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It didn't exist except for on Ozzy and Harriet.

I keep meaning to make a comment on this.

Even avoiding comments on the Nelson's real-life family, even old TV shows show non-"traditional" families. My Three Sons (1960) depicted a man raising his three sons with the help of a succession of male, live-in companions. Bachelor Father (1957), Andy Griffith (1960), Family Affair (1966), and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969) all had similar premises. I Love Lucy (1951) featured what some might have considered miscegenation, and a childless couple. The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) featured their ragtag set of relatives. Not to mention The Brady Bunch (1969). Even Make Room for Daddy (1953) had a mixed family. Or maybe these are also examples of the liberal Hollywood agenda. You'll note that I specfically left out shows that obviously had an agenda, like Julia (1968), for example.

These are bound not to have been coming from left field -- not in these numbers. Certainly many Americans of those times must have dealt in real life with single mothers widowed by WWII, at the very least. And that sort of thing couldn't have been isolated to the 50s and 60s. Surely many fathers died in WWI, and the Civil War. I think that this notion of a mother, father, and 2.3 kids has only become an endemic thought since the beginning of pax americana, when losing family members due to war and illness has become less and less of a common occurrence.
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Bitt Faulk