An Indian woman who had children with a Jamaican has been alienated by her father. Mariella Frostrup recommends trying for a reconciliation
The dilemmaMine is a very long story, but to keep it short, I left home at 18 to live with my boyfriend, who is Jamaican. The problem is that I am Indian, so my dad and grandmother were not pleased at all. I regret the way I left, but not the boyfriend who became my husband. Ten years on and three small children later, my dad and I hardly talk. It hurts me so much and my heart cries at night. But I don’t know if I’m feeling sorry for myself or is all this my fault and my dad has a valid reason not to speak to my husband? My dad and I were close, and now we barely speak. I wish I could tell him how I feel. It’s sad.
Mariella replies Sad, and hopefully surmountable. It’s ironic that in the immediate aftermath of our vote to leave Europe my mailbag should have been flooded with letters from people for whom difference, whether cultural or religious, presents a challenge in their lives. One letter came from a Muslim teenager, growing up in Britain, whose mother’s increasingly histrionic response to her dating a boy is making her a laughing stock among her friends. She’s deeply unhappy and considering rejecting her faith. Dragging your 16-year-old daughter from a cinema foyer and screaming at her hysterically for holding hands with her boyfriend is not appropriate behaviour in our society. More importantly, perhaps, it’s not the sort of behaviour that’s likely to achieve the desired result.
In daily life and the wider world, talking things out, not enforcing our will or storming away, is the best solution
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