TV’s Top 20 All-Time Mothers (And Our Favorite Quotes From Them)

By Jen Smith
Fancast.com

When I was a little girl, my mom would force me onto the couch and make me and my brother and sister watch rerun of The Waltons. This was supposed to teach us how a “real family” was supposed to act. I highly doubted it at the time, and I still doubt it. To me, a real family acted more like the Bundys. As I grew up, I developed more and more of an obsession with TV and bonded with the women I refer to as my “TV moms.” Haven’t you ever watched an episode of Gilmore Girls and wished you were BFF with your mom? Or The Addams Family and wished your mom had encouraged you to play with your food? Well, even if you haven’t, we can all appreciate our surrogate small screen mamas.

In honor of Mother’s Day, we have compiled a list of the top 20 TV moms of all time. So let’s take a moment and reminisce over our favorite quotes from them, and maybe this will inspire you think about your own flesh-and-blood mom and the crazy things she may have said over the years.

1. Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) - The Brady Bunch
“Six kids and no noise. That’s what’s the matter with that. I’ve never heard such a loud silence.”

2. Marion Cunningham (Marion Ross) – Happy Days
“Oh Howard can you belive it, our babies having a baby, and one day, that baby will have a baby, and that baby will have a baby, but of course we’ll be dead.”

3. June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley) - Leave It To Beaver
“Do you think all parents have this much trouble?”

4. Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) - The Simpsons
“This family has had it’s differences and we’ve squabbled, but we’ve never had knife fights before.”

5. Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) – The Cosby Show
“New rule in this house starting now! Nobody’s to touch anybody anywhere with anything for the rest of their lives!

6. Olivia Walton (Michael Learned) – The Waltons
“If John doesn’t get home soon with money, all we’ll have for Christmas dinner is my applesauce cake. We won’t even have that if I don’t get a move on.”

7. Roseanne Connor (Roseanne Barr) - Roseanne
“The only thing I’ve ever wanted for my kids is that they’re happy… and that they’re out of the house. And I tell you what– happy ain’t even that important.”

8. Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) – The Addams Family
“I’m just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family. It’s just, I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.”

9. Wilma Flintstone (Jean Vander Pyl) – The Flintstones
“I work hard all day, too, and what do I get? A lot of yak from you. You at least get out everyday, see things, talk to people. I never get out of this cave.”

10. Peggy Bundy (Katy Sagal) – Married With Children
“Shut up Bud! Oprah’s doing a show about Mothers who don’t pay attention to their sons.”

11. Elyse Keaton (Meredith Baxter)- Family Ties
“Alex! Glad you could make it down to the final thirty seconds of dinner.”

12. Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton) – All in the Family
“Just ’cause I said ‘yes’ when we got married don’t mean I gotta keep sayin’ ‘yes’ all the rest of my life.”

13. Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) – Malcolm in the Middle
“Look at those Parker boys across the street. They may be healthy, but, honest to God, those are the ugliest little boys ever born. They look like boiled beets, don’t you think? And those Henderson kids? They electrocuted their dog when they were trying to get free cable. How smart can they be? Just remember, any kid who makes fun of you is a creepy little loser who will end up working in a car wash.”

14. Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones)- The Partridge Family
“Kids your age tend to fall in love very easily, sometimes even give up other relationships for what they think is love. Now I know you think you’re in love with Laurie, but love at your age can pass just as quickly as it came, and your relationship as brothers is too much to give up for what could be a passing crush. What I’m trying to say is: what you think now will last forever, probably won’t; what you’re *sacrificing* *will*… You have no idea what I’m trying to say, do you?

15. Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) – Gilmore Girls
“This is it. She can finally go to Harvard like she’s always wanted and get the education that I never got and get to do all the things that I never got to do and then I can resent her for it and we can finally have a normal mother-daughter relationship.”

16. Reba (Reba McEntire) – Reba
“Oh, one time! The one time our daughter gets pregnant and I never hear the end of it!”

17. Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) – Weeds
“I’m not a dealer, I’m a mother who happens to distribute illegal products through a sham bakery set up by my ethically questionable CPA and his crooked lawyer friend.”

18. Harriet Winslow (Jomarie Payton) – Family Matters
“Come on, sweetie, let’s get you home and then I can put some antiseptic on those cuts.”

19. Vivian Banks (Janet Hubert-Whitten) – Fresh Prince of Bel Air
“You all are getting a free ride…a free ride in a fancy car. Now do some work!”

20. Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) – The Sopranos
“You call my house again. You ever speak to one of my children again, I will track you down and I will kill you. We have got guns here. I mean it.”