Who is your favourite literary mother?

[MissHoneyPenny]

Your favourite mother/mother figure from literature.

I think my top choices would be Marmee from Little Women, Miss Honey from Matilda (hence username) and Ma Joad from The Grapes of Wrath.

Your first and second 😊

Louisa Durrell is rather a heroine.

Not a mother but cousin Helen in the what Katy did books.

Not only that, she was the only one who was trying to secure her daughters' future - Mr B had his head in the sand about what would happen to his family after his death.

The mum in biff, chip and kipper who is so blissfully clueless that the children are meeting up with oddballs via a magic key.

And there's a backstory there about an officer, I am sure of it. A great love lost and now she's having to be very practical despite a condescending fool of a husband.

Mrs Ramsay
To the Lighthouse

I was about to post on this thread in support of Mrs Bennett! I certainly did not admire her 30 years ago but I remember my teacher defending her and pointing out how lazy Mr Bennett was. Now I have three dcs, I get it.

Laurie Lee's mother in Cider With Rosie - wonderfully eccentric. I think she must have had a very hard life but loved her children despite her dreamy ways.

Jo on Jo's Boys - not just to her own children but all the others that she cared for.

Fanny Kirrin, aka Aunt Fanny of the Famous Five books. She allowed her daughter and niece and nephews to have the most entertaining adventures, all whilst putting up with grumpy Uncle Quentin.
As an adult, Marmee of Little Women.

Joey Bethany /Maynard.
For her remarkable ability to produce endless children and wary around being fun mum while everyone else does all the hard work

Reading this thread, and trying to think about great mothers in books, it's really striking how few of them there seem to be.

Maybe a really great mother, present for a lot of the book, has some kind of deadening effect on the drama and tension? Because there's a limit to what can go wrong while Mummy's there?

Trying to think about (for example) Jane Austen heroines. Only 2 of the novels (P&P and S&S) have present mothers for their heroines during pretty much any of the action (and even those aren't there all the time). Mrs Bennet is a laughing-stock, and Mrs Dashwood is kind, but practically another younger sister for Elinor in many ways.

Certainly not to your last suggestion!

Came here to say this.

Ma Costa from the Northern Lights books.

Several good and/or interesting mothers in one of my favourite books, South Riding. Sarah Burton's mother; Mrs Holly, Lydia's mother; Mrs Beddows; Midge Carne's mother.

Can’t recall if it was on mumsnet that there was a thread about how most children’s books did away with the parents so that they could have adventures - lots of orphans, lost fathers or mothers, or children being sent away to live elsewhere. It is slim pickings!

Martha’s mum and Mrs Weasley are ace. Charlotte in Charlottes Web. She’s a spider but at the part when she describes her babies as her Magnum Opus, I always cry!

As @Gumballinasays, so few books have well developed mother characters as the children need to be waved off to boarding school or on holiday or to have been orphaned for the plot to be able to develop.
My vote would be for Sylvia in Ballet Shoes. Not a biological mother but has three girls foisted upon her and tries her best to raise them in limiting circumstances.
Madge Russell comes across as fairly normal other than when she’s having to deal with (or mainly choosing not to deal with) her sister’s latest exploits or excuses.
I’m another one who is much more understanding of Mrs Bennett now that I am older. And, when DS has done something daft, occasionally fears that I might find myself in the same position as Eva in We Need to Talk about Kevin!

Clare Keith Aubrey in Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows trilogy. She’s a middle-aged former concert pianist and poltergeist queller who brings up four children on fresh air and optimism, while married to a genius who gambles away all their money.

I was also going to say Sadie. Is she the one who says "yes, yes, very naughty and silly" to the children when they are being attention seeking, or is it the actual Mitford mother in Hons and Rebels? Whichever it is I often say it to my children.

Mrs Darling from Peter Pan

Demelza Poldark. Lady Macduff.

Vianne from Chocolat. My life is similar to hers in so many ways… self-fulfilling prophecy maybe as she’s always been my favourite fictional character.

Jane Goldman in Brother of the more famous Jack, by Barbara Trapedo. A second novel - The Traveling Hornplayer tells the second half of the story. Really gorgeous books -they’ve stayed with me for decades. I loved Jane a lot.

Mrs Walker and Mrs Blackett from the Swallows and Amazons stories. One whose husband is always away in the Navy and the other a widow, and both blithely waving off their children.... Legends both of them

Well we know that Mary Walker had been quite adventurous in her youth, and Molly Blackett nee Turner had climbed the Matterhorn, escaping the GA to do so. They weren't duffers, so they thought their children weren't either.