Every year, we at Greater Good give out the “Greater Goodies”–awards to series and movies that highlight human strengths and virtues. For this coming Mother’s Day, we zero in on 11 moms from ten TV series who exemplify traits or ideals we might all strive to embody. This is a diverse group. One of these ladies isn’t a “mother” in a literal way, and many of them are extremely flawed people, as we see, for example, in Hacks. One of them isn’t even alive! What they have in common is that they fiercely nurture people who need nurturing, no matter how young or old.

The Repair Award: Chilli from Bluey (Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Disney+)

When I was a child, I kept a notebook where I would imagine the things I might do to be the perfect parent. Later, when I became a parent, I read books about baby brains and the developing child, attachment styles, gentle parenting, self-parenting, you name it. I was never going to yell at my kids, “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

And then I did. Sadly, nothing prepared me for the fate that befalls us all: being an imperfect parent. And that’s what makes my favorite TV mom an animated dog named Chilli on the kids’ TV show Bluey. 

Chilli is kind, patient, calm–and also weary, stressed, and fallible.

There is an episode called “Sticky Gecko” that is so accurately stressful that I can’t bear to watch it more than once. Chilli navigates a situation you may be familiar with: trying to get anywhere on time with young children. She and her kids find themselves caught in a terrifying time loop by the front door–finding their shoe, brushing teeth, spitting out gum, finding a hat, playing a quick game, finding shoes… Is this forever?

Chilli eventually steps on a spiky toy, slams the front door, and angrily tells the kids they’re not going anywhere. Bluey approaches and begins to ask questions: Why do we have to go now? Why do we have to be on time? Why, why, why? Sitting down in a chair, Chilli addresses her questions one by one, with honesty and humility, until Bluey opens up, too, and together they learn why they can’t get out the door. And then they do.

Chilli validates feelings, plays with her kids, and holds firm boundaries. She also messes up and embodies the art of repair, giving us all an example to follow. – Lauren Lee

The Helping-Kids-Find-Themselves Award: Violet Bridgerton of Bridgerton (Netflix)

Amidst their lavishly stylized, corseted, culturally diversified 19th century Regency London milieu, the widowed Dowager Viscountess Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) does the seemingly impossible: single parenting eight children spanning 10 to 30 years old.

Based on the novels by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton follows the fortunes of Violet’s offspring as they navigate high-society London in search of suitable matches. Sure, she doesn’t do the clotted cream or the laundry—Lady Bridgerton has servants for all that—but she actively sees, honors, and very genuinely nurtures her perfectly dressed brood as they gossip, promenade, dance, horse-back ride, lean back on garden swings, read in uncomfortable chairs, and more.

When she’s not wrangling manners with a well-directed stink-eye or smoothing local township drama, Violet is asking her children to discover what truly matters to them and whether the person they are trying to love really brings out their inner passion, fuels their purpose, or makes them feel belonging, contentment, or fulfillment. As she tells one daughter, “You must simply marry the man who feels like your dearest friend.”

Stewarding self-discovery while offering clear, heartfelt, and trustworthy insight, Violet makes the viewer forget to be skeptical about the absurdity of excessive privilege. Perhaps in a future season, Violet will expand the circle of her mother’s love to encompass a wider expanse of humanity? Stay tuned! — Emiliana Simon-Thomas

The Persistence Award: Deborah on Hacks (HBO)

My favorite joke from Hacks is a work of perfect comedic patience. In the first episode, we meet comedian and actor Deborah Vance’s adult daughter, DJ–but we have to wait until the end of episode seven to find out what DJ’s initials stand for: Deborah Junior.

By the time the punchline drops, it’s been firmly established; Deborah Vance is too self-obsessed to be a good mom. Indeed, beyond making her daughter into an extension of herself, she’s always letting DJ down. Deborah Senior seems far more interested in bestowing her limited supply of maternal attention upon her writing-partner-turned-BFF, Ava. Mentoring an employee is more appealing than mothering, and there’s certainly more in it for Deborah.

Of course, DJ’s no angel, either. She’s petulant. She sells unflattering photos of her mom to TMZ.

But Deborah and DJ won’t give up. They fight for a real relationship. They’re willing to have hard conversations. They’re willing to get hurt. To fail. Do you know how hard it is to keep doing a thing you’re bad at doing? In every other facet of life, Deborah kills. It can’t be easy to keep bombing as a parent.

As the series goes on, this persistence brings growth–incremental, but realistic. At the end of the third episode of the third season, DJ has just performed a blisteringly funny stand-up set at her mom’s roast. She tells Deborah, “I finally get it–why comedy was always the most important thing to you. You know, I spent my whole life thinking you were a narcissist, but turns out, you’re actually an addict. Like me. You’re addicted to getting laughs. […] I feel so much better.”

It’s an insight that comes from empathy, Self-compassion, and wisdom that only DJ could muster. Deborah isn’t magically transformed by it, but she manages to listen and offer a heartfelt apology for her most recent transgressions.

