Forever Family
More really is merrier, as single dad of six Benjamin Carpenter, 37, from Huddersfield, opens up about his journey towards becoming an adoptive parent, the joy of raising children with special needs, and why more LGBTQ+ people should consider adoption
I’ve always had a desire to be a dad. I was that boy pushing the pram around, dressing up his dollies and teddies. As I got older, I found my niche within the care sector, working with children and adults with disabilities, and it fuelled my passion to become a father – and not a biological father, I must add.
For some people, it is the be all and end all. But, for me, parenting runs much deeper than that. It isn’t about being biologically linked to your child; it’s about helping a vulnerable, ‘hard to place’ child in the system.
Parenting an adopted child is completely different to how you would raise a birth child. You need to use therapeutic-based parenting, because a lot of the kids who come through have experienced neglect, abuse and trauma. It can be complex, but that’s not to say you don’t have the strength to adopt.
I WAS THE YOUNGEST SINGLE, GAY GUY EVER TO ADOPT IN THE UK.
I was 21 years of age when I decided to do it.
I’ve always had an older head on my shoulders. When my friends would say, “Do you want to go to a nightclub tonight?” I was, like, “No, I’ve done it already, I don’t want to be doing it any more, I’d much rather put my feet up and watch the soaps.”
One day, I saw this sign on the side of a bus. It was an ad and it said: Could you adopt? If so, please contact – and there was a phone number. I rang my local authority and told them who I was and what I was looking for: a child, aged 0 to five, with a disability; I’m not bothered about what the disability is, this is where I work, and this is what I can offer.
Many people believed, indeed, still believe, that you have to be a person with a lot of money, power and status to adopt. Even my mother thought, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces if it all goes wrong. She knew I would be a good father. She just didn’t believe that they would want a single, 21-year-old, gay guy.
Back then, you could adopt if you were from the LGBTQ+ community. There was no one saying you couldn’t, but when you added in my age, and the fact I was single, alarm bells started ringing through social services: Is this guy who he says he is? Does he have the skills to cope under pressure? Is he going to go off the rails in five years’ time? Those questions needed to be answered.
The adoption process took three years from start to finish. These days, it is six to nine months (but still as intense and vigorous). In a nutshell, you are allocated a social worker, and the social worker visits you to talk to you about everything, stripped right back to when you were a baby, through to today; from things that may have gone wrong in your life, to previous partners.
From there, your PAR [a prospective adopter’s report] is presented to an adoption panel, who determine whether or not you’re suitable. Then you’ve got to go through that whole process again to be matched to a child.
BECOMING A DAD FOR THE FIRST TIME WAS ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE.
Jack was two years old (he is now 14), and I still remember that drive to his foster carer Brenda’s house. I was really early and was, like, shall I knock on the door? I knocked and was welcomed with open arms.
I walked through to the back and thought, oh my God, what’s he going to think? But because the preparation work had been started a couple of weeks before, I came in – Jack was watching TV – and he looked up to me and went, “Daddy!” I froze; and anyone that knows me can tell you I’m never short of words.
There was a long introduction period of getting to know and understand Jack, who has autism and learning difficulties, and him understanding me. When the day of the move finally came, it was done very quickly. You have to limit the child’s emotions, so you turn up, collect and go; there’s no kisses, no goodbyes. Obviously, it’s not goodbye, it’s the beginning of a wonderful relationship –
“Overnight, I’d gone from being a single, gay guy to being a single, gay dad — that’s a big shift”
Brenda is one of my closest friends and she’s godmother to all my children.
On the drive home, Jack fell asleep, and I recall looking in the mirror and saying to myself, “What has just happened? I’m a dad.” Overnight, I’d gone from being a single, gay guy to a single, gay dad – that’s a big shift.
Two years passed, and I was keen to adopt again, specifically a girl, and I was asked to go along to what’s called an ‘exchange’. It sounds like a market, but it isn’t. Sometimes, when you have a child, children or sibling group who are difficult to place, the best way to find a potential family is for them to have an exchange.
These are normally held in big halls, in which lots of local authorities and adoption agencies set up stalls featuring the profiles of these children; it’s done sensitively, and everyone that is invited is a legally approved adopter.
It came to the end of the day, and I realised I’d missed a stall. It was there that I spotted the profile of this little girl, and it said: My name is Ruby. Could you be my parent? I instantly fell head over heels in love. I mixed Ruby’s profile in with the others, and I went home and showed them to my mum (not telling her how I felt). She passed me Ruby’s profile and said, “That’s your daughter.”
A couple of days later, the social worker came to see me: “A sibling has been born, she has not passed her hearing test and she’s been diagnosed as being profoundly deaf. Would you consider also taking
Ruby’s sibling?” I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no, I just said I needed to concentrate on Ruby first and her needs; she had foetal alcohol syndrome, quite severe scoliosis, is missing the radius bones in her arms, and is registered as blind.
Ruby’s needs changed, she turned a corner, and I felt it was right to take her sibling, so along came Lily. In quite a short space of time, I went from being a father of one to a father of three, and anyone who is reading this that has a daughter will know that girls are much harder than boys. They’re now 11 and nine, and they have always shown their inner divas – Mariah Carey has nothing on them!
You’d think that would be enough. But after blowing health professionals away – being told Ruby would never walk, talk or eat; she can do all of that – I went in to adopt a boy with Down’s syndrome. I was told to be prepared to wait a long time – I waited two days.
All I knew was that he was a boy of Chinese heritage, and his parents felt that his disability wouldn’t be accepted within their culture. He was also poorly; he was born with bowel issues, meaning he needed to have a stoma bag fitted.
Joseph is approaching six and doing wonderfully. He’s had his stoma bag removed, and had extensive surgery to create an anus, because he was born without one, so they had to recreate his whole bowel.
Again, you’d think I was at full capacity. Until, that is, I was reading an article in Children Who Wait, a magazine that goes out to approved adoptive and foster parents. I stumbled upon a boy, Teddy, who was extremely clinical. He had a rare condition called Cornelia De Lange syndrome [affecting physical growth and development], and he was relinquished as a new-born baby because of his physical appearance.
I got in touch with Teddy’s social worker and explained who I was (by that point I had
“I have the ability to see the child and not the disability”
done some media work — they only had to Google my name). They came to see me, and believed I was equipped to take care of him.
Sadly, in 2019, Teddy passed suddenly and unexpectedly. He died from undiagnosed sepsis; I took him to the hospital 24 hours beforehand, and they said he had a viral infection, but it was sepsis. I’d had to do something that no parent should ever have to do, and that was to try to resuscitate my son.
Leading up to Teddy’s loss, I had been contacted by a local authority about another boy, who had brain damage and cerebral palsy. I was preparing to become a father of six, but, naturally, I put the adoption on hold, so that we could grieve as a family. I made it apparent, though, that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was when.
Last April, in the thick of the pandemic, we said hello to Louis, a loving, funny kid with the most wicked personality.
People often ask why it is so important to me to adopt children with disabilities. The very fact that they’ve come into care for a specific reason means they need extra love and support, and aside from having the skills to look after them, I have the ability to see the child and not the disability. In our house, we have an ‘I can do’ attitude.
MY MUM LIVES WITH ME, AND SHE ABSOLUTELY ADORES BEING A GRANDMOTHER;
I also have the most wonderful friends.
I can’t say I experience many challenges as a single parent. I guess the biggest thing is, if my friends ring and say, “We’re going for a glass of wine and tapas, would you like to come?” That part of my life has to be planned.
As for a relationship, I’m really happy on my own. That’s how I envisage things staying; you can never say never, but let’s face it, anyone I potentially meet is going to have to be extremely like-minded.
Have I ever been prejudiced against for being a gay dad? I have had stick: people saying
I am doing it because I’m going to abuse the children; I’m doing it for self-satisfaction; these poor children being brought up by a queer dad, this, that and the other. But this is another reason why I do what I do, to educate people, and to say to bigots, “Stuff you!”
I’ve had LGBTQ+ people from around the world message me. One story stands out, from this guy in Pakistan. He desperately wanted to come out as gay, and he planned to pluck up the courage to flee and live a new life someplace else.
I didn’t hear from him for a long time.
Then, about 18 months later, he updated me: he had moved to America, found a partner, and they were in the final stages of adopting. He’d never felt so alive and accepted.
Hopefully, my story will inspire more members from the LGBTQ+ community to come forward and consider adoption. It’s about putting it out there that you don’t have to fit a certain mould to be a parent. After all, there is no such thing as a stereotypical family.
Benjamin is supporting #YouCanAdopt, a national campaign to raise awareness of adoption and dispel some of the myths around who is eligible to adopt. To start your adoption journey and find out more, visit youcanadopt.co.uk. The #YouCanAdopt podcast – including an episode with Benjamin – is available on all podcast platforms. justgiving.com/crowdfunding/benjamin-carpenter