I've previously discussed my top 5 and bottom 5 TV dads. And now, it's Mom's turn! But when putting together this list, I realized it's kind of hard to find good TV moms. Every mom on this list of 10 is going to have at least one ding and because I decided to go from best to worst, the last few are going to be nothing but dings.
I also realized once I started writing that this is going to be very, very long, so I'm splitting it up into two parts. So, I guess it's safe to say the five moms in this blog fall on the "good" side of the needle, and the five in whenever I write the next one, not so much.
To set your expectations properly, I am focusing only on moms who we see, either in the show's timeline or in flashbacks, raising children during their formative years. So, you won't see either of the moms from Seinfeld on this list, or any of the moms from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Those are overall terrifying moms, but we only see them as the parents of adults.
Also, I'm not sticking to just comedy like I did with the dads. Or, I didn't with the dads, because I found out Euphoria was nominated in the drama category at the Golden Globes. How do they decide what's a comedy and what's a drama? With multiple musical numbers, Zendaya's often humorous narration, and Lexi's stupid play, I thought that show was classified as a dark comedy but no. And then Challengers and The Substance were classified as comedies at this year's Globes? What's up with that, what's up with that.
Ok, we're not here to dissect genre assignments, or to talk about how much I hate Lexi, we're here to celebrate/shame 10 memorable TV moms, from good to evil.
I might talk a little bit about how much I hate Lexi. But, you know me, be prepared for tangents galore.
1. Marge - The Simpsons
While Homer claims in song that the three Simpson children "are only here cuz Marge forgot her pill," Marge, more than anyone else on this list, was BORN to be a mother. She truly loves her children, and even though she doesn't always understand them, she tries her best to. She strikes the perfect balance between nurturing them and letting them be themselves.
Marge will occasionally get mad at her children, for example, in the episode "Bart the Mother," where Bart mistakenly thinks he killed the mother of two baby birds but when the eggs hatch they turn out to be parasitic lizards. Bart pleads with Marge that he knows the whole town thinks the lizards are monsters, but he loves them, and she takes his side. Much more in the following entries about moms who did or did not support their children when they realized that their children loved someone/thing. And there's the episode "Marge the Meanie," when we find out Marge pulled some pranks back in her junior high days, and she goes against her principles and starts pulling pranks again because she loves the understanding she's gaining with Bart.
Marge possibly understands Lisa less than Bart, and that's because Marge may have wished that her first daughter would be a younger version of her, and Lisa isn't. Marge is initially resistant to Lisa's vegetarianism and Buddhism, but is ultimately accepting because her relationship with her daughter is more important than the values she grew up with. Speaking of which, how did Marge grow up to be pretty nearly morally perfect when her dad died at a young age, her mother frequently told her she was a disappointment, and her sisters didn't seem to care a whole lot about her? I guess she chose to pay it forward, not pay it back.
In the episode "How Lisa Got Her Marge Back," Marge inadvertently insults Lisa when Lisa overhears her saying that she hates jazz. Lisa, of course, takes it like a child who hasn't yet learned that you can love someone without loving the things they love, and Marge does everything she can to make it up to her, including taking her to Capitol City to see a musical, which Lisa does not appreciate. Toward the end of the episode, Andrew Rannells as himself (one of the best Simpsons cameos EVER) tells Lisa that she should be appreciative of the lengths her mother is going to to have a relationship with her, because, Andrew Rannells can fix all things, and I will stand by that statement.
Another example of Marge going to any length to repair her relationship with Lisa is the episode "Lisa's Belly." Marge makes a comment that she barely thought about regarding Lisa's weight gain, not realizing the impact it has on her daughter. She then can't understand why Lisa is so upset. This episode is one of Homer's better parenting moments, as he goes to talk to Lisa and realizes what the issue is. When Marge and Lisa go to therapy, Marge apologizes for putting a bad memory in Lisa's head that will be there forever, and realizes that she still harbors the memory of her own mother calling her "plain." It's a touching ending, and makes you realize that Marge may make mistakes as any mother does, but will always try her very best to make things right.
Marge's relationship with Maggie is not as healthy because they're pretty dependent on each other, but, hey, Maggie is a baby, cut them some slack.
