Aunt Bee as Mom, Stepmom, or Grandmom
![handle is hein.journals/dralours3 and id is 12 raw text is: AUNT BEE AS MOM, STEPMOM, OR
GRANDMOM?
Jeffrey A. Parness*
The long-running-and often the most watched'-1960s television
program The Andy Griffith Show featured Sheriff Andy, his son Opie, and
his Aunt Bee, who lived with and cared for them.2 During the show,
neither Andy nor Bee were married, nor were they intimate with anyone.3
Opie had no mother, nor any man or woman apart from Bee who regularly
aided Andy in his upbringing.
If Andy and Bee had a falling out in the 1960s, Opie would have lived
with Andy and would have seen Bee only as Andy determined. As a
nonparent, Bee typically would have had no standing to seek court-ordered
childcare as might a stepparent or a grandparent. Andy would have had
superior parental rights even if Bee could have provided Opie with a much
better home or much-needed guidance.4
Today, while few states have special childcare statutes for aunts,
uncles, or cousins, emerging statutes and common law rulings are
* Professor Emeritus, Northern Illinois University College of Law.
1. See RICHARD KELLY, THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW 3 (rev. ed. 6th prtg.
1988) (discussing the show's consistent ratings success).
2. In the first episode, Andy tells Opie that Andy and some of his relatives
were raised by Bee. The Andy Griffith Show: The New Housekeeper (CBS television
broadcast Oct. 3, 1960). Bee was the aunt of Andy, a widower, and cared for Opie on
the show when he was between six and fourteen years old. See KEN BECK & JIM
CLARK, MAYBERRY MEMORIES: THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW PHOTO ALBUM 1 (2000).
In the show's spinoff, Mayberry R.FD., Andy marries his longtime girlfriend Helen
and Bee moves in with a farmer and his young son. See KELLY, supra note 1, at 227.
Bee has been described as Andy's live-in housekeeper who basically became Opie's
surrogate mother and grandmother, serving as a sort of mother-aunt-wife . . .
look[ing] after [Andy's] home, son, and stomach. BECK & CLARK, supra, at 59;
KELLY, supra note 1, at 46.
3. See KELLY, supra note 1, at 46 ([Andy and Bee] cared for each other ...
but there was not a strong emotional tie between them. Both characters, but especially
Aunt Bee, kept a tight rein on their feelings in favor of domestic and social
propriety.).
4. Cf In re Miller, 3 Cal. Rptr. 450, 454 (Dist. Ct. App. 1960) (Where a
parent ... is in a position to take the child and is not shown to be unfit the court may
not award custody to strangers merely because it feels that they may be more able to
provide financial, educational, social or other benefits.).
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Aunt Bee as Mom, Stepmom, or Grandmom
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