Everyone, well almost everyone, loves their mums.
And on Mothers Day we go out of our way to make sure mum feels special, spoiled and even more loved than normal. (You all know this whole mother appreciation thing should be a year round event right? Good, just checking.)
So it is entirely apropos that we take this day of motherhood days to also celebrate the fictional but no less well loved mothers on TV, the women who have informed the shows we watch in powerful ways and without whom, the series we love would be missing something special.
Granted these mums may not necessarily fit your Hallmark idea of twee, pink-frosted motherhood but let’s face it how realistic is that any more anyway?
In my mind, Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls), Morticia Addams (The Addams Family) and Christy & Bonnie Plunkett (Mom) are the perfect mothers – wise, clever, fallible, sweet, funny, insightful, exactly the kind of maternal figures we need and want in our lives.
So behold my three favourite TV mums, who may or may not make you applies pies but who will make your world a much better place.
Lorelai Gilmore from GILMORE GIRLS
How could you not want Lorelai Gilmore as your mother?
She’s witty, irreverent, fantastically pop culture literate, warm, caring, quick with a snappy oneliner and believes coffee is the gateway to all and wondrous things. True you could argue she is a little too close to her daughter Rory, but by and large she walks the line between mother and friend wonderfully well.
And she is nothing like her own mother Emily who, though she has her good points and dotes on her granddaughter, is not exactly the queen of warm-and-fuzzy maternal instincts.
Lorelai for the hip but responsible, caring mum win!
Rory: Grandma’s still hitting you with the postcards, huh?
Lorelai: As if nothing even remotely unpleasant happened between us. How does she do that? Compartmentalize like that. It’s weird. She’s the serial killer who goes to work and talks about a funny “Seinfeld” he saw and then goes home and cooks himself a man-flesh sandwich.
Rory: Eww.
Lorelai: [Reading postcard from Temple of Apollo] Let’s see how her trip has been since her last card. “Dear Lorelai, kicked a dog, then punched a gypsy in the groin.” Oh, that’s nice.
Morticia Adams from THE ADDAMS FAMILY
She as unconventional as mothers come!
Pretty much every one of the usual motherly injunctions are met with an instruction to do the opposite! “Don’t run with scissors!” says cookie cutter mum #1. “Au contraire my dear run and have fun!” “Don’t touch that snake – it could bite you!” says cookie cutter mum #2. “Oh darling look at that sweet snake – pick him up, I think he wants to be friends.”
And on it gloriously goes with the abnormal the celebrated normal, the weird the ordinary and accepted and the adventurous the antidote to constantly playing it safe.
And having a mum like that can only be good for a soul – carpe diem indeed!
Pugsley: Mother! Father! Wednesday’s flown the coop!
Gomez: Talk sense boy.
Pugsley: She’s run away from home.
Gomez: Really? Very adventurous spirit. I didn’t run away from home until I was eight.
Morticia: That’s ridiculous.
Pugsley: She even left a note. I helped her write it.
[Hands note to Morticia]
Morticia: [reading] “Dear Mother and Father, I hate you. Love, Wednesday. P.S. Don’t bother looking for me because I’m not anywhere. Goodbye, W.”
Christy and Bonnie Plunkett from MOM
Let’s face it – Christy and Bonnie Plunkett are not, on the surface at least Mothers of the Year Material.
Both recovering addicts, who fouled up the upbringing of their children – Christy is Bonnie’s daughter – with irresponsibility, absenteeism and downright neglect, they now working ferociously hard (well Christy does anyway) to make up for the mothering failings of the past.
And while so far the report card would have to say “A for effort but could do better”, their hearts, not to mention hilarious wisecracking mouths. are most definitely in the right place.
As reformed mums go, these two women are exactly the ones you want watching over you.
“You’ve just described every serial killer.” –Bonnie (Allison Janney) after daughter Christy (Anna Faris) describes her date as “cute, kinda boyish, pretty normal really”