Lack of fictional mom models

I just attempted to enter a contest where it asked me to put in my top ten favorite fictional moms. I was sort of saddened by my inability to name very many moms from fiction. Many characters are orphans, have only one parent or we're unaware of their parents at all. Disney especially is guilty of this. Very few Disney characters begin and end a movie with both parents alive. We did come up with a few such as 101 dalmatians, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty (although she does not grow up with her parents). Once of the few examples we could think of where a Disney movie had a family intact was The Incredibles.

Moving from Disney, two of my favorite book characters from childhood were Anne of Green Gables and Dorothy Gale. Both are orphans, although luckily both have good people that become their mothers (Marilla and Aunt Em). I also liked Boxcar children, who were orphans, and of course the Narnia children who do have a mom, but she's just barely mentioned. The famous Harry Potter is also an orphan, although his mom, Lily did make my list for her sacrifice.

In television it gets a little better, but even some of my favorite shows the families are either motherless or childless. There's always the example of Full House, although my husband did point out that Becky in it is a good mom. Another of my favorites Sabrina the Teenage Witch, her mom existed, but was absent. Then shows like Seinfeld and King of Queens, adults live their lives without children in the picture.

The world of fiction is not devoid of mothers who care. Malcolm in the Middle has one of my favorite moms, Reba on her show was a good mom, Marge Simpson cares a lot for her family, 7th Heaven's family was intact, Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show and even digging back, Little House of the Prairie. There are good moms out there but so few and far between.

Its no wonder that in our day that motherhood has been slightly lost. On today's television our role models for mothers come from things like Desperate Housewives which I will admit I have never seen, but from what I read, not the mother I want to be. In fiction, where does one go for a modern mother role model.

I'm grateful for a wonderful role model in my mother. I also married into an incredible mother-in-law. Both great examples for me and thousands more around me in my world. But where would a person go who had not been so blessed.

I did want to share my list of my personal favorites from fiction that I came up with. Maybe you can add a few that I missed.

Mama Bear from the Berenstain Bears, Pacha's wife from Emperor's New Groove, Malcolm's mom from Malcolm in the Middle, Dennis the Menace's mother, Peter Rabbit's mother, and Lily Potter. Tell me what you think.