Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010.
May 16, 2017: Mother’s Day related Freebie: favorite moms in literature, books about motherhood, best mother/daughter or son relationships, books to buy your mom, worst moms in literature, etc. etc.
I seem to enjoy flipping these topics lately, so here are 10 characters who didn’t celebrate mother’s day this year. Why is it that so many stories are missing mothers? (I know there are conspiracy theories about why Disney does it.) And this entire list could have just been manga, because to be a manga character it’s almost required to be without at least one parent, but most likely both.
Where have all the mom’s gone? 10 Famous Character’s Without Mom’s
- Nancy Drew – Nancy Drew
- Ariel – The Little Mermaid
- Harry Potter – Harry Potter
- Peter Pan -Peter Pan
- Batman – Batman
- Peter Parker – Spiderman
- Aang, Katara and Sokka – Avatar the Last Airbender
- Ichigo Kurosaki – Bleach
- Arwen – The Lord of the Rings
- The Tanner Sisters – Full House
Can you think of any characters that I missed? Where do you think all the moms have gone? Leave me a comment below and a link to your Top Ten list.
23 replies on “Top Ten Tuesday #25”
I have noticed a lot of book now include a single father/daughter combo. I guess authors like to included mommy issues?
Maybe writing a good mom is hard to do. Or the authors feel like a good mom would have kept their children from the dangers they would face throughout the plot. You think Nancy Drew’s mom would have let her keep solving mysteries after the first time she was kidnapped? Probably not.
Yes, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is a good recent example of this!
I haven’t heard of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, I’ll go look that one up on Goodreads. Thanks for stopping by my Top Ten Tues post.
I’m sad that disposing of parents is such a popular trope. Although happily my last few reads have been fully (and mostly positively) parented! (albeit mostly Dads, thinking about it. Hohum)
It make me sad too. But perhaps it’s because the moms would be too protective of their children to let them go fight demons or ghosts or whatever to save the world?
I don’t know – I think I’d rather see that conflict (and see Mums who are worried but supportive) than have them all killed off for inconvenience though.
You are right. It would be nice to see more of those stories.
It seems like in a lot of YA there is a missing parent. I guess to add to the background or storyline. I’m reading the Lunar Chronicles right now and NONE of the main characters have a mom – Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, or Winter. Now that I think of it all four of them don’t have a dad either…
Great take on the list this week!
First of all I love your puppy in your Gravatar pic! Is it a King Charles Spaniel by any chance? Secondly, I love your blog name. I am a pretty big Nancy Drew fan myself.
Thank you for stopping by my blog!
That is our new puppy! He is a cocker spaniel and is about 3 months old. I love Nancy Drew, she started my love of mysteries and hence the blog name. 🙂 Thank you!
Nancy Drew! No doubt… come to think of it, when I read the Hardy Boys as a kid they didn’t have a mom either? Hmm… and Arwen from LotR. Another great pick! It’s funny I was just reading some Tolkien stuff the other week and read about Elrond and his wife… never knew that.
Hate to burst your bubble but Mrs Hardy is in the Hardy Boys books, although she plays a small role. I guess back in the 20’s boys still needed a mom to make their sandwiches and stuff but girls didn’t.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I always wanted to know more about Arwen’s background… more than we get in LOTR anyway.
In the appendices their is a section about Arwen and Aragorn where you can find our more about both of them. It’s worth the read. (Of course since I’m named after her I may have a bit of bias. 😉 )
ohhh yes. It’s very common, I feel, for book characters to not have parents. I guess it’s so they can have more freedom to have adventures without their mum yelling at them to get a jacket? But I wish books did have more positive influence parents in them! 😛 Another series I adore where none of the characters have monsters, is The Lunar Chronicles!
I’ve got to get my hands on the Lunar Chronicles! They just sound like books I’d enjoy but I haven’t come across them at the book rescue place yet (aka used book store or thrift shop.)
And yes maybe the moms would damped the adventure, but really authors ought to learn to handle it. Thanks for checking out my blog post.
oh, fun list!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
It’s so common for characters to not have a mom/parents. That’s why I love it when I come across a good family. Great list!
I’m glad that a few blogger took the time to dig up good moms from books for this post, because it really is too common for characters to be missing one or both parents.
I experience this ALL THE TIME in YA. The parents will be completely absent while their children are getting up to all kinds of shenanigans. It makes it harder for me to enjoy the books because I just want to look after the characters!
More people need to use the word shenanigans! And yes I totally agree. Thanks for checking out my blog.