In February 2020, I attended a council session on fostering. I had seen it advertised earlier in the day and with nothing else to do that afternoon I made my way to a small function room in the Town Hall where I sat with six others, listening to social workers and carers talk about the work. I learned about the different types of foster care, that it was rewarding but hard. I also learned that, as a single man, I was an outlier. All the other attendees at the event, and in the training that followed, were couples or single women, and as far as I could tell, all straight.

Even to my mind, a single man showing interest in childcare and children is odd, verging on the suspicious. I know, of course, that this wariness is the result of deeply engrained biases that say that women are natural carers – and men are something else – but the worries persist. They are worries that permeate this book, worries that, as a man, I’m poorly placed to write about childcare, worries that people will think there's something unpalatable about a man taking care of, and expressing affection and even love for children who aren't his “own”.

When a registration sheet was handed out at the end of the session, I wrote down my email and phone number. A week later, I received a message asking me again if I’d be interested in the training. There was a ten-page form to fill in, which I did. Looking back, I appreciate the length of time it took to make and ratify the decisions to foster. At each stage, the possibility of parenthood became more real. I could sit with it and, by small increments, find my way towards reflective equilibrium. Yes, on balance, I really do want to foster. Yes, these are the names, addresses and phone numbers of people in my support network. At the time, however, I found the slow grind of state mechanisms deeply frustrating.