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 Dads own many useful nonfiction books. DIY guides. Cookbooks. My favourite among all of them is the Haynes manual. A compendium of everything you need to know about your car, such as how to operate the windows and how many horses it powers. The last one is confusing, not least because I’m not sure where you’d even store a horse in your standard Nissan Qashqai.

As I learnt of my infertility in 2021, and then began the adoption journey later in the year with my lovely wife Mrs Dadoption, I noticed an array of books on these subjects written by women but little from the male perspective. This bugged me, as we go through much the same stuff. As such here is my Haynes manual. A collection of articles on my thoughts about all the stuff I’ve been through in recent years, as well as a way of recording what is to come. I’ll also try and do a podcast alongside this depending on how good a microphone I can find and then whether my voice sounds irritating.

Why is it called DADOPTION ? Well, many reasons. First, I love the clumsy portmanteau of Dad and Adoption, and was rather shocked no one had done it before me. It has the wonderful feel of a dad joke. Secondly, adoption is indeed optional. You choose to get involved in this malarkey and need to remind yourself regularly that it’ll all work out in the end. Finally, I’m half French. As such the kids we get will be “Francais d’adoption” – French by adoption. Something feels just right about that.



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