My mum and dad are wonderful parents – but I’ve stopped yearning to be just like them | Samuel Sims

As a gay couple, my husband and I have to build our own vision of what a family looks like. Now I see that as an opportunity

In the summer of 2020 I left London, where I'd lived for 14 years, and moved back to my hometown of Hull. My family is there, and my husband and I want to become parents - the only way we'll have even the slimmest of chances is to live somewhere with cheaper rents and start saving money in a serious way. If we go down the surrogacy route, it can cost upwards of 50k - and the tumultuous, lengthy process of adoption is not necessarily any easier.

Amid all that uncertainty, another draw was that the prospect of family life in Hull felt familiar. My parents had me young - when I came along in the 80s, they had just turned 21 and 23 respectively; Mum a beautiful New Romantic, Dad the spitting image of Morrissey. As a kid, I found that I could score cool points by telling new friends about my young, hip parents. Then as I got older, I appreciated us having shared interests, like getting sloshed and loving Placebo. That's the sort of dad I wanted to be - someone who defied convention.

Samuel Sims is a freelance journalist