Favorite TV Moms: Roseanne, Abby Finkelstein, Kitty Montgomery and Nora Walker

My favorite TV Moms run the gamut from blue collars to country club mavens, from hippie earth mothers to widowed corporate wives "searching for themselves."

ROSEANNE (Roseanne Barr as the "Domestic Goddess" in Roseanne). "I figure by the time my husband comes home at night, if those kids are still alive, I've done my job." So sums up Roseanne Conner's perspective on motherhood. She was the most down to earth TV mom ever. She lived in the real world under the pendulum of Murphy's Law -- constant financial worries, dysfunctional family, the less-than-perfect normal kids, the wacky friends and relatives, the job instability. But Roseanne always handled it. She didn't take any guff from her kids, but loved them fiercely. Even when Becky ran off with her boyfriend, Darlene wore black and moped around for a year, even when DJ was, well, DJ, she loved them all unconditionally. Once when Darlene's friend Molly ditched her at a concert, Roseanne gave Molly a piece of her mind: "...when you leave this house with a Conner kid, you're going to be extra careful, because Darlene is one of the few things we own outright."

Roseanne didn't force broccoli on her kids, but they were never hungry. She didn't spoil her kids, but they always had what they needed and they always came first. Once, she made Dan return a pair of shoes so they could buy Becky a dress for the prom. Roseanne's acerbic sense of humor may have appeared belittling but, recognizing the importance of instilling self-esteem in her kids, after throwing a zinger at them, she'd often ruffle their hair or hug them. One scene I will always remember was the answer this TV Mom gave DJ after being told by Darlene he was an accident. "No, D.J., you were a surprise." When D.J. asked what the difference was, she told him, "Well, an accident is something that you wouldn't do over again if you had the chance. A surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it."

This exemplifies Roseanne's affection for her children, even if she did want to change the locks after they left for school. I used to say Roseanne-like things to my kid, like the day she screamed "I hate you!," and I replied, "Well, then my job is done." Roseanne wasn't afraid to talk to her kids about sex and substance abuse or menstruation. She didn't try to shield them from the fact that some of her relatives and friends were alcoholics or homosexuals. She was a feminist whose weight did not keep her from being a sexual being and, while seeming to order Dan about, gave him the respect of consultation on important issues.

Amidst all the yelling and sarcasm, there was always genuine love. And what other TV Mom would name her last kid "Jerry Garcia Conner?"

ABBY FINKELSTEIN (Mimi Kennedy as Dharma's "Earth Mother" in Dharma and Greg). As a child of the sixties, I immediately related to Abby O'Neil aka Finkelstein, the long-suffering "life-mate" of burned-out stoner Larry Finkelstein, mother of a flower child she named Dharma (as in "ultimate reality of the universe") Freedom. This TV Mom was an aggressive vegetarian, a tree-hugger who never married Larry because she didn't need a piece of paper to prove their love. (Ah, yes, those were the days!) She was the original earth mother who put baby Dharma to sleep in a hanging macramé cradle lined with moss and encouraged toddler Dharma to run naked and "follow her bliss." The ultimate nurturer, Abby was wise in the ways of the universe, prodding her daughter to delve inside herself to find the cosmic cause of her physical ailments. She could be unreasonable at times, forcing Larry to live her vegan lifestyle and causing Greg to lie about going fishing because of her animal rights stance. And there was that time we learned she permitted Timothy Leary to baby-sit.

Abby Finkelstein opened her child's eyes to societal and political wrongs, taking Dharma to work with migrant farm workers and making protest marches a part of Dharma's earliest memories. She was open about sex, teaching Dharma that it was a normal, healthy part of life, never shielding Dharma from her parents' lovemaking. One of the first TV Moms to embrace menopause, she celebrated it as entering the era of "the Crone," which she defined as a woman of age and experience offering her wisdom to the world.

Not that I espoused all of Abby Finkelstein's virtues or beliefs, but I do believe in living life to the fullest, surrendering to your instincts and defying convention. All of which allowed me to support my daughter's artistic decision in college to dance sans vêtements as "The Woman" in Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Promised Land, produced by internationally renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones. Her father and the rest of the family were appalled, however, my husband's exact words being, "This is all your fault! You raised her with no shame!" I prefer to believe that I raised her -- to follow her bliss.

