Who's there? The child you gave up for adoption 45 years ago . . . That's the big Oprah secret I'm secretly watching now: a long-lost half sister born to Oprah's mother. This woman spent years looking for her birth mother, only to be rejected again and again, before ultimately putting together the story. Touching, wonderful for them and so on . . .
But, it takes me back to my teenage beliefs and the case against secretly giving a child up for adoption, as teenage girls were often urged to do. Simply, it's never really a secret. First, you always know you have a child in the world. And then, you live in fear (or hope) for that ringing doorbell. Assuming, the pregnancy was unintended and unwanted (and even accidental against all odds), you never escape.
Oprah talked about this, although in different terms, with respect to her mother: that she never got over the shame of giving up her child and that that is why she didn't initially want a reunion. Oprah went so far as to even thank her deceased sister for revealing to the rags that a young Oprah had given birth to a child who died, because it freed her from the indignity.
More interesting though is what was not said (at least not during my viewing time): not a word about the father. No one seemed to be looking for the father. In other words, daddy gets off scot-free while the woman suffers a life-sentence.
Thoughts?
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