Anyway, even though Bart started out as America's bad boy and Lisa started out as a sad outcast and Maggie can't talk, you can trust that, with a mom like Marge, the Simpson kids are going to turn out alright when they grow up, which they never will.
2. Catelyn - Game of Thrones
Catelyn would do anything for her children. When Bran's life was threatened, she grabbed a knife blade to stop it, resulting in mutilation of her hands. She would negotiate with enemies and go to the very ends of the earth to get her daughters back and to get vengeance for the attempt on Bran's life. And, when her oldest son Robb falls in love and backs out of an arranged marriage that was made for political reasons, Catelyn understands, and fully supports him. I mean, it was a fatal mistake, but it puts her way above a certain other mother we'll get to later. Catelyn dies doing what it seems she's done her whole life - fighting for her children.
Why is Catelyn below Marge despite being kind of a superhero mom? It's her treatment of Jon Snow. Catelyn's husband, Ned, brought Jon home when Jon was an infant, to be brought up alongside the other Stark children. Catelyn believed that Jon was Ned's bastard son, and so she treated him dismissively, sometimes borderline cruelly.
And here's the thing. Why couldn't Ned trust Catelyn enough to tell her "this isn't my bastard son, it's my actually legitimate nephew" and save both Catelyn and Jon 15 years (yeah, I think based on the books Jon was supposed to be 15 years old) of complete misery? Jon's true identity had to be protected, but can't you trust your wife? Did he think she would tell her insane sister or something?
And why was Catelyn so mean to Jon? It makes no sense that if you think your husband had an affair, you would immediately forgive the husband but take it out on the innocent baby. Anyway, bad move by BOTH Ned and Catelyn. And this is just my number 2.
3. Donna - The Cleveland Show/Family Guy
But Mandie, you say. You love Family Guy. Why are you not including Lois Griffin in your list of iconic moms? Well, I made a one-per-show rule, and as far as McFarlane moms go, Lois is worse than Donna and better than American Dad's Francine, so, don't worry, we'll still talk about her a little, but first let's discuss Donna.
I remembered The Cleveland Show being kind of like the security blanket out of the three major McFarlane shows. It features a mom and dad who actually love each other and are invested in their kids, and it's more grounded than the other two. Sure, their neighbor is a talking bear, but there's no baby trying to kill his mother, there's no alien trying to have sex with everyone in the family, and the family overall gets along and works as a unit. Upon revisiting the show, I realized there are some things that don't age particularly well, even other than the fact that this was a show about black people created by a white guy and starring another white guy, but it's overall still pretty sweet and funny.
In the first episode of this Family Guy spin-off, Cleveland returns to his hometown and marries his childhood sweetheart, Donna, who is now a single mom to 15-year-old Roberta and 5-year-old Rallo. Cleveland brings a third child to the family, his son Cleveland Jr., and Donna mothers them all equally, in a way that's caring but not obsessive or overbearing, putting her at the top of the McFarlane moms trio. Which is impressive because Donna's own mother walked out on her when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised by her Auntie Momma who is actually her uncle Kevin in drag, and the treatment of that character is ... one of the other elements in this show that really makes you cringe.
So what does Donna do wrong? Well, for one thing, she lies to her kids. She does the Santa Claus thing, like a lot of parents do, but she tells a more elaborate lie by convincing Rallo that the reason his biological father never visits him is that he's an FBI agent, even writing letters that are supposedly from his father who is on missions overseas.
This is not as bad as a lie Lois Griffin concocted. When Chris did not get any valentines in preschool, Lois and Peter told him that he would get a lot of valentines from "Arthur Valentine," who comes every year on Valentine's Day and leaves candies and cards for little girls and boys that have not said any swears. Ten years later, Chris still eagerly leaves out a can of tuna and a cigar for Arthur Valentine, who he loves so much. This is obviously an exaggerated version of the Santa Claus thing, but it brings to mind a question for anyone on my blog who has kids, cuz I don't - if you do the Santa Claus thing, how do you handle the conversation when they realize Santa Claus isn't real? A few years ago, I was on a video call with some of my friends, two of whom have kids, and I asked that question out of genuine curiosity because when I found out Santa wasn't real (don't worry, I was six years old, it wasn't a Chris situation), I was really disappointed, and embarrassed, and felt like my parents had been making me into an idiot and using this thing I loved so much just to try to get me to go to bed on time. I found out one of the kids had gotten out of bed and was listening to the video call, and that kid's mom immediately dropped off the call and I think she wanted to murder me.
