My Favorite TV Moms Aren't the Best, but They're the Most Interesting

There are very few shows on TV that do not feature a mother somewhere in the plotline. There are even quite a few TV shows whose storylines revolve around a mother. And every Mother's Day there are lists out the wazoo telling us who the best moms on TV were. They almost always list the same bunch over and over again. Donna Reed, June Cleaver, Samantha Stevens, Lucille Ball, Carol Brady, Claire Huxtable, Marge Simpson, Debra Barone, and Lorelai Gilmore will show up in these lists. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for good mothers, but only when the standard they set is actually attainable. We currently live in a society filled with various neuroses because of impossible standards of beauty, wealth, and intelligence set by our mainstream media. Why on earth do they want to set us up to fail as mothers also? Oh, yeah, so they can sell us stuff we don't need that is supposed to help us become more like Donna Reed or June Cleaver.

My favorites do include a few from the list of "good" mothers, but they also include TV moms that were/are fleshed out, complicated characters. Being more human than super made them more interesting, and more importantly, made them relateable. So, getting down off of my soapbox, I give you my favorite TV moms.

Samantha Stevens, Bewitched, 1964-72, played by Elizabeth Montgomery. Samantha is on many of the "good" mom lists for very obvious, cliched reasons: she was a stay at home mom who tried to do everything her husband asked of her, and always looked good doing it. But she was interesting because no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't quit doing magic. Her very strange family members also humanized her. I think almost every wife can relate to her attempts to change herself to please her husband. And I can certainly relate to the surprise she experienced when she became a mother. Her children were both magical, and saw no reason to refrain from being themselves because of society's hang-ups. This, of course made life very difficult for Samantha.

Marge Simpson, The Simpsons, 1989-present, voiced by Julie Kavner. Again, she's on many "best" mom lists, but she's also much more complex a character than we'd expect from a cartoon. She loves unconditionally, forgives often, and regularly goes to extremes to make sure her family is taken care of the way that she thinks they need. Like me, she is predominantly a stay at home mom, but works whenever her family needs her help to pay the bills. She encourages, scolds, cooks, and cleans- but can't ever seem to catch up.

Peg Bundy, Married With Children, 1987-97, played by Katie Sagal. Ok, maybe she's not a good mother. Maybe she'd rather chew off her own foot than do housework. Maybe she dresses like a hooker. But she'd never cheat on her husband, nor he on her. She lies around doing nothing but eating bon-bons and watching daytime talk shows, like many of us wish we could. Not that we would even if we could, but it sure would be nice to have that option, wouldn't it?

Miranda Hobbes, Sex and the City, 1998-2004, played by Cynthia Nixon. Miranda is nowhere near maternally inclined. She got pregnant while having pity sex with her ex-boyfriend, and after some agonizing, decided to keep the baby. She was completely the anti-cutesy mommy, which is very refreshing when there are only a select few unpleasant parts of pregnancy and motherhood that script writer feel comfortable about exploring. She showed what it's really like to date and have a sex life when you've got a baby, and portrayed fairly realistically the pitfalls of being a single mom while attempting to climb the corporate ladder. I really loved it when Miranda was in labor and she made Carrie shush the nurse who wanted to coo over how cute her baby was.

Lorelai Gilmore, The Gilmore Girls, played by Lauren Graham. Everyone seems to like Lorelai because she's best friends with her teenage daughter, and that's, like, omigod, soo cool! I'll admit that was part of the draw for me initially, but what really made Lorelai an interesting mom to watch was how completely her mothering style is shaped by her innate desire to be the total opposite of her own mother. I see a lot of myself in Lorelai because of the strange, strained relationship she and her mother have. I may not have gotten knocked up as a teen, but I did something else equally difficult (or even impossible) to forgive. Watching Lorelai and Emily forge a relationship reminds me very much of me and my mother. We don't always know quite what to say to each other, and sometimes we mess up and say the wrong things, but we keep trying, and it keeps getting easier the more we try.

Joy Darville, My Name Is Earl, played by Jaime Presley. Just call her trailer trash Barbie; she's sexy, tough, and smart, and willing to do just about anything for her kids. When she discovered she was pregnant the first time, she decided her kids needed a dad, so she found a random guy, got him drunk, and tricked him into marrying her. She may make strange or stupid decisions on a regular basis, but she always does it for noble reasons. She even went completely against her nature stopped being an evil, conniving, pain in the butt to the other moms at her kids' school when she found out that she was the reason they never got invited anywhere. She might be completely trashy and have the mouth of a sailor, but she loves her kids more than anything in the world and it shows.

Lois Wilkerson, Malcolm in the Middle, played by Jane Kaczmarek. I wish it weren't true, but I think this is the mom I most resemble. She's a screamer, through and through. She has five sons who all make her life miserable on a regular basis. During the first episode when a teacher drops by unannounced to have an impromptu parent/teacher conference, she opens the door without a shirt on, and says, "What? They're just boobs, lady!" and proceeds to do the conference half nude all while searching for her missing bra and screaming threats at her kids. Thankfully, I'm nowhere near this extreme, but I can relate to the feeling of being completely overwhelmed and pulled in all directions. What mom doesn't?

Sources:
http://www.biography.com/tv-moms/index.jsp

http://www.sheknows.com/articles/803312.htm?page=2