Meet the parents...

It was been a while since I last wrote and a great deal has been going on – I have ran a 10k for charity, been to a music festival and moved house to a stone’s throw away where I lived as a newborn baby for a year and a half. The house move has sparked off nostalgia about my early years – just as saying the name of the street used to do to me as a child. I can even see the street name from my bedroom window. My parents had the ridiculous idea that I should introduce myself to the present residents of number 72, where we lived, and ask to have a look around. I thought that this would be taking the reminiscing a bit too far. However, I might just have a wander past a bit later and have a chat to the residents if they’re outside... if I do manage to do that and to get in that will be a future blog entry!

Another significant event that has happened over the past few weeks is that after much time and anticipation, my partner has finally met my parents. I’ve been carrying around the experience in my head for a while and have scrawled some notes about it my notebook, but I’ve just been itching to exorcise myself and get the following words down...

I’d been putting off the meeting of the parents to the partner for a while – around four years or so in total. It was a lot of stress to carry around and the weight grew heavier and heavier as the months passed. My prime reason for putting it off for so long was because my parents had been rather attached to my previous beau, and the idea of them meeting someone new had been incomprehensible for some time. There is also the not-so-minor issue that my parents are Moroccan and my partner is Norfolk-born and bred and that the issue of religion always rears its head when I get involved with someone. My parents are Muslim and would rather I settled with a Muslim too. They also don’t really understand the idea of courting. My mother met my father when she was 16. She’d been told by my Grandmother to borrow a bag of sugar from my father’s Grandmother’s house, so along she went, dressed up to the nines because she was due to go to a wedding, and there stood my father, complete with a vinyl shaped afro. They exchanged pleasantries, got engaged and a year later, they were married. They were apart for the year too, as my father lived in England whilst my mother still resided in Morocco. They liked each other at first sight, were the same religion, knew the same people and had the same kind of upbringing. And almost thirty years on, and they’re still going strong. So, why mess with tradition? This is the idea I carried around with me as a child. This what I saw that ‘worked’.

In the build up to my partner meeting  my parents, my partner and I sat down to watch Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with one of our close friends, and it got me thinking about the issues that mixed race couples face. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to do so. It’s set in 1960s America, and focuses on a distinguished and handsome black doctor John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), and a beautiful and wide-eyed 23 year old woman, Joanna Drayton (Katherine Hepburn). It tells the story of their love and aspiration for marriage, and what happens when they meet each others’ families, and when their families meet each other too. It’s a superb commentary on society’s prejudices and has some very insightful moments, despite the fact that it was filmed almost fifty years ago.

In one scene, John Prentice is asked what would happen if they were to have children. He responded that Joanna would want all of their kids to be president of the United States. This may have seem farfetched at the time, but consider that President Barack Obama is mixed race, and you will recognise how far society has come.

The Vicar in the film is the one person who has no problem with the couple’s decision to be together and get married. He quotes that mixed race relationships require something extra than ‘normal’ relationships do:

"I've known a good many cases of marriages between races in my time.Strangely enough, they usually work out quite well.I don't know why.Maybe because it requires some special quality of effort...more consideration and compassion...than most marriages seem to generate these days."

But what are the hardships of relationships experienced by the second generation? Sometimes, people of the second generation might choose to follow in the footsteps of where many have tread before by marrying someone of the same race and of the same religion. And sometimes, some gear themselves up for the road  less travelled. They are pioneers, and people watch them, waiting. Some are in for a bumpy ride indeed, having to contend with the views of the generations that lay before them. Some are banished from their families for their decision to love who they love. Some are welcomed with open arms, and others take years for their family to accept their choice of partner.

When my parents finally met my partner, I wandered why I had put it off for so long. My sister cooked us a wonderful meal and my parents, partner, siblings and I sat around the table and enjoyed a nice dinner. It was a wonderful feeling to sit around the table and see all the people I loved tentatively getting to know my partner. My parents were pleasant and polite (which hasn’t happened in the past) and after the visit, we were both so relieved and relaxed  - like a huge weight had been lifted. I know that my story certainly isn’t typical, and that some people have had no worries at all where as some people have endured much heartache and Romeo and Juliet style pain to be with the person they have chosen to love. Some don’t even have a choice. My story is just one of many – I’d be delighted to hear yours, if you’d let me.  And your thoughts on intercultural love too.