Missing Mom / Live-Action TV

Missing Mothers in Live-Action TV.

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• 4400: Shanice realizes this is what her now-teenaged daughter believes she abandoned her, since she'd mistaken a letter (along with her father) Shanice wrote in a bout of postpartum depression as leaving them just before she vanished. Naturally, they're not open to her "vanished out of time" explanation.
• 7th Heaven: Oldest daughter (of the original family) Mary has a son with her husband, then promptly abandons son and husband (much played for drama, as her parents strongly opposed this). An induced plot point since by this time, the actress who portrayed Mary (Jessica Biel) had left the show, but the show still wanted to portray her husband and son every now and then. Subverted in the end, as the plot had her (off-screen) reconcile with her husband and even become pregnant by him again.
• In The 10th Kingdom, this is rather masterfully pulled off. Virginia finds out her mother is alive, and is actually pretty much the person responsible for her and her father getting pulled into the plot. She already knew that her mother had left, but she didn't know that she'd wound up as a wicked step-mother in a parallel fairy-tale world. This leads to a rather realistic rant after she finds out.
• The Adventures of Shirley Holmes: One important motive for Shirley Holmes is to solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance. And she does, eventually.
• Alias: Sydney's mother is gone and everyone thinks that she died in a car accident. It's later revealed that she was a deep cover Soviet agent sent to spy on Syd's American Spy father and that the car accident happened when she was being pursued by Federal Agents. And she's not dead. It gets more convoluted from there.
• Played hilariously on The Amanda Show in Moody's Point. Moody's mom disappeared in a hot air balloon, and it's presented as a case of Never Found the Body that was quite traumatizing—however, we then cut to Moody's mom several times, floating above the scenes and calling down to the other characters for help.
• The Andy Griffith Show: Yet another dead mother, and quite possibly the Trope Codifier for live-action TV. Andy is written as a widower because the time the show was made had a stigma against divorce, and Andy Griffith had reservations about working alongside a female lead. The mother is almost never mentioned and never even has her name or face shown. Eventually, Helen Crump would become his second wife, in a marriage shown on After Show Mayberry R.F.D., which serves to give us a Suspiciously Similar Substitute with widower Sam Jones and his young rambunctious son.
• George-Michael's mom in Arrested Development. It's implied (if not out and out stated) that she died of ovarian cancer.
• Arrow:
  • Tommy Merlyn's mother, Rebecca, was killed in a robbery in the Glades years ago. His father, Malcolm, was so consumed with grief he turned to the League of Assassins so he could avenge her, in the process abandoning Tommy as well.
  • Rene Ramirez became a single father to Zoe after his wife, Laura, was murdered by a drug dealer.
  • William Clayton, after spending his early childhood without a father, ends up losing his mother in the season 5 finale, leaving him to be raised by his father, Oliver, and adoptive mother, Felicity. He's happy with both of them, though.
• On The A-Team, Murdock's mother died when he was five (his father is never mentioned) and Face is an orphan.
• Babylon 5: Ivanova's mother died when she was a child. Garibaldi mentioned that it was just him and his dad when he described his birthday tradition. Delenn's mother joined a Minbari convent when she was a child. Franklin and Sheridan's mothers were alive, but only their fathers appeared onscreen. G'Kar and Londo mention significant memories of their fathers, but not their mothers.
• In The Baby-Sitters Club (2020), like in the original books the series is based upon, Mary Anne's mother died when she was just a baby, leaving her to be raised by her strict and overprotective father.
• Battlestar Galactica:
  • Lee's mother is presumed dead when the Cylons attack. She is later shown to have been an alcoholic and bipolar, therefore having strained relationships with her sons.
  • Likewise, Kara Thrace's mother was so abusive that she once broke all of Kara's fingers by slamming her hand repeatedly in a door. She later refused to congratulate Kara's graduation, focusing on her mistakes instead. This made Kara so angry that she never went to see her mother as she was dying of lung cancer.
• Batwoman: Gabi, Kate and Beth's mother, was killed in their childhood when a bus the Joker hijacked rear-ended the car she was driving (with them inside). It was run off the bridge she had been driving on-Gabi was decapitated and killed instantly on hitting the water below. This traumatic event overshadows her daughter's afterward (particularly with Beth, as we see it helped lead her to become Alice).
