Gareth is an author and stay-at-home dad, living in Nottingham with his partner, two huskies and their two adopted children. He is originally from a small village in Northamptonshire, where he once ran his own theatre school. Gareth, and illustrator Garry Parsons, are the creators of My Daddies! a picture book about two book-loving dads and their adopted child.

Every single day I am thankful I got the chance to become a dad. It was something I’d dreamed about since I was fourteen. Like any family, we have our ups and downs, but each day is special and unique… just like our beautiful boys.

My partner and I have been together for 17 years and we’d always talked about extending our family. We grew up in the 90s and didn’t learn about diverse families at school. We felt adoption was the right course for us, and after 18 months of assessments and matching, our son moved in. It was over five years ago… but seems like yesterday. Two years later we adopted again.

I am proud that my boys are growing into amazing young men. They are full of energy, happy, creative and love books… which is obviously very important to me. They change and grow every single day and it’s fun to see them learning new things… and we do too.

For us, adoption is so rewarding. All of the challenges are worth it when you get called Daddy for the first time or they run to hug you when they’re sad. I am proud of my family and I’ll always be forever thankful to those that fought for same-sex rights.

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