My folks met at a pub called Matilda’s on Queen Street, Melbourne. This was 1982: my mother was 16 when she met my dad, 21 and fresh off the boat.
“They never used to ask for ID!” my father, Danny (Ahmad), laughs, recalling the night he and my mother, Julie, met. She’d gone there with some cousins and, oddly, my grandmother. Dad describes seeing my mother: “I still remember, I was in the DJ box when [Julie] walked in, and I said to my mates, “I’m gonna marry that girl”. People laughed.”
“I was dancing with his friend, because we were the same height. My cousin liked [Danny]. I was a bit oblivious.” Mum adds.
Though there’d been Lebanese immigration to Australia since the 1880s, the war saw of Lebanese-born Victorians. Much like other marginalised groups, society wasn’t hugely warm towards the newly-arrived Lebanese, especially those in the Muslim faith, like my father’s family.
My father came to Australia from Tripoli, Lebanon, when he was 17. He was brought over by an uncle to escape the ; five sisters, one brother and two parents followed within a year.
My parents were together three years before getting engaged. In that time, Mum grew close to my father’s sisters and her new mother-in-law, who taught her Arabic, of which she quickly became fluent. Dad, similarly, had learnt English over his first few years in Australia from friends and bosses- he felt it was necessary for “survival”.
Mum grew close to my father’s sisters and her new mother-in-law, who taught her Arabic.
My sister and I can speak very little Arabic. There is video footage of me, aged six or so, asking, “Where’s my bauba?” (the Arabic word for ‘father’); we had a kind of amalgamous language of key Arabic words and English. I think Dad regrets not teaching us Arabic properly.
“Really, you should've been speaking Arabic fluently because we both spoke it, but we chose not to use it at home. When we got married, my English wasn't that good, because I was picking it up as I went along. We slacked off teaching you the Arabic...you go to school, it’s easy to use the English. The people around you understand you, so you don’t worry about it.”
Before they split when I was 16, Dad worked a variety of jobs (factory work, labourer) while Mum stayed at home with us. This wasn’t a cultural expectation; Mum had long wanted to be a full-time mother. Before she married my father, she worked odd jobs (also factory work, hospitality) but we were able to survive on one income so that she could stay at home.
“I wanted to be with my kids. Nothing wrong with a working parent. Being home with kids is working anyway. I wanted to be young when I had kids so I'm still young growing up with them.” she says.
My parents had rather opposing upbringings themselves (after my maternal grandparents’ split, Mum lived only with her mother; Dad grew up in an immediate family of seven), which informed the way my sister and I grew up. When it became apparent in recent years that Mum suffers from an anxiety disorder, which I have also inherited (thanks, Ma), her parenting style made more sense: non-confrontational, and eager to please. Her own childhood had been one of loneliness after her brother moved in with her father, after the split; she was close, and still is, to her mother, and she wanted the same relationship with her own daughters. She was very accommodating, often even easily manipulated by my sister and I, back when we were little brats.
Dad, on the other hand, had difficult relationships within his large family. His role as eldest son often have to take a more fatherly role in the family not only the pressure of providing for his siblings, but also disciplining them. He wasn’t an unfeeling man, in my childhood, but it took him many, many years to unlearn the way he felt a family should be. He was strict and gruff, sometimes harsh, but a caring provider.
Both sides of the family had to unlearn their biases to support their loved ones.
In the end, cultural differences had nothing to do with their split. It was your run-of-the-mill marriage breakdown (distrust, distance) in that way. When time came to move out, my sister stayed with my father, and I moved into a unit with Mum. My sister had always been closer to Dad, and related more to the Lebanese side of the family, where I had been closer to Mum, and felt more in touch with her side. It’s still very much the same, some fifteen years on.
Both sides of the family had to unlearn their biases to support their loved ones. Thrown in together, they realised that, at the end of the day, it was easier to get along; despite how wildly different in temperament each side was. They found common ground and clung on for dear life.
We don’t have many home movies from my childhood, because we never owned a video camera, but Dad borrowed one to record my first birthday. In the video, we’re opening presents and eating cake at my grandmother's home and it’s quite a sight: five sheepish, quiet Anglo-Australians sit together, intimidated by the loud, kinetic Lebanese folk who, if you couldn’t understand Arabic, you might assume were arguing- but really they’re just asking where the food should go, and whether anyone bought dip.
Marry Me, Marry My Family is the familiar story of multicultural Australians, as they are today- trying to embrace their Australian identity, whilst staying true to their culture, identity and family.
Marry Me, Marry My Family premieres Tuesday, 9 January at 8.40pm on SBS and . Follow the conversation on social media: #MarryMeMarryMyFamily
Love conquers all. But does it surpass your faith and race?
