By Leila Collins and Geri Dogmetchi
SATURDAY 30 OCTOBER 1999
The Sixth MLPC Studio is a talk by Geri Dogmetchi and Leila Collins in which they explore their experience as parents in a mixed marriage and bringing up children in this context. Leila Collins is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Principal Lecturer at Middlesex University. Geri Dogmetchi is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is also a trainer and consultant in mental health issues for Social Services and the National Health Service.
Leila and Geri met when MLPC had its first Studio meeting in December 1997. They found each other, as people who have experiences in common do. Leila is an Iranian, married to a British man and Geri is British and was married to an Iranian man. They both have children and talked about bringing children up in England, with the English language and their loss of the Persian language, Farsi. They wondered how this affects their own as well as their children’s identity and their feeling of belonging. They feel that the issue is much more complex than that of just language, the containing culture, class and gender. They will offer some of their thoughts and those of their children.