Anyway, Chris isn't very smart, so when Lois tried to break the news to her 14-year-old son that Arthur Valentine wasn't real, he didn't accept it, so she then made the logical leap to decide to kill Arthur Valentine. She created an Arthur Valentine mannequin and ran over it with her car while Chris watched. This, obviously, traumatized him, and he became catatonic. They decided the only way to bring him out of his stupor would be for Peter to dress up as Arthur Valentine so he would think he was real again. Which worked, but then Chris thought Peter must be a zombie because he'd seen Arthur Valentine die, and tried to kill his own father. Which is an exaggerated version of all those Christmas songs about seeing Santa make out with your mommy and how he looked kind of like daddy. (SERIOUSLY, WHO DOES THAT? WHAT IS YOUR END GAME IN DRESSING UP LIKE SANTA WHEN YOUR KID ISN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE UP AND THEN MAKING OUT WITH YOUR WIFE? DOES SHE HAVE A FETISH? JUST GROW A BEARD AND GAIN WEIGHT IRL, BRO! UNLESS YOU WORK IN FOOD SERVICE AND YOU CAN'T HAVE FACIAL HAIR!) Seriously, look up the lyrics for "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy" by Brad Paisley. I just discovered that song this holiday season and I was like, WHAT THE. "Santa put his arm around mommy, and mommy put her arm around him, if Santa Claus ain't daddy, then I'm gonna tell on them." The kid in that song would have grown up to beat up mall Santas like so many a Charlie Kelly before him.
But, really, as a non-parent, but a former child, I ask, how much should we lie to our kids? Donna drops the lying thing in a season 4 episode, the season where maybe they knew they were going to get canceled and kind of go off the rails. Donna had been taking Rallo bowling but using virtual bumpers so that Rallo could never get a gutter ball, while not doing that for herself, so Rallo always beat her, and believed he was a pro bowler. One day she takes the bumpers off and Rallo realizes that he sucks. He then asks if Donna actually thought all his drawings were good, and she tells him, no, they were terrible, but it's fine because kids suck at everything (which she does through a musical number called "Kids Suck at Everything").
Obviously, you could not expect five-year-old Rallo to be a pro bowler or a magnificent artist. If he were performing above his age, you might recognize talent and support it, but if you lavish too much praise on a kid, it will go to their head and may screw them up. You need to draw the line. For example, there's me, a.k.a. every kind of cautionary tale.
When I was 10, I wrote a novel called "Wolf Moon." It was egregiously bad. It was about a 10-year-old girl (go figure) named Annetta Bell (a name I stole from a minor Anne of Green Gables character) who lived in ... the history past? I knew nothing of history, so I think it was supposed to be the late 1800s or the early 1900s but what they had access to and did not have access to was very out of whack. Her parents did ... something? Did they have a farm? Were they Little House on the Prairie? Was unclear. Anyway, Annetta finds an orphaned wolf pup and brings it home, which everyone is averse to because her older sister Sharon was scared by a wolf or something and fell down and now she can't walk and never leaves her room. But the wolf pup turns out to be wolf Jesus and saves Annetta and her siblings' lives multiple times, fighting things like drowning, bees, and fire. And Sharon realizes she could walk all along, she just needed the power of friendship, and finally makes it down the stairs, astonishing her family. It. Was. That. Bad. It ends with us finding out the small southern Illinois town (are there even wolves in southern Illinois? I did not research) still has a statue of a wolf in his honor.
Well, it SHOULD have ended there, but I wrote "Wolf Moon 2," which was actually much worse (if you can believe it), and started "Wolf Moon 3," which was going to be even worse and if I had finished it, it might have opened up the gates of hell. That's because my parents went overboard in praising the book that I'd written, telling me that this was definitely going to be a movie someday, and I believed them, already imagining my meetings with the animators (I figured it would be an animated movie) and showing drawings of what the characters would look like (I was also told I was good at art). My parents told me I should bring "Wolf Moon" to school and show it to my classmates, and the few who acknowledged it read three words of it and then made fun of me, but that was fine, they are unenlightened, I am a genius.
