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This chapter reviews what our study participants thought would be in store for their children as they grew up, and perhaps had children of their own. Asking what multiracial parents thought about the salience of ethnic and racial difference in the future, the discussion focuses on what they felt this would mean for their children’s lives. Parents also reflected on their children’s choices of potential partners, as well as the consequences of their partnerships for the potential “dilution” or the possible reinforcement of ethnic minority heritage. Reflecting on their own family’s role in the evolving make-up of British society, many considered themselves and their children to be at the forefront of key changes in the meanings and dynamics of racial and ethnic boundaries in contemporary Britain.

The political participation of Muslims in Europe is complex with different experiences in different age groups and among Europe’s countries. In recent years the issue has been confused further by the heightened public discussion on security. This chapter sets a broader context for the fifteen chapters by various authors to follow.

Starting with a discussion of the demographics of mixed-race people in Britain, this chapter shows that, rather than being a marginal social group, they are quickly becoming more populous, especially in ethnically diverse metropolitan areas. A review of both North American and British studies of multiracial people demonstrates that there is a significant gap in the research concerning multiracial people as parents and their relationships with their children. This generational perspective, I argue, is needed to achieve a fuller understanding of what it means to be a multiracial individual and parent today.

Chapter 4 identifies the variety of family-related footage found in archival collections and its wider significance as evidence of social, cultural and demographic change. Scenes of weddings, family picnics, toddlers and children playing on the beach long epitomised the seeming banality, clichéd content and ordinariness of amateur film footage. Looking into and beyond these apparently happy families captured doing similar activities over the decades raises issues about the making and passing on of visual memories, parental dynamics in constructing family narratives on camera, childhood play and development. Implicit in these personal stories are recurring motifs, locations and activities that have both personal and collective significance, embodying cultural practices, expectations, aspirations and how identities, gender roles, and relationships evolve. Clothes, toys, places and people position these visual snippets that gain different significance as they move from private into public arenas. Personal histories interweave with wider historical change so that domestic details unwittingly denote particular moments in time and space –whether in late colonial settings overseas, Britain’s migration and settlement histories, or the glimpses of specific ideological changes that have affected the daily lives and life chances of the young, the old and those in between.