History Main / MissingMom

Missing Moms are considered more unusual than missing fathers, and they are more likely to have their absence explicitly explained (usually with death). This might be because a man can technically leave his baby-mama at any time after knocking her up (or she can leave him), but a woman carrying a child to term, giving birth, and then abandoning them, is rarer. As a result of this, Missing Moms are more likely to be remembered positively than Disappeared Dads (although see FirstFatherWins): the father will wax poetic about her character and the times they shared, [[HappierHomeMovie Happier Home Movies]] will be found throughout the house, and those that knew her will affectionately tell the female (or sometimes male) protagonist "You look so much like your mother." This beatification also paves the way for a WickedStepmother if the father remarries -- where the new, cruel 'mother' is contrasted with the [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest saintly dead one]].

However, the flip-side is that if both parents are absent, the character is ''far'' more likely to be obsessed with his or her lost father. Characters who have lost both parents often [[SingleLineOfDescent do not mention the lost mother]] at all. Missing Moms in general are likely to get a '''brief''' mention as to what happened to them, but are far less likely to turn up again in the story and/or be a driving force behind a hero's adventures.

->''"And the good guy doesn't have a mommy, 'cause his mommy died."''

* ''Animation/FlowerFairy'': An'an has never seen her fairy mother Lily in person. Lily had to leave for the fairy realm to attend to some important business before she could have a chance to watch her daughter grow up. [[spoiler:Worse yet, she becomes the energy of the Skytree at some point, meaning she doesn't have a chance to see her daughter again.]]

* ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'': The Von Trapp children lost their mother sometime before the start of the the play, jumpstarting the plot as Maria is tasked to help the emotionally distant widower father raise the children as a governess.

* Sandra's mother Julie of ''Webcomic/SandraAndWoo'' died of a yet unknown cause several years ago.

* Cub's mother in ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends''. Some fans speculate that it is her grave Pop and Cub are visiting in "Can't Stop Coffin" (meaning that she is not affected by the NegativeContinuity which keeps destroying and resurrecting the other characters in a never-ending cycle). The production team seem divided as to whether she is actually dead, or simply left Pop in disgust at his terrible parenting (ironically abandoning Cub with him).

** ''Carl''

** ''Bowser's Koopalings''

*** Ally lives with her father, but there is never a single mention about her mother. According to WordOfGod, Ally's mother left her husband because she couldn't stand his attitude when watching soccer games.

* Peppermint Patty from ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' is raised only by her father, and it's hinted that her mom is dead. (When Marcie [[http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/09/27 asks her]] why she can't stay with her mother when her father is out of town, Patty simply says: "I don't have a mother, Marcie!")
** Woodstock has never seen his mother since she kicked him out of the nest. Every Mother's Day, he sits on a hilltop with a flower for his mother, but she never shows up.

-->'''[[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid Ariel]]:''' Get in line.

* ''WebAnimation/ZatannaTrialOfTheCrystalWand'': Zatanna and Damon's mother isn't seen or mentioned.

*** Eventually resolved BADLY when [[spoiler: a copy of her mother's personality gets [[GrandTheftMe downloaded into her head]]]] and it turns that her mother was always a self-centered, genocidal-dominatrical, infanticidal, mass-murderer... unless she actually wasn't. It's still unclear whether Lucrezia always was The Other, or whether The Other had come to possess Lucrezia, or when. If The Other had completely taken over Lucrezia's personality, then technically Lucrezia still qualifies.

[[folder:Music]]
* Two out of four [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] had this problem. Music/JohnLennon's mother more or less abandoned him when he was about five, leaving him to be raised by his aunt; they later reconnected, but when he was seventeen she was hit by a bus. Music/PaulMcCartney's mother died of cancer when he was fourteen. "Let It Be" was inspired by Paul's loss ("When I find myself in times of trouble / Mother Mary comes to me"), and "Julia" was inspired by John's (during his solo career, he also wrote "Mother" and "My Mummy's Dead").
* Music/{{Madonna}}'s mother died when she was very young. Her song "Promise To Try" from ''Like A Prayer'', which was played during a scene from the documentary film ''Truth Or Dare'', is about her coming to terms with her mother's absence in her life. In the video for "Oh Father", the absence of the mother also affects the father's relationship, resulting in domestic abuse in one scene where the actor playing him roughly scolds the little girl playing the young Madonna for wearing her mother's clothes and jewelry.
* Music/SufjanStevens was a baby when his mother Carrie, who struggled with mental illness and substance abuse problems, walked out on the family. He spent a few summers with her and her second husband, but after that marriage also dissolved, she was rarely in contact and her whereabouts were often unknown. He has quite a few songs, notably "Romulus" and most of the album ''Music/CarrieAndLowell'', that center around her and the pain caused by her absence.
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