• Being Human ultimately subverts this in the second season, when Annie is helping out a medium with his show and her mother attends to try to communicate with her daughter's ghost. The mother later converses with Annie, with the medium speaking on Annie's behalf, and cries because she was unable to protect her daughter. An earlier episode said that Annie and her fiancé moved away at some point, so presumably Annie's mom wasn't involved in her life very much since then.
• Beyond: Willa's mother died when she was still a baby.
• The Big Bang Theory: Seriously averted, since all guys except of Raj have some sort of mommy issue, although different in each case. Sheldon's father is dead (and cheated on his mom), Howard's left his wife and son long ago (and then the actress who played Mrs. Wolowitz died suddenly and The Character Died With Her), and Leonard's wasn't shown (yet). Both of Raj's parents were shown.
• Big Sky: The mother of the Bhullar siblings had died in the past sometime.
• The Bold Type: Jane's mother died of breast cancer when she was a child.
• In the TV western Bonanza, Ben Cartwright has three sons- Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe- by three different wives, and all of the mothers died within a few years of their son's births.
• In the pilot episode of Bones, Brennan tells Booth that her parents disappeared when she was fifteen. In the Season 1 finale, they discover that Brennan's mother is one of the Jane Does in Limbo at the Jeffersonian.
• The Brady Bunch: There was a Missing Mom in the backstory before Mike married Carol.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow's mom is alive, but she's never around. Except that one episode when she tried to burn Willow at the stake, so maybe not such a helpful influence (however, at the time, she was Brainwashed and Crazy, along with most of the other adults in town, including Buffy's own mother).
• The Cape: Orwell doesn't know where her mother went at the start. Eventually, she learns her father did something to her (though the audience never learns the details).
• In Castle, Meredith—Richard's ex-wife and Alexis' mother—lives in Los Angeles to further her acting career, meaning she's not around. Played with in that, as much as Richard and Alexis care for her, they're kind of glad she's missing—she's flighty, irresponsible (even more so than Richard), and ditzy, with the kind of obnoxiously-shallow personality that grates after a while.
• The main characters' mother in Charmed (1998) was drowned by a Warlock when they were very young. Prue saw her die, Phoebe was too young to remember her at all, and Paige never knew her since she was raised by Muggle Foster Parents. They meet her in the past and some episodes feature her as a Spirit Advisor, though.
• Charmed (2018): Marisol left Macy when she was just a toddler. Then her father claimed Marisol died, and Macy didn't find out the truth until she'd really done so (along with the fact that she also had two half-sisters).
• In China Beach, KC Koloski is a missing mom for most of the time as far as her daughter Karen is concerned. There are references to a few visits in infancy, but Karen was mostly raised by a Vietnamese nanny until her mother got her onto one of the last choppers out of Saigon and sent her to the U.S. to live with KC's old friend (and former john) Boonie.
• Chuck:
  • Mama Bartowski left her husband and children for unknown reasons years before the series started. But it looks like we'll finally get to find out more about her next season. As it turns out, she's spent numerous years undercover as part of a mission to stop a dangerous arms dealer.
  • In an inversion, Sarah Walker is a missing daughter, having severed all contact with her mother after delivering an orphaned infant heiress to her care in order to protect them both from a rogue CIA agent immediately before the series began. Since Sarah appeared to have spent more time in the care of her father and grandmother growing up, it's uncertain how much contact she had with her mother prior to then and whether or not she also plays the trope straight. Five years later, Sarah reconnects with her mother and the girl raised as her half-sister after killing the rogue agent attempting to track them down.
  • No mention is made at all of Vivian Volkoff's mother, even though her very complicated daddy issues (see the entry under Disappeared Dad) play a major role in the ongoing plot of the second half of Season 4.
• Class of '07: Amelia's mom killed herself after having years of depression.
• Cleverman: This is an immense sore spot for Koen. She was killed in a car accident while pregnant with Koen, and he had to be delivered by emergency C-Section. Because of her being white (his father was Aboriginal), many Aboriginal buys bullied him over this and called her a whore, his half-brother Warru included.
