Two Dad Family

We watched a film the other night called Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. We had no idea what the film was about, just watched it on someone’s recommendation from a couple years ago, but it’s really left an impression on me. I now know it’s a classic from 1967 and stars Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.

The premise is very simple. Katherine and Spencer are married, and their (white) daughter brings home Sidney, the (black) man of her dreams who she wants to marry. In 1967 though, it was illegal in over 16 states of America for whites and blacks to marry … and there we have the premise of the film.

Although it was a brilliant film from start to end, this scene really struck a cord with me. In it, Spencer asks his future son in law Sidney “have you given any thought to the problems your children are going to have”. Well how interesting, because for me, I’ve thought about it a lot, even on this blog. Watch the scene and see what you think.

I love this scene for so many reasons.

I empathise with Spencer Tracey when he says “no matter how confident you are, I’m just a little scared”, because you know what, no matter how confident all the agencies and people are around me, we’re a little scared. But we know that must be normal.

I laugh when Sidney says that of course they will have children because “I’m not sure what you’d call it, but it you couldn’t call it a marriage otherwise”. How times have changed.

But the biggest reason I am in awe of this scene is the irony of Sidney Poitier making jokes about how “every single one of our children will be President of the United States” when six years earlier, Barack Obama had already been born to mixed race parents. I am in awe at the possibility that not only will society look upon children raised in same-sex families with the same ‘shrug of the shoulders’ that we have when thinking about mixed race children today, but that perhaps, just perhaps, the President of the United States of America to be inaugurated in 2049, or the Prime Minister of Australia at the time, is currently being raised today in a Two Dad Family. Imagine that …