My Favorite Famous TV Mothers

Television has presented us with some wacky, wild, funny and inspiring examples of motherhood. Five of these mothers have agreed to meet with us today to share their advice on mothering and how to raise the perfect child. All opinions shared by these favorite, famous TV Mom's are their opinions and this author disavows any responsibility for them. For purposes of keeping the conversation flowing smoothly, (these ladies are real talkers as I've ascertained in my pre-interview time with each of them! Especially that Roseanne lady..wow..she never shuts up!) Oh, here they come, look at those lovely dresses. Well,lovely dresses on the first three. Gotta run, introductions to make. Hope you enjoy the show and learn something from My Famous Favorite Television Mom's. Woah, I just had a thought, maybe we could turn this into a reality show..What'da you think? Good idea? Sorry, off to the podium for the introductions. Where are my notes..they were right here...there, found them..let's see..We'll start with:

Marion Cunningham:

While Marion Cunningham's Happy Days sitcom aired from 1974-1984, it was set in the historically happy cheerful time of the late 50's when Mom meant Mom in the kitchen, ruling the house with love and empathy and warmth..and wearing a dress! While earlier 50's mothers had the same magical domestic goddess appeal with heels and pearls and a spotless house, we knew it was all fantasy! No mother could truly be June Cleaver. We knew she was a fake, even when we kind of yearned for that same mommy in our lives. But Marion Cunningham was real, authentic, even if Happy Days itself was a bit of fantasy land. She talked back to her husband, for God's sake! I mean who can ever forget this line from Marion to Howard.

Howard: Marion, the kids are gone, we can do anything we want, we can even watch TV naked.
Marion: Oh not that again, Howard!

She danced with the Fozz, talked to her daughter about cigarette smoking and sex and while she was chaste and good and kind and loving..she was also sarcastic, witty and smart. Her house was clean, her food was tasty and life with the Cunninghams looked like a great place to be..especially in the time period it aired, when the news and times were a-changin in our real world at a rate that frightened many of us. Happy Days and Marion took us back to a loving simpler time when we thought we were poised to be Happy forever with our modern democracy and our defeat of the world's enemies. Marion Cunningham oviously has earned her place as one of my favorite TV Mothers.

Olivia Walton

Olivia was the matriarchal mother of a large clan of 8 children, husband, and grandparents that lived at the base of their own mountain in 1930's America. The show aired from 1972-1981 and again we see reaffirmed for us, core American values of trust, family, faith, hard work and desire for the American dream to be realized in our lives. The Waltons was not a sitcom, but a hour long television drama that really focused on family. I don't think of it as realistic for modern times, but who wouldn't have wanted an Olivia Walton for a mother. She had 8 children and still wore a size 8! She was beautiful, graceful, warm, compassionate, loving at the same time that she was strong and hardworking and expected her children to be the very best they could achieve. She supported their hopes and dreams and worked hard to help them achieve them.But she also expected them to do their own work. She demonstrated the skill needed to help children grow to responsible adulthood by holding them accountable for their own deeds and misdeeds. With Olivia Walton as John-boys mother, we knew he would succeed. The show was sappy, overly sentimental but wistfully sweet in its simple statements and well written stories of interdependent family struggles. As a young mother during this time, my ideal of a perfect mother certainly included elements of Olivia Walton.

Clair Huxtable

The Cosby Show, starring comedian Bill Cosby, was aired from 1984-1992 and Clair Huxtable raised the bar of motherhood models for every American. Not only was she a loving, beautiful, capable black mother; she was a successful attorney, a sarcastic, witty and wise wife and mother and one of the classiest examples of motherhood ever shown on television. She was a modern mother for a modern time, working at a challenging career, taking care of five children and balancing home and work with deceptive ease, but an ease we believed was possible because we saw the challenges she faced each week. And through it all, she was the moral center of her home, constantly urging her recalcitrant offspring to do the right thing; using humor and laughter to encourage self-esteem and confidence in everyone around her. What an amazing role model she was for our time. We knew it was a fantasy, that most black families did not have the material wealth that a doctor father and a lawyer mother could provide, but it was a goal worthy of attainment, whether you were black or white.

Roseanne Barr

The character of Roseanne caused more media discussion of proper mothering than any television mother before her time. She was outrageous, outspoken and difficult to separate her character from the real comedian Roseanne Barr. And while I can't say that I wanted to be a Roseanne Barr type mother, I still admired the honest way that this television mother tackled her less than perfect life. And for many of us, her life certainly reflected ours more accurately than that of your more typical TV mother with perfect kitchens, spotless living rooms, and shiny white teethed husbands and children. Her husband had the shape of many American women's husbands, the same annoying habits, but he was lovable and hardworking and we could see the love that this family shared, despite their real life troubles and woes. Like All in the Family and Edith Bunker during the 70's, Roseanne opened up our living rooms to conversations about verbotten subjects; homosexuality, alcoholism, labor rights, economic woes, drug use, etc. but she did it with humor and empathy. I think for some of us, we laughed along with Roseanne, not only because we could sympathize, we often were relieved that our life wasn't as bad as hers! And despite her sarcasm and her less than perfect mothering and housekeeping, through it all, we knew she would always be there for her family. She was strong, resourceful and capable of holding her home and family together. The tools she used were vastly different than those of Marion Cunningham or June Cleaver and based in darker realities, but they weren't so different in the love and wisdom with which she used them.

Lauren Gilmore

Lauren Gilmore of Gilmore Girls fame is a millenium mom and in the Gilmore Girls we see the contrast between three generations of women. We see the choices they have made and still make and we see women struggling to define what it means to be a woman in today's world. Lauren is like many of us, sandwiched between an aging mother and a blossoming daughter. She's had a less than perfect relationship with her mother. Who hasn't?! And she's attempting to come to terms with choices she made when she was young. Who doesn't? And all the while, she's trying to raise a daughter who won't make some of the same mistakes. Again, sounds familiar! At the end of this series we see a glimpse of her future and it's a future we all yearn for; with our daughters launched successfully into the world, Yale graduate no less, and a man who loves us standing by our side as we enter the next stage of being a woman and a mother slightly behind us, but loving us just as we are. Maybe it's a fantasy, but it's a fantasy worth hoping and striving for. Lauren Gilmore is a role model mother for the new millenium with her quirky charm and her intense desire to live her life faithful to inner self.

Okay ladies, let's begin our evening together. Turn up the TV, settle back on the comfy couch with popcorn and diet coke and watch some reruns tonight! Check out my favorite TV mothers, transport yourself back to favorite episodes and favorite memories, learn something, laugh a lot, cry a bit and then come back to reality slowly, where the dishes are waiting and children are sleeping and life is good in both TV land and your world.

Resources:

Check out these website for some great information on other famous TV mothers. Some of the information in this article was found there, but most of it was found in my head where Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched, Marge Simpson and Kitty Foreman like to hobknob with the ladies above. It's a rattley mix of witty conversation and rapid fire machine gun dialogue with sexy red ribbons swirling all around. Who are your favorite of all time TV mothers. Obviously the answer will depend on what TV shows you watched. I had a hard time narrowing this down to these five, Three others were very close runner-ups; the ladies mentioned above and while it's hard to see myself as an animated character, I sure do love Marge Simpson. I mean..talk about saintly motherhood! Bart and his dad..oh my, how would a mother/wife cope with that scenario!?

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