I was also told I was good at music. I wasn't. But people told me I was good at singing and playing piano, so I thought I was. Imagine the American Idol auditionees who they put on the air just because it's comic relief that they thought they were talented and they suck, that's probably what I was, I just didn't see it at the time. So, despite my older brother urging me to major in something STEM, I followed my dream and was a double major in music and English. I failed out of the music major because of the no talent thing, and my confidence was so shot that when I took a Creative Writing class, that was required for the major I still had, I couldn't write anything. So, I wrote stories about a girl who could not write, and turned that in, and I passed the class. I was beginning to realize my strengths, if you can call them that, were parody, ridiculousness, and writing about TV shows. So that's where we are now. I don't know how different my life would have been if I hadn't been told "Wolf Moon" was Nobel Prize worthy when I was 10, but, you know, I enjoyed my English classes, other than Creative Writing, and I'm really bad at math and science, so, I guess I have no regrets.
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Donna. When The Cleveland Show was canceled, the Brown family moved back to Quahog and became part of the Family Guy cast. Donna sadly doesn't get very much to do in Family Guy, but when she does, she continues the brutal honesty she showed with Rallo with all the Quahog residents, and remains a loving and protective mother and wife. With Bonnie constantly plotting ways to kill Joe and Lois and Peter not remembering their children's names, Donna is definitely part of the most stable family on Spooner Street.
4. Beth - Rick and Morty
Beth Sanchez-Smith is the most interesting character on Rick and Morty. She's an overlooked genius, a mom who didn't want to be a mom but embraced it anyway, and always tries to maintain a sense of normalcy even though her family is constantly getting into absurd situations.
Beth barely remembers her own mother, who died when Beth was very young, but she idolizes her father, which is her main Achilles heel. She longed to go on adventures with Rick, but was never included. Let's not say for sure Rick is a misogynist, even though he leaves Beth and her daughter Summer out of everything. The reason Rick chooses Morty to be his sidekick might just be because Morty is stupid and has nothing going on and will do whatever he says. In one episode, Beth asks Rick, "Dad, am I evil?" and he replies, "No, it's worse, you're smart." Rick can't have a smart sidekick. He is a one-man operation and Morty is a foil.
Possibly as an act of retaliation, Beth starts dating a complete doofus (Jerry) and gets pregnant with Summer at age 17. Morty is born a few years later, and we have to assume that Beth was doing all the work taking care of two very young children while putting herself through vet school, as she works as a horse surgeon. When the kids are 17 and 14, Rick decides to move in with the family. And that shakes things up, because Beth's main priority is always going to be seeking acceptance from her father. She's prioritized him above her husband and above her children multiple times.
In the episode "Rixty Minutes," the family gets to view what their reality would be like in alternate timelines, including one where Summer was never born. In that reality, Jerry is a movie star and Beth is living her best life, which is apparently being a human surgeon rather than a horse surgeon and drinking wine in a house full of exotic birds. Interesting choice, but, Summer is pretty traumatized by realizing her parents would be happier without her and also, like so many a Meg Griffin and Charlie Kelly before her, she was a failed abortion. However, at the end of the episode, Beth realizes she actually loves her family and the life she ended up having.
While Beth's genius is overall wasted, she does take pride in her position as head of the family and her position as a horse surgeon. In the episode "A Rickle in Time," Beth freaks out when she is initially not allowed to operate on an injured deer, because, like so many a John Locke before her, no one can tell her what she can't do. In the famous episode "Pickle Rick," Beth, currently separated from Jerry, decides she is going to fix the family and starts taking them to therapy. Rick turns himself into a pickle to avoid going to therapy, and that causes Beth to ultimately fail as a mom. She refuses to believe her father would turn himself into a pickle to avoid family therapy, even though her children insist that's what happened, and after the therapy session, when Rick is de-pickled, he suggests that he and Beth go out for a drink and you can tell that just made her day, and the kids' mental issues are forgotten.
