for her clients. She represents celebrities such as Nancy Dell'Olio and Carol Thatcher, as well as best-selling novelists including Jenny Colgan (who recently landed a £1m advance to write two new novels).

Almost a year ago, Gunn was asked to lend her expertise to the Conservative party, after a mutual acquaintance set up a meeting between her and David Cameron's closest adviser, Steve Hilton. She is now an important part of Cameron's coterie, working for the party "at least" one day a week.

It has been said that her key responsibility is to persuade women to vote Tory, but Gunn says her remit is wider than that, explaining, "What I'm actually doing is looking, overall, at what we're doing with all our people in all our areas. It's much more about engaging the media and the electorate in our key personalities and our policies and not just about women. It never has been."

But it is also true that now, more than ever, the Conservative Party is frantically reaching out to women. The Tories' dismal electoral outings over the past 10 years haven't been helped by their dearth of women MPs (at the last election, just 9% of Tory MPs were women, compared to Labour's 27.5%). Cameron has therefore been making changes, with women now accounting for around 33% of the Tory candidates selected for the next election. Whether they are in winnable seats remains to be seen. They certainly need to be - as Theresa May has pointed out, there are fewer women in the shadow cabinet than men with the name of David.

While her remit may extend beyond the women's vote, Gunn notes that she is "working on a big new campaign about equal pay ... It's a cause that's very close to my heart, having worked over the years for many organisations where, not necessarily me, but other women were woefully underpaid. It all goes back to being a working mother as well. It is very hard to juggle your life and get childcare at the right times. What do you do in school holidays and at half-term? Your life is a constant negotiation.

"David and his team believe in women. He knows that women make up over half the workforce. He is not a traditionalist. He believes in flexible working hours. He believes that if you want to stay at home, that's fine, but if you want to go to work, that's absolutely fine as well. I think he is probably the most modern leader the Tories have had in 30 years."

Warming to her theme, Gunn dismisses the Lib Dems as being a "busted flush" and is openly hostile to Labour's new leader. "I think life under Gordon Brown is going to be pretty miserable," she says, and, when I ask if Cameron is better for women than Brown, she nods vigorously. "Sans doute," she says, "for women and men."

She is married to Nick Pople, head of an investment fund involved with environmental technology businesses and the couple have a four-year-old son, Jack. Gunn says, strikingly, that she suffers from none of the guilt that consumes many working mothers. "For me - and this is purely for me - I believe I am a better example for my son, as a mother and as a woman who works incredibly hard and wants to be there for him as much as I can. That's my choice."

Indeed, her personal philosophy appears to be perfect for the Cameron-led Tories. She insists that, although she had a private education, she doesn't believe in class. "I was brought up to believe in meritocracy, I wasn't brought up to believe in class," she says. "I was brought up to believe that if you work hard, hopefully you will get to be where you want to be and what you want to be."

Now 38, Gunn grew up in London's Notting Hill and attended Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, then boarded at Repton. But she won't be drawn on the current grammar school debate ("I'm not going to comment on that, because it's not my area of expertise"). However, she says she has always been interested in politics, and turned down a place to read law at Cambridge in order to read politics at Bristol.

Her father, John, is one of Britain's leading investors in smaller businesses, but she says her parents were not interested in politics. She notes, though, that her mother's experience of growing up in and leaving communist East Germany was a major influence in her decision to vote Conservative. "My mother escaped from the Berlin wall three days before it was finished, and left her whole family behind. We used to go through Checkpoint Charlie like other people go to Bognor Regis on holiday, and we used to try and help them as much as we could, emotionally and fiscally.

"With what my mother went through, under the thumb of communism, it would have been very strange for me not to have believed in the free market economy and the right of free speech. I always used to call myself a Whig actually. I believed in being strong on law and order without being fascistic, but also liberal on the social agenda, women's rights, that sort of thing."

Gunn made her name in publishing while working at the big literary agency Curtis Brown. She admits that being a Tory in the traditionally left-of-centre publishing world has not always been easy. "You absolutely did not declare your political affiliation," she says of the early days of her career.

When she left Curtis Brown to set up on her own 18 months ago, rumours abounded. Gunn initially insists that it was to "pursue my own opportunities". Later, however, she explains that "one of the major reasons for leaving a big agency which was run by men ... was to get more control over my life. I can take my son to school, and sometimes pick him up, and that makes me happier than anything."

She is also extremely happy to have become involved with the Busoga Trust (busogatrust.co.uk), a charity which seeks to provide clean water in rural Uganda. "What attracted me," she says, "was that in some small way it was helping to empower women in Uganda, whose lives were hitherto spent fetching and carrying water. Women are the mainstay of family society in Uganda, and if, through water, we can help them to help themselves, that has to be good, right?"

Gunn says she "decided what my priorities were in my life a couple of years ago. Trying to get the Tories elected would be one of them, definitely, and trying to get our message across, not just to women, but to everybody. Another would obviously be looking after my son, and also Chelsea winning the league next season. I am driven - yes, very - by the fact that I don't want to fail," she adds. "And also by the fact that I want to provide a good future for Jack."

Gunn is something of a contradiction. She is articulate but appears hesitant; and while she is clearly tough, she appears worried about how she is going to come across during the interview - she has a crib sheet with her, and ponders each answer carefully. Although she has a reputation for negotiating the biggest possible deals for her clients, she is charging the Tories far less than her usual rate. "Sometimes you have to do things because you really believe in them," she says firmly, "not for the money."