• On The Closer / Major Crimes, there's sixteen-year-old Rusty. Months before he first appears in The Closer series finale, his mother and her boyfriend dropped Rusty off at the zoo and said they'd pick him up in a couple of hours, and never came back. Eventually Captain Raydor takes Rusty in, and the police manage to track down his mother. She promises to come back if they send her money so that she can buy a bus ticket. They do, but when they go to pick her up at the bus station, she doesn't turn up.
• Abed on Community is revealed to have one. Her absence for an annual Christmas event causes a mental breakdown wherein he sees everything as claymation.
• This is part of the core concept for The Courtship of Eddie's Father, while revolves around the widowed Tom Corbett raising his son Eddie by himself. Eddie only retains a few memories of her.
• Daredevil (2015): Matt Murdock's mother fell in love with Jack, gave birth to Matt, then separated from them because she got diagnosed with post-partum depression. She retook her vows and returned to St. Agnes, where she raised Matt from afar following Jack's death. She doesn't come back into Matt's life until he's injured in Midland Circle and Father Lantom asks her and the sisters to nurse Matt back to health. Matt doesn't realize the truth about her though until partway through Season 3, when he accidentally overhears her praying to Jack.
• The Devil Judge: Yo-han's mother abandoned him when he was a baby.
• Diff'rent Strokes: Another dead mother. The loss of the mother actually kicks off the story as the father is also absent and her will was to put her children in the care of Mr. Drummond.
• Doctor Who:
  • Rory Williams' mother is the only parent of a main companion, up to the end of series 9, never to appear in the new series. She's mentioned only once, in "The Rebel Flesh" (Rory says: "My mum's a massive fan of Dusty Springfield."), and never again, not even in the two episodes in which Rory's dad Brian guest-starred.
  • Clara Oswald is a rather prominent example of this trope. While she's cheery and optimistic on the surface, her introverted personality often hides the fact that she misses her mother very much, and that her mother's death had traumatised her quite a bit. It's implied that her "big kid" traits and overprotectiveness of children are her way of coping with what she perceives as Survivor Guilt. Part of the story arc of her friendship with the Eleventh Doctor focuses on her slowly starting to come to terms with her mother's passing and becoming a more self-confident and less shut-in young lady.
• Euphoria: Jules' mom "went away", with there being implications that she was mentally ill, given that Jules' dad was given full custody.
• Faking It: Lauren's mom apparently died sometime in the past, since she mentions enjoying Christmas partly due to fond memories of spending the holiday together with her.
• Extraordinary Attorney Woo: Young-woo has no memory of her mother as Tae Soo-mi gave her up at birth. She notes that a mother whale will die before abandoning an injured calf and wonders if she'd have a mother if she'd been born a whale.
• Fantasy Island (2021): Ruby has grown children whom she has no contact with for a long time after starting to live on the island. At first this isn't mentioned. Then in Season 2, her daughter Mary Jane (nicknamed "MJ") visits and tells Ruby how much this affected her especially, since they got no warning. Ruby apologizes to her for this, and makes it clear that if there were any other way for her (she previously had cancer, which staying on the island stops) she'd leave and be with her children again.
• Fate: The Winx Saga: Musa's mother died a year prior to Season 1.
• First Kill: Theseus' birth mother was killed by a vampire when he was seven. Talia, his dad's wife and mother of his younger half-siblings, still considers him wholly her son and they deeply love each other. Even so, his mother's loss has affected him, with Theseus and his dad planning revenge on her killer for years.
• The Flash:
  • Barry Allen's mother was killed by a mysterious flash when he was a kid. Since then, Barry has been spending his entire life trying to solve the mystery and free his father, who was falsely accused of the crime and imprisoned.
  • Iris West is introduced with a conspicuously absent mother. It's later revealed that her parents divorced, and her mother is living with a son, a brother that Iris didn't know she had.
• For the People: Sandra's mother died when she was young. Her dying in a hospital is what gave Sandra her fear of hospitals.
• Forever: Abigail, Abraham's mother, goes missing in the 1980s, and he and Henry don't learn what happened to her until "The Night In Question".
• Frasier Crane's mother was dead at the start of the series but had appeared on Cheers.
• Free Spirit (1989): Gene, Jessie, and Robb Harper have no mother, due to their parents getting a divorce.