The episode "The ABC's of Beth" is a turning point in the series, as we realize that Beth is completely torn between wanting to be a mother and wanting to be free of all obligations and have space adventures like her father. The only solution is for Rick to make a clone of her. So we now have Beth and Space Beth, and Rick doesn't actually know which is the original Beth, or if that matters.
Beth seems to have more of a connection with Summer than with Morty, as she doesn't even blink when Rick says things like, "You're not going to school today, Morty, we're going to planet Galblalon to gather death crystals." This may be because she identifies with Summer as the overlooked female who worships Rick but is never allowed to go on any adventures with him. In the episode where Summer joins a mind-altering dating app and is about to get married to someone she barely knows, Beth yells at her something like "I'm going to mother the **** out of you until you're 18 and even after that until I get imprisoned for nonconsensual mothering and even then I'm going to break out and continue to mother you." But is this Beth actually loving Summer, or is it her pride, like the situation with the deer?
The episode that most shows that Beth loves Summer is "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy." Summer's boyfriend just dumped her for a prettier girl, and Summer asks Beth if she is attractive. Beth fumbles answering this question, which is kind of funny because Summer looks EXACTLY like Jerry but with different hair. Devastated, Summer tries to use one of Rick's gadgets to improve herself but ends up turning herself into a 100-foot-tall inside out monster that can barely form words. Initially, because of her pride, Beth refuses to ask Rick for help and tries to fix it herself. In the end, she decides to turn herself into a 100-foot-tall, inside out monster so she can go embrace and comfort Summer. Morty, watching the two monstrosities hug and cry, says, "She's a good mom."
You know, I'd mostly agree with you, Morty.
5. Linda - Bob's Burgers
But Mandie, you say, Linda is America's sweetheart! Bob's Burgers is a wholesome show about family love! How could you rank her below the mother from that insane Back to the Future parody where the parents were separated for an entire season and the two kids have a giant incest baby floating around in space? Calm down, Linda still made the "good" half of the list.
Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy Bob's Burgers. There are some plot lines and characters that do annoy me, but overall it is very funny. And, I find Linda kind of terrifying.
Linda fetishes the idea of being a mother. To the point where you realize it's not really about the kids, it's all about her. We've all known moms like that, right? Because she is obsessed with being a mom, she doesn't want her kids to grow up, and so she infantalizes them. What nine-year-old girl should still wear bunny ears? What eleven-year-old boy should still take baths with his mom every weekend and have a complete meltdown when bath Saturday moves to bath Sunday and be incapable of spending even two minutes alone? When I was little, I had an imaginary friend and my mom made me give it up. I was four. Linda, however, encourages the things that make her children unfit for society, because, like the Hummel figurines she collects, they're "her little babies." If one of Linda's kids had an imaginary friend they talked to in public, Linda would encourage the hell out of that and probably start talking to the imaginary friend as well and making up other imaginary friends for the friend and convincing the kid that they were real, and the kid would continue to talk to a slew of imaginary friends for the rest of their lives.
Let's face it, Linda is mentally ill and many times is unable to face change or reality. For example, when their couch breaks and Bob and Louise (the only logical people in the family) decide they need to get a new couch, Linda has a breakdown because she has so many memories with HER BABIES on this couch. No one else in the family cares, but Linda has to have her way, so they have to track down the couch. When some Christmas ornaments the kids made when they were younger go missing, Linda has another breakdown and has to interrogate everyone in the town, kind of ruining everyone's Christmas because no one else in the family really cares, the kids even offer to make her new ornaments, but she wants the ones HER BABIES already made her.
And then there's the episode where she decides she needs a perfect family photo (I swear, every sitcom ever has an episode where one person in the family is obsessed with having a perfect family photo) so they go to a national park, she forces the family to hike three miles to the top of a cliff even though no one wants to, and then after taking the picture she drops her camera into a crevice. She catches the camera, but she can't pull both her hand and the camera out, so she refuses to leave. Everyone else is urging her to let go of the camera, saying they're freezing and want to go home, but she won't. Even when a park ranger shows up at closing time and tells her that if they do not leave the park, they will be escorted out and charged a huge fine, she won't let go. I kind of wanted her to abandon the camera and have a moment of character growth that would make her less insane, but, Linda always gets her way, so Louise figures out a way that they can twist Linda's arm to recover the camera.