The truth is, sometimes parents and kids have to grow up together. Thanks, Hacks, for making that reality so funny and moving. – Kelly Rafferty

The Wise-Witness Award: Sarah on Heartstopper

The great Olivia Coleman plays the mom of teenage jock Nick Nelson (Kit Conner), one of Heartstopper’s two main characters.

Hearstopper began as a wildly popular graphic novel by Alice Oseman, and was inventively and perfectly adapted for the screen by her as well (she wrote every single episode of the three seasons available now on Netflix). It tells the story of Nick’s slow but deep plunge into first true love with Charlie Spring (Joel Locke), an openly gay, brave, gentle figure at their British boys’ school. The two are surrounded by a cast of brilliant and fun adolescent misfits who form a strong subculture of their own amidst the wider social world of toxic masculinity and fakery.

Nick’s single mom, Sarah, has this way of wisely watching what happens without being overbearing. She seems to sense her son’s evolving identity underneath the hustle and bustle of adolescent life–rushing out the door in the morning while wolfing down his cereal, running across the rugby field, going out to parties–and waits for him to come to her with the necessary disclosures. Somehow you don’t get the sense that she’s checked out, or passive, but instead a steady, unconditionally loving witness.

Her tool is titration of her presence and her questions–never too much, never too little. When Nick finally does come out to her, she’s loving and curious, still following his lead into new social unknowns, dynamics that she probably felt unprepared for (with an older son who was not only straight, but possessed some of the stereotypical male certainty and anger of their absent father). And when Nick and Charlie’s relationship grows more complex due to Charlie’s Mental health struggles, she is still there, faithful and trusting witness, leaning in, but never weighing him down with her own fears.

The series will finish with a feature-length finale scheduled to appear on July 17, 2026. – Courtney Martin

The Doing-Her-Best Award: Margo on Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV)

Unlike almost all the other mamas discussed in this article, Margo Millet (Elle Fanning) is no one’s maternal ideal.

She’s a 20-year-old community-college student who gets knocked up by her married-with-kids literature professor. The show’s title sums up its premise: After the baby is born, Margo does indeed develop some quite serious money troubles. Through the first season, we see how she starts to address them through paid sexual performance on the platform OnlyFans.

While that might sound lewd and sensationalistic, that’s really not the tone of this gentle, psychologically insightful show—which is about, yes, money, but also about the ways money shapes familial relationships.

The most interesting thing about it is how the story draws direct parallels between Margo on OnlyFans and her father Jinx’s work as a professional WWE wrestler. After he finds out about the OnlyFans, Jinx (Nick Offerman) is angry. Later, he says to her: “I was so wrong to judge you before. I’m sorry. I was feeling protective of you. But what you’re doing? We’re all just putting on a show. Entertaining.”

Jinx has made his money with his body, and now so is his daughter—and he invites the audience to consider how little difference there is between their lines of work. I don’t believe the point of the show is to hold up Margo or her own mother as ideal, or to show Jinx as a perfect father (he’s a drug addict who abandoned them both when Margo was a toddler). Rather, it’s to compassionately portray people we might be inclined to judge as real humans struggling to do their best with what they have—as so many moms have had to do. — Jeremy Adam Smith

Dueling Motherhood Archetypes Award: Samantha and Terry in Paradise (Hulu)


Paradise is a dystopian drama that centers around a community of more than 20,000 people that feels not quite right, somehow. The power behind the throne in the town of Paradise is Samantha Redmon (Julianne Nicholson), who goes by codename Sinatra—and she seems to be hiding something as well. 


Sinatra is a self-made tech billionaire who holds a deep-seated grief after losing her son at a young age to cancer–a loss that casts a sadness over her throughout the show. Perhaps guided by her motherly instincts toward her surviving daughter or maybe the desire to protect her investments, Sinatra makes a series of ruthless decisions to keep the community secure and functioning, ranging from murder to kidnapping.

Her counterpart is Terry Collins (Enuka Okuma), wife to the show’s intense and observant hero, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown). A PhD-level mycologist, she’s a thoughtful co-parent to her two kids and a devoted partner to her husband. But she also values her work and prioritizes it along with her family duties; so much so that it was a work trip that pulled her away from her family the day before a global disaster.

Separated from her family for all of season one, Terry must fight to stay alive in hopes of seeing them again. One way she does this is by gaining strength from her motherly instincts by unofficially adopting an orphaned child she crosses paths with, Bean. She cares for Bean like he’s her own and brings him with her to reunite with her family.

Sinatra and Terry show that there are many faces of motherhood, each bringing its own set of joys, pains, and tradeoffs. — Shanna B. Tiayon

The Mama-Bear Award: Dana Evans on The Pitt (HBO)

The emergency department in HBO’s The Pitt is not a place for the faint of heart—and presiding over all the blood and chaos is one of TV’s most understated yet memorable mother figures: the charge nurse, Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa).

