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“Lucy, you got some splaining to do.”
Ricky Ricardo.
Unless you are a baby boomer near my age, you may not know much, if anything, about the “I Love Lucy” television show. Maybe you might though, reruns possibly? It was first broadcast during the early fifties, and much has changed since that time. When the show was originally aired, the word “pregnant” was considered not appropriate for television.
Studio heads were initially concerned that the duo of Lucy and Ricky might be considered unbelievable due to their “mixed marriage”. Ricky was Cuban, while Lucy was a white American. Many of the puritanical views on sex still influenced the production of this show as well.
Lucy’s “splaining” was frequent because she often got herself into predicaments that required her to explain herself to her husband Ricky. Just like Lucy, we birth parents have alot of explaining to do at reunion – the secrecy is only part of what we need to try to “splain” to our children. We need to attempt to give our children an accurate picture of what the world was like “back then”. In addition, we want to help provide them with an accurate view of what pregnant unmarried women often faced. They need to know that we did not walk away from them forever because we wanted a closed adoption – or maybe any adoption. Open adoptions were not offered.
Explaining all the secrecy and deceptions is no small task. For starters, some of it makes so little sense in today’s society. It didn’t even necessarily make sense back then, but, it was mostly accepted. Part of the secrecy was due to how unacceptable sex before marriage was, let alone, being a single mother. Certainly, the taboo against single motherhood is much less prevalent. There are still many people who are firm on the concept that a child needs (and should have) a mom and a dad. Women do still relinquish at times today because they want their child to have two parents. However, since there are so many single mothers today, many people now realize that one parent can successfully raise a child.
To Be Continued…………………………………
