Television has been a big part of our lives from the time we first began to notice the world around us. Sometimes we believed that those TV moms could be real moms, come on admit it I was not the only one. How many actresses can you think of who played the mom role so well that they were believable?
How about Florida Evans from Good Times who was played by Esther Rolle. She did a fabulous job at making her role as the mom of JJ, Velma and Michael seems real. Florida Evans picked up the reins as a single mom after receiving a telegram that declared her husband James dead as the result of a car crash at the end of the first season. She then picked up jobs and scraped on everything to get by while relying on her older children to help her. Very reminiscent of many single moms who work two and three jobs just to survive without a hand out from the government.
Olivia Walton played a mom to seven television children and did it with such ease. She made motherhood for such a huge family look so easy on the job, and worked taking care of her family until she got very ill with TB and had to go to Arizona for treatment. Michael Learned played the role so easily, and she was mom to only three sons. She won awards for her work on the Walton’s as the soft-spoken sweet mom of seven children. One would imagine walking into her house on the mountain and setting down to a full home cooked meal she was that believable.
Elise Keaton, who played the mom role on Family Ties to Alex, Mallory, and Jennifer, was the kind of mom we would all love to have. She was a cool and believable mom who listened to Alex’s rambling about Nixon and let it slide. Marideth Baxter Birney played a great role, she was a hard working mom, yet she seemed to be there for her children always.
Marion Cunningham, played by Marion Ross on Happy Days was a believable mom to Joanie, Ritchie, and seldom seen oldest child Chuck who was always away at college. Mrs. C was the mom we all wanted; she was a stay at home mom who always let friends visit. She had a happy and believable marriage with hubby Mr. C. This was one woman who made rising teenagers seem so easy.
Ann Romano played by Bonnie Franklin on One Day at a Time, played a very believable single mom role to teenage daughters Barbara and Julie. This television mom made single parenting look easy and it is when things are running smoothly. However as Ann showed us when chaos reins in a single parent home the momma bear will rise up to defend and protect her offspring.