Dana is not, of course, the literal mother of any of the doctors, nurses, techs, and paramedics in The Pitt, but in every scene she vibrates with fierce mama-bear energy. That goes even for interactions with the man ostensibly in charge of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, attending physician Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle). At one point, he actually says to her, “You’re not my mother!” Dana, who never gives an inch, fires right back: “Yeah? Well, too bad. You need one.”

What makes Dana the mama bear of The Pitt? It shows up in the way she juggles a million tasks, protects her nurses against physical and professional threats while nurturing their growth, and makes sure everyone takes their medicine, no matter how bitter it is. Dana shines most in the second season of The Pitt, when she takes recent nursing grad Emma Nolan (Laëtitia Hollard) under her wing. In the course of a single shift, Dana subdues a patient who attacks Emma, guides her through caring for a unhoused “frequent flyer,” and instructs her on tasks that range from preparing a body for viewing to collecting evidence for a rape kit.

Throughout the day, no matter how bad things get, Dana is unfailingly compassionate and tough. It’s sometimes thrilling to watch, and sometimes hard—and that’s what makes Dana one of the most compelling characters in a very compelling show. — Jeremy Adam Smith

Career-Oriented Motherhood Award: Jax in Reasonable Doubt (Hulu)

Jax Steward (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is a formidable Los Angeles power attorney who makes no apologies about prioritizing her career and being excellent at what she does. She’s married to Lewis (McKinley Freeman), a computer game coder, and they have two kids, a pre-teen daughter and teenage son. She’s also the primary earner in the couple. Jax is the only female and Black partner at her law firm, a position she works hard to protect, despite inter-office biases against her. Her prowess comes through sharp commentary, quick retorts, and uncanny ability to turn cases in her favor.

Her career ambition caused a brief separation from Lewis, who wanted her to prioritize the family more over her career, which introduced a new level of complexity to their marriage (including infidelity on both sides). While Jax was deeply affected by the separation, she maintained a stable home for her children, invested in her close female friendships, and took care of herself–all while continuing to navigate office politics and win cases.

When Lewis and Jax reconciled, it was under the condition that she would not be asked to dim her professional ambitions again. Subsequent seasons depict the couple continuing to navigate marital changes, but together and with an appreciation for what each brings to the table, even if it’s not in the traditional sense. — Shanna B. Tiayon

The Large-in-Absence Award: Tia in Shrinking (Apple TV)

Will viewers care about a character they only see in brief flashbacks?

That’s the challenge Shrinking takes on with Tia (Lillian Bowden), a mother who is killed by a drunk driver before the show even starts. Her story is told through her absence, and we see the richness of her life and relationships through the huge hole her loss creates. Over time, we come to understand that the show’s mix of joy, pain, humor, and growth reflect Tia’s personality. 

We see her husband Jimmy (Jason Segel) come completely unglued without her, and then slowly accept his new reality. He finally starts to find his footing by connecting with people who knew Tia and who can join him both in grief and forward motion.

Their daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) copes with her mom’s death as best she can, but as she tries to move on with her life and have typical teen experiences (dating, dress shopping, learning to drive, etc.), we feel the ache of the moments where her mother might have been there for her. 

Over time, the show reveals that Jimmy and Tia did not always have an easy relationship. In an early episode, several friends shower him with praise for his marriage, emphasizing what a great couple he and Tia were. These words land uncomfortably, and flashback scenes show they actually had a lot of arguments and conflict. Despite this, Tia’s best friend Gaby (Jessica Williams) reassures Jimmy that Tia continued to adore him, even when they were clashing.

Although we only learn about Tia in her absence, we come to care deeply about her as the show rolls out and we see the way her love (and her imperfections) affected those around her. – Christopher Pepper

Emotional intelligence Award: Faith Mitchell in Will Trent (ABC)

Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) exemplifies Emotional intelligence in motherhood.

Like a skilled hand at the wheel, Faith is steady, attentive, and responsive to the shifts of life rather than reactive to the fear, most of the time. And when she is not, she is compassionate with herself.

Faith is a single mom. While single motherhood is often framed as exceptional and dysfunctional, roughly one in five U.S. children are raised primarily by their mothers. Among the working middle class, this rises to closer to one in three children. Faith gives narrative form to this common reality, portraying single motherhood not as instability or lack, but as a site of competence, steadiness, and emotional security.

Her life is also shaped by a complicated relationship with her own mother. As the show progresses, we navigate this complexity with her in a way that illustrates deep, meaningful bonds with the women around her. These bonds situate her within a lineage of Black motherhood that honors both strength and vulnerability.

In one scene, she’s angry with her son because he lied. However, it’s through stories like this one that we come to understand that her child is not simply loved, but seen, heard, and guided with consistency. This is an experience of attachment that feels secure precisely because it is practiced.

This Emotional intelligence carries over to her job and with her extended family. We also see when she fails and comes to understand that Emotional intelligence is not a destination, but a journey that we take with daily intentional practice.

Faith is a refreshing depiction of motherhood that is not idealized and yet is somehow still ideal, something we should imperfectly strive to be. She is not a caricature of the “strong Black mother,” but an authentic embodiment of one. — Tyralynn Frazier