• Full House: Played straight in the main series, and gender-bent in the reboot. Why can't Death quit screwing over the Tanner family?
  • Full House: Yet another dead mother, revealed in the final season to have been killed by a drunk driver. The reason why Jesse (said mother's younger brother) and Joey (Danny's best friend) moved in with the Tanners was to help Danny with the three girls. Jesse later gets married and Aunt Becky becomes a mother figure to the Tanner girls along with raising twin boys.
  • By the sequel, Fuller House, Danny has finally gotten engaged to a new woman, but the trope has flipped to Disappeared Dad when DJ's never-before-seen firefighter husband who she met and married in the interim dies on the job.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Jon Snow grew up as the illegitimate son of Ned Stark, never knowing who his mother is or if she is even alive. Ned promises Jon they will talk about his mother some day when they reunite, but they never see each other again as Ned is executed before they are able to reunite. When King Robert Baratheon pushes Ned for the identity of Jon's mother, Ned claims she is a woman called "Wylla." However, Stannis Baratheon is quite skeptical that Jon Snow was the result of a one-night stand, noting that it wasn't Ned Stark's style. In Season 6, it's revealed that Jon's mother is Ned's sister, Lyanna Stark, who died after giving birth to him and passing her infant son into the care of her brother. Ned claimed his nephew Jon as his own son and had to hide Jon's mother's true identity to protect Jon from Robert Baratheon as Robert would kill Jon if he knew Jon's true parentage.
  • Tyrion Lannister's mother died giving birth to him, causing his father and sister to resent him.
  • Similar to Tyrion, Daenerys was raised by her brother because her mother died giving birth to her.
  • Lyanna Stark's mother (and by that extension Ned and Benjen's) is nowhere to be seen in the flashbacks.
• House of the Dragon:
  • Alicent Hightower's mother died sometime before the series begins.
  • Rhaenyra Targaryen's mother, Queen Aemma Arryn, dies by childbirth in the first episode. It's a big part of what makes the relationship between Rhaenyra and her father, King Viserys, uneasy.
  • Laena Velaryon commits suicide by dragonfire in episode six, leaving her daughters, Baela and Rhaena, behind.
• Two Ghostwriter team members have missing moms. Lenni's mom died when she was little and Rob only lives with his dad.
• Kurt on Glee. This seems to have been quite affecting for him and his dad as his dad is quite depressed and brings her up often while Kurt at one point talks about opening all the drawers in her old room just to smell her perfume again.
• Goodbye My Princess: Cheng Yin's mother is dead before the series starts. Learning how she died contributes to his Start of Darkness.
• The Good Lord Bird: Brown's wife is dead, leaving him to care for their children. Her Bible remains a heirloom for them.
• Gossip Girl: Poor Chuck Bass. The first eighteen years of his life he thought his mother died giving birth to him (something he blamed himself for, mostly because his father blamed him for it). Then a woman shows up who claims to be his mother saying she didn't want him so she gave him up and demanded he be told she was dead so he'd never try to find her. After being in his life for about a month she cons him out of his hotel and plays a part in him losing the love of his life. Whether or not she actually is his mother is never explained. Her last episode of the show hinted that she was, but the writers have since refuted it on Twitter.
• Gotham:
  • Selina's mother put her in an orphanage.
  • We never hear who Nyssa al Ghul's mother was (or is).
• Sean's mother on Grounded for Life.
• Any Hallmark Channel movie that features a single parent as one of the protagonists will inevitably reveal that the singledom is the result of them having been widowed. This even applies to the older parents of the lead characters. Presumably, a wholesome family-friendly network like Hallmark doesn't want to touch on the topic of divorce.
• Hannah Montana: Miley and Jackson's mother died a while ago, prompting Miley to become upset with Robby Ray when he wants to go out with another woman.
  • It doesn't seem to bother her when Miley tries hooking her dad up with Lilly's mom. But things don't work out as planned.
  • Also worth noting that several episodes hinge around how hard it's been for Robbie Ray and how much Miley misses her mom ("I Am Hannah, Hear Me Croak" springs to mind.)
• The Haunted Hathaways: The mother of Miles and Louie Preston has never been brought up.
