We Have to Love These Not so Traditional TV Moms

Television sitcoms in someway always have a relationship to a real life situation, and this is how we can all relate. The older sitcoms always showed the traditional conservative type of mothers that did most of the housekeeping and caring for the children while the husbands were out making the income for the family, however we all know that today in our real life this is not the usual story.

Today most mothers have to work either from home or off site. There are many single parent homes and with every day stressors even the hard working homemaker is not the so called perfect mom as portrayed in the older television shows. I personally have a few great TV moms that I can easily relate my own personal life situations to, as I am sure many other moms can as well. These include:

Everybody Loves Raymond - Debra Barone and Marie Barone

My two favorite characters happen to be two very different mothers. First is Debra Barone who is Raymond's wife, she is a typical stressed out housewife who is trying to raise her children while her husband is working and in the mean time she must also deal with her in-laws that are across the street from her. Come on ladies we all know we have been there taking advice from our mother or mother-in-law can become a daunting task in itself. What I love about Debra is how she is able to control herself from lashing out at her mother-in-law Marie. This is so very typical of how I am that I must sit back and just laugh and wonder how many of us really do this. She is able to control most of her feelings until Raymond does something that hits that trigger point then she lets them all have it. This is so me I can hold back until that boiling point then watch out! Here I come. And what about the bedroom scenes Raymond always trying to have sex with Debra, but he is usually rejected because she is too tired after dealing with the kids and chores all day. I will leave this one alone I think we can all relate!

Then we have another extreme Marie Barone that never holds back her feelings and tells it as she sees it. She is also a housewife however with better cooking and cleaning skills than her daughter-in-law Debra. She acts as if is caring and loving but in a critical way especially with Debra. She loves to smother her one son Raymond but on the other hand may neglect her other son. I can relate to this because form observance of many friends and maybe myself I think I tend to be sarcastic in my own ways and may treat each of my kids just a little different. Not that I would admit that.

The George Lopez Show - Angie Lopez and Benita Lopez

Again these are two very different TV moms basically sharing the same household. Angie Lopez is a working from home mom and trying to raise a family at the same time. She seems to be a very typical mother with her children's interest first. She is always trying to do the right thing for her kids even though it is not always the best thing. The way I can relate to Angie best is that I often find myself doing the same. She seems to have an excuse and enables her kid's behavior by finding a reason for it. And this in turn can actually be turning against her in which I sometimes see myself in similar situations. Angie also turns to the internet quite often to try and help her solve some of her personal situations and I definitely can correlate my life to this. I Google everything in sight and often just to search for the answers that I want to see. I am sure many of us mom's have a computer by our side for those reassuring things that we want to hear!

Then we have Benny Lopez which is Angie's mother-in-law and she herself is another character which is not a very typical loving mother. She is insensitive and very insulting to her family, but it is obvious that she loves her family very much. I love her character because it shows that we are not all so perfect. Yes there many parents that smoke and drink maybe her character is a little whacky but hey it still portrays reality!

Well I thank goodness for these shows as they add humor to our lives and helps us realize that it is OK not to be that traditional mom and gives us an opportunity to decompress our own lives!