‘Our 2 Moms’ Follows a Big, Blended Family Contending With Small-Town Attitudes

Whitney Gilbert and and Shadese “Dee-Dee” Griffith of Statesville, N.C., seem ready for their close-up, and that’s a good thing, considering thousands if not millions of viewers will meet their family on TLC’s Our 2 Moms.

The special, airing Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 10 p.m. ET, follows Whitney and Dee-Dee as they raise seven kids while planning a wedding, according to the Statesville Record & Landmark. But their journey to the altar won’t necessarily be easy, since they’ll be contending with “ex-husbands, opinionated families, and small-town attitudes about a same-sex, interracial couple,” as the newspaper explains.

Whitney and Dee-Dee’s reality TV experience started with a social-media video of their blended family of nine dancing. “So we all wore pride shirts and then all of our kids were in a line behind us and it ended up going viral,” Whitney told the Record & Landmark.

After that video got more than 298,000 likes, a production company contacted them, and Our 2 Moms was off to the races.

“One thing that the show really wants to show is that, you know, it’s really hard to love who you love and be in a very conservative town,” Whitney said. “They want to show that it’s not as open here and it’s not as easy to live the lifestyle that we’re we’re living, but they’re also hoping that this will bring awareness and help people to understand that we are just like everyone else.”

Whitney, a teacher, and Dee-Dee, a mental help therapist, are already seeing signs of progress in Statesville, like the Pride events hosted in the town the last two years. “I feel like we’re finally, getting there, getting somewhere. Even in a year, it has changed tremendously,” Whitney said.

On Oct. 18, Shadese shared a special “surprise” with her Instagram followers: the news of their time in the TLC spotlight. “Our 2 Moms is a TLC special about our amazing family,” she wrote. “Please tune in on Oct. 25 at 10 p.m. ET. We laugh, love and, cry, and can’t wait to share a little bit of our world with you. Enjoy!”

A couple days later, Shadese posted a video of three of her and Whitney’s kids filming a scene for the show. “These three right here are growing up so quickly!” she wrote in her Instagram caption. “This was an amazing opportunity for our family! And obviously they had fun also!”

And on Oct. 23, two days before the show’s premiere, Shadese posted a romantic tribute to Whitney. “Just in case anyone looks at us and thinks we are perfect, just know we aren’t!” she wrote. “But we try, we cry, we get frustrated, we listen to each other, and we are working on being a better version of ourselves! My love grows deeper for her every day!”

Our 2 Moms airs Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 10 p.m. EST on TLC and streams the next day on Discovery Plus.