• Heroes:
  • Hiro Nakamura's mother Ishi is absent. We find out she's dead later on, and that it completely shattered Hiro's father Kaito. Further, in the novel Saving Charlie, we find out that Kaito being devastated by Ishi's loss is why he's so emotionless and hard now. When the adult Hiro gets his memories reverted to that of his 10-year-old self, he visits his dead mother via Time Travel: Ishi turns out to have been a healer, who uses her powers to heal Hiro's memories and give him the MacGuffin.
  • Played with in the case of Claire Bennet. For the first 18 months of her life, Claire was raised by her Missing Mom, Meredith Gordon, until a fire happened. As a result, Nathan Petrelli, Claire's Disappeared Dad, and Meredith, Claire's Missing Mom, were told their baby daughter perished in this fire and they believed Claire died. However, her father's parents, Angela and Arthur Petrelli, knew she survived the fire and let Nathan and Meredith believe their daughter died. Angela and Arthur made arrangements for their granddaughter to be adopted by an agent in their company, Noah Bennet. Claire was lovingly raised by her adoptive parents, Noah and Sandra Bannet, and she reconnected with her birth parents, Nathan and Meredith, ultimately resulting in Claire having two fathers and two mothers.
• In Hey Dad..!, Martin Kelly is a widower. In the first episodes, this is sometimes mentioned; later, not so much.
• Buddy's mother/Mr. Ernst's ex-wife on Hey Dude!
• Home and Away has had a few:
  • Sally, Steven, Frank, Lynn and Carly were all fostered (Lynn, at least, subverts this before leaving)
  • As were Ric, Cassie and Jai.
  • Martha's main tenure was in between the two actresses who played her mother.
  • Charlie's mother died before her tenure started. Ruby was led to believe this too, until the truth came out.
  • April and Bianca's mother lives in Italy.
  • In an odd twist, some of the fan favourites are parents who outlasted their kids' stay on the show. Miles may or may not qualify, given that Rabbit was actually a ghost.
• iCarly: Carly's mother has never been mentioned; the likely choices are her completely abandoning her children (as their father has been deployed in the military since before the show started), being insane, locked up, or dead. Sam's mother is something of a psychologically absent type. It's referenced in Game Shakers: the kids visit Nathan Kress to get a straight answer on whether Freddie was in love with Carly or Sam. At one point, he assumes they're going to ask him what happened to Carly's mother and says that he doesn't know either.
• A card of narration before the first scene of the short-lived Citizenship Marriage-based sitcom I Married Dora explained that the mother had been on a plane that mysteriously vanished. This editor doesn't recall the exact phrasing, but it was pretty clear even to a child that they were hanging a lampshade on the device.
• Impulse: Jenna's mom died of cancer years before, and the date she heard of the diagnosis is quite poignant for Jenna.
• In From the Cold: Faina tells Anya her mom died of cancer because she'd been near Chernobyl when it melted down, and keeps a pendant that her mom gave her as a keepsake. Anya commiserates by telling Faina how her own mom died in a fire when she was five. Faina takes it as a sign they were meant for each other. Anya's mother is actually alive though.
• JAG: Mac's mother left when she was a kid because her dad was a violent drunk who attacked her so much she finally fled. They eventually reunited, but it didn't go well. It was at her abusive dad's deathbed where Mac was too angry to say goodbye properly.
• Julie and the Phantoms: Julie's mother passed away a year prior to the start of the series.
• The Law According to Lidia Poët: The killing of the murderer's mother in 1x4 turns out to be the motive, to kill her murderer for revenge, as she was all the killer had.
• Legend of the Seeker:
  • Darken Rahl's mother never appears, though his father mentioned "the queen" one time in a flashback. It isn't clear if she died prior to the events of the series.
  • Erylin, Taralyn's mother (Richard's grandmother) is mentioned, but what became of her isn't.
• Let the Right One In: Eleanor's mom is dead by the present, with her dad Mark visiting her grave in "Intercessors".
