Where would we be without moms? And where would our favorite TV characters be without their moms?
As a Mother’s Day tribute, Watch With Us is shining a spotlight on the best TV moms of all time.
Some are funny, some are fierce, but the one thing they have in common is that they all love their kids with their whole heart.
Read on to discover our rankings.
5. Catelyn Stark, ‘Game of Thrones’
A mother wolf ferociously protects her cubs, and Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) was ferocious until the very end. She had rules — if only poor Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) had listened to her about climbing on the walls! — but she was affectionate and loving. (Except when it came to her husband’s child from another woman, Jon Snow (Kit Harington). She loses some points for that one, but at the same time, we kind of get it.) When eldest child Robb (Richard Madden) led an army southward, she was his best advisor.
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In fact, Lady Catelyn was pretty much always right. She told her husband, Ned Stark (Sean Bean), not to go to King’s Landing in the pilot, and every disaster in Game of Thrones pretty much spiraled from there. If all the Starks had listened to Catelyn from the beginning, a lot more characters would have survived. And as we all know, moms are annoyingly good at being right.
Watch Game of Thrones on Max.
4. Jane Gloriana Villanueva, ‘Jane the Virgin’
When Jane Gloriana Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) was 23 years old, she was accidentally artificially inseminated — and one of The CW’s greatest shows ever was born. Jane took her accidental pregnancy incredibly well, considering she’d never even had sex, and she ultimately became a loving and protective mom to her son Mateo (Elias Janssen). (And since Jane the Virgin was inspired by telenovelas, some really crazy stuff happened around that family. The kid really did need protection.)
We might not agree with all of Jane’s parenting choices — she often didn’t communicate well with Mateo’s dad and she definitely made excuses when he behaved badly — but her heart was in the right place, and considering she never intended to be a mom in the first place, she did an amazing job.
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Jane the Virgin isn’t currently streaming, but you can buy the whole series on Apple TV+.
3. Kitty Forman, ‘That 70s Show’
Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) is best known for her laugh — “infectious” is probably the kindest word you could use to describe it — but her mothering skills were honestly top-notch. She was basically a surrogate parent to the entire Point Place gang, especially Eric’s (Topher Grace) best friend, Steven Hyde (Danny Masterson), whom she took in when his mother skipped town.
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Kitty was always ready with a hug and a hot meal, but she also wasn’t afraid to take her family to task if they started taking her for granted. Some of her meltdowns are the funniest moments in That ’70s Show, but she always makes up with Red (Kurtwood Smith), Eric and (sometimes) Laurie (Lisa Robin Kelly).
Watch That ’70s Show on Peacock.
2. Joyce Beyers, ‘Stranger Things’
Nothing was going to stop Joyce Beyers (Winona Ryder) from finding her son Will (Noah Schnapp) when he went missing — not even horrifying monsters from the “upside down.” Even when everyone in Hawkins thought Joyce was losing her mind, she figured out how to communicate with Will from the other side. Once Will and Joyce were reunited, she never stopped helping the Hawkins gang unravel the mysterious happenings in their town.
She even became a surrogate mother to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), taking the super-powered teen into her home when the Beyers family moved to California after Hopper’s (David Harbour) apparent death, and she went to the ends of the earth to help Hopper break out of Russian prison and reunite with his daughter! Now that’s devotion.
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Watch Stranger Things on Netflix.
1. Linda Belcher, ‘Bob’s Burgers’
Linda Belcher (John Roberts) has some of the weirdest kids in the entire world, and she supports them 100 percent of the time. Whether Gene (Eugene Mirman) is making music out of fart noises, Tina (Dan Mintz) is writing erotic friend-fiction or Louise (Kristen Schaal) is planning a get-rich quick scheme, Linda is all in. She’ll probably even make up a catchy song about it. She also has a dark side, sometimes resorting to savage outbursts to protect her babies in true mama bear fashion.
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Linda may be a little too enthusiastic sometimes, but she’s the heart and soul of the Belcher family, keeping them together through thick and thin. She’s always there for her kids, and that’s why she’s TV’s greatest mom.
Watch Bob’s Burgers on Hulu.