KITTY MONTGOMERY (Susan Sullivan as Greg's "Country Club" Mom in Dharma and Greg). Kitty Montgomery was the antithesis to Abby's earth mother. Kitty's father turned one gas station into an empire, making Kitty a very wealthy catch, who learned to speak, walk and think like an aristocrat, having, as Dharma phrased it, "a big ole stick up her butt." Assigning her only child to boarding school, Kitty toured the world, calling Greg one year to wish him a happy fifth birthday -- on his sixth birthday. When she wasn't traveling, she spent her days as wealthy heiresses and wives of moguls do, in charitable endeavors at her country club. While Dharma was NOT the daughter-in-law of her dreams, her breeding forbad her to be actually rude to anyone. Shocked at her son's decision to marry on a first date, she nonetheless began the process of attempting to shape Dharma into a Montgomery, while Dharma subsequently attempted to remove Kitty's "big ole stick."

Upon learning that Dharma and Greg were spending quite a bit of time with Dharma's family, and fearful of losing her son to "the fun parents," she attempted to insinuate herself into their life by conceding to dinner in their cramped apartment rather than her chandeliered dining room, or spending a couples' retreat weekend of discovery with them.

But Kitty had a hidden sensitive side. Upon declaring herself a "people person," she burst into tears when Dharma and her mother laughed. She took her cousin to the prom because he had mono and missed six months of school. When Dharma and Greg adopted a baby, and the hospital the Montgomerys funded told her their best pediatrician wasn't immediately available, she advised the staff to look out the window and read the name on the side of the building. And when Dharma was forced to return the baby to the birth mother, Kitty was there to hold and console her.

Kitty Montgomery, to me, represented an insecure woman, thrust into a life that required confidence. When she achieved "the perfect life, gaining entrance into upper class culture, her son presented her with a counter-culture daughter-in-law. Her struggles with the emptiness of her life, her attempts to accept the unacceptable, and her empathy when her loved ones were suffering showed her true human side. That's why I relate to Kitty Montgomery.

NORA WALKER (Sally Field as the Matriarch in Brothers and Sisters). TV Mom Nora Walker is the betrayed widowed matriarch of a brood my mother would call "five only children." Nora Walker's children are adulterous, divorced, gay, drug-addicted, and ambitious. The oldest of five myself, I instantly related to the troubled siblings, so closely entwined in each other's lives, and the fiercely overprotective mother's attempts to shape the perfect family. When Nora learns her late husband's long-term affair resulted in a daughter, she accepts the allegedly illegitimate offspring on the premise that siblings should know each other. When it is revealed that the girl is not William's daughter, but that an illegitimate son is out there, she pursues him as well.

Therein lies the substance of Nora Walker's being. Family is everything. It doesn't matter to Nora which of her kids was wrong, she wants them to make up. A flaming liberal, however, Nora was estranged from daughter Kitty for two years after Kitty espoused the republican beliefs of her late father. While TV Mom Nora Walker loves having her children around, she does not stop them when they want to flee the nest. She's always there to give solicited or unsolicited advice, is often righteously indignant, and often does interfere where she shouldn't. Nora is open with her children about most things, but a bit of puritanical discretion did emerge when they tried to extract details of her recent affair with an architect.

Nora leads a busy life, running here and there with her kids and grandchildren, joining the Board of Directors of the family business, organizing charity events and throwing family bashes that always end in disaster. She returned to school and tried to write a book, getting involved with her professor in the process. Her liberalness sometimes is inconvenient, such as when she is arrested for smoking marijuana during her son-in-law's presidential campaign, or when she made a ranting call to a political talk show and is outed as the republican candidate's future mother-in-law.

Nora Walker represents the "woman behind the man," who made her faithless husband's success possible. A homemaker who gave up her own ambitions for her family, she now is on the road to "finding herself." A true embodiment of the baby boomer generation, she tries to coalesce her familial obligation with her own needs and beliefs, while remaining open-minded enough to adjust to changing mores. Nora Walker has a hard row to hoe.