• Little House on the Prairie: In the 1981-1982 season opener, where the Olesens adopt Nancy (an orphan with a severe behavior disorder), Nancy gives a sob story about being abandoned by her mother. In truth, her mother suffered from a condition today known as preecclampsia, and died while giving birth to Nancy (since Nancy's biological father was unknown — remember, the series is set in the 1800s, more than 100 years before the advent of DNA testing — she was sent to an orphanage). Her unstable life and frequent moving to different orphanages resulted in her behavior problems and "missing mom" story, which she maintained for years until — of all people — series anti-hero Mrs. Olesen (her adopted mother) made her come to terms with the truth.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Elendil's unnamed wife died at sea under mysterious circumstances, leaving their three children motherless.
  • Rose Brandyfoot also died under mysterious circumstances when her two daughters were very young. As such, her widowed husband, Largo married Marigold after a few years.
  • Prince Durin's mother is mentioned, but she is nowhere in the picture by the time of the show. It seems that only his father is still alive and she died some time ago, probably of old age.
• Lost is famous for the characters having Daddy Issues, but there are some missing Moms to be had, too:
  • Walt's mother dies mysteriously just before the crash.
  • Locke's mother gives him up for adoption. Later, his foster mother dies.
  • Jin's mother, a prostitute, leaves him with one possible father, and only shows up to blackmail his Ojou wife Sun.
  • Sawyer's mother is killed in front of him (by his father) when he's very young.
  • Claire leaves Aaron to follow her dead father into the jungle, and intended to give him up for adoption before the plane crashed. Claire's own mother is in a coma for several years before the crash.
  • Kate's mother gives her up to the police, more than once.
  • Ben's mother dies in childbirth.
  • Shannon's mother is dead, and her stepmother cuts her off after her father dies.
• Lucifer:
  • Lucifer's mother, Goddess, was imprisoned by God in Hell millennia ago. Lucifer does not really care because she was not there for him when he was banished from Heaven, but his siblings are more impacted by her loss.
  • Maze and the rest of demonkind were abandoned by their mother, Lilith, years ago. We later learn that this was because Lilith chose to give up her immortality and live as a human.
  • Season 5 reveals that Linda gave birth to a daughter when she was a teen, but gave her up for adoption. The two reunite decades later.
• Make Room For Daddy: The 1956-1957 season fits this trope, as Danny Thomas' original costar Jean Hagen left the show after the end of the third season and her character was killed.
• On M*A*S*H, it's eventually established that Hawkeye's mother died when he was ten (although, in one of several continuity errors on the show, an early episode has him mention her as if she were alive).
• Matlock shows Andy Griffith has an adherence to this setup, once again playing a widower with one daughter, later amended to two when we meet a previously unseen older sister.
• Merlin (2008):
  • Arthur's mother died giving birth to him. This is a major part of the backstory, as Uther blamed the sorceress he hired to help her, thus sparking his anti-magic crusade.
  • Gwen and Elyan's mother never appears in the show, only their father Tom. Eventually it's revealed she apparently died sometime in the past, since after Tom's death Morgan says Gwen is now an orphan.
• Midnight Sun (2016): Kahina gave up her son at her mother's urging, who raised him as her brother. He only learned the truth years later, and sought her out. He confronts her on this, and she apologizes tearfully for it, promising to build a relationship with him now.
• Miracle Workers: Al's mom is mentioned to be dead in the first episode.
• In Molly and Mack, the mother of the titular characters died sometime before the events of the first episode.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: The backstory reveals that the protagonist's Disappeared Dad Hiroshi Randa grew up without his own mother, Dr. Keiko Randa, because she died when he was still in the single-digits in 1959; killed by a swarm of Endoswarmers that she, her husband, and their other teammate Lee accidentally disturbed in Kazakhstan. It's implied this is one of the reasons why Hiroshi was on bad terms with his father by the time the latter died 14 years later.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Raelle's mom died serving in combat a year prior to the series' start. Abigail tells her that she died an honorable death, but Raelle's not comforted, saying she'd probably just wanted to go home. The first season finale reveals she's still alive, and has joined the Spree, though Raelle isn't aware of this initially. When they finally meet again, Willa sacrifices herself to save Raelle, dying for real.
• Mr. Mayor: Orly's mom and Neil's wife died from something in the past, leaving videos behind for them both about raising Orly.
• My Three Sons: Another dead mother. However, this show moves past this state much later on when Steve decides to remarry to the widow Katie, whose daughter Dodie has the Disappