Samuel’s Story

"Our family is me (Samuel), my partner (Lewis), Bailey and new addition Ethan. Whilst I adopted Bailey as a single adopter, we have since been through the adoption process to become the parents of Ethan.

We wanted to get involved in the project because we know so many LGBT+ adopters and couples with children that we wanted to sort of celebrate that – by adding our family to the project to go some way to making LGBT+ families more visible.

The greatest struggle that we have found as an LGBT+ family is probably the questions that come from health professionals or really any sort of organisation where one is required to register or give details; questions about ‘Mum’ or other assumptions that need to be explained over again each time. It is more of an irritation than a struggle but it does get quite wearing!

Our greatest success as LGBT+ parents is just seeing the difference in our boys as they grow up. As cheesy as it sounds, we are just Dads to two great kids and seeing them learning and developing in an environment where they are happy, knowing that we built that for them, feels like a massive achievement.

We hope that our family photo tells other people that we are happy more than anything. Our boys are thriving and we couldn’t be more proud of them or our family unit.

There have always been many stereotypical views that come with being LGBT+ and, whilst many of those attitudes and opinions have changed, the idea that LGBT+ people won’t have children and of disappointing would-be grandparents is still very much prevalent. We hope that the project will go some way to changing this view, not just to the wider community who might see LGBT+ families as unusual, but also to show LGBT+ people that they can have a family and that their children will thrive."