In addition to refusing to let her babies grow up and celebrating things about them that will make them social outcasts, Linda always must get her way and will not rest until she does. This includes things she wants, things her babies want, and things she wants for her babies that they do not necessarily want. Let's take a look at her relationships with each of her children.
We'll start with Tina, the oldest. While Gene is 100% a mommy's boy and Louise is 100% a daddy's girl, Tina is ... really neither? All of her affection seems to be for boys and for horses. When Tina turns 13, all she wants is to have her first kiss at her birthday party with her crush, Jimmy Jr. And Linda wants to go to the ends of the earth to make this party and this kiss happen, including Bob having to get a second job and shave off his mustache. Did Jimmy Jr consent to this kiss? No. But Tina was lying on the floor moaning and saying that nothing mattered if this kiss didn't happen. By backing Tina up that her first kiss on her 13th birthday was something that she definitely had to have, Linda was, essentially, sowing the seeds of Tina becoming a grown-up Linda someday. And that's continued. There's an episode where Tina hears the word "prom" and realizes she hasn't secured Jimmy Jr as a date for the prom that won't happen for four years and has a complete breakdown. You're really screwing up your kid, Linda.
Relationships are a two-way street, and no one is entitled to anything. When I went to camp at age 14 and told one of my (almost Tina-level socially awkward) cabinmates that I'd never been kissed or had a boyfriend, she asked, "Is there something wrong with you?" I mean, probably a lot, but hopefully not as much as Tina. Can you imagine how much weirder it would be, though, if I said, "My mom went to great lengths to have my neighbor kiss me." If Linda were a better mother, she would have told Tina that her first kiss would happen when it happened, and that she didn't have to be devastated if it's not with this specific person on this specific night. But, Linda is Linda.
Then, there's Gene. Gene's relationship with his mom is disturbing (though there's an animated mother-son duo later in this list that is worse). In an episode where the family develops worms and they realize the worms started with Gene, Linda ponders how Gene could have given any of them worms. They then show a flashback montage that includes Linda and Gene Lady and the Tramp style eating some spaghetti and kissing on the mouth. In one episode, Gene shaves the back of his head and starts looking like Bob, I forget why, and Linda doesn't find that weird at all and prefers the small Bob to her actual husband.
Linda also celebrates Gene's weirdness, which is much louder and more publicly embarrassing than Tina's quiet weirdness. Gene sings about his poops and farts and has something called "The Gene Show" that is basically him screaming in people's faces and wobbling around saying "jiggly jiggly jiggly" and Linda thinks the world needs to see it. In one episode Linda bribes a community theater director to get Gene a part in a play, and tells Gene that he got it of his own merit.
Finally, we have Louise, the only child who seems to recognize that Linda is nuts, and the only child who seems to resist Linda's efforts to infantilize all of them. In one episode, Linda decides that to make Louise her baby again, she's going to bribe her with cash to go to a mother-daughter therapy session that involves pouring "umbilical soup" into her mouth with a funnel and shoving her into a "uterus bag" so that they can recreate her birth. This is pretty horrifying, and maybe the best example of Linda fetishizing being a mother. It's surprising she didn't react to Louise's resistance by immediately having another baby, which is what my #7 on this list tried to do.
In conclusion, while Linda is a mediocre-at-best mother, she's an overall good person, and the mom on this list that I would most like to be friends with. She's obsessed with her kids, yes, but she can be obsessed with just about anything. She's not one of those people who would prefer to just be friends with other mothers. One of my best friends who had recently got married once told me, "It's so nice to have married friends" and it secretly cut me to the core. Linda has plenty of friends who have never been married or had kids, and she loves hanging out with just anyone. You could have a conversation with her about ketchup or Broadway musicals or raccoons or any number of tangents, and she'd probably care about your day more than you did.
Anyway, if you're still here, which you're definitely not, thank you for reading about the good half of the moms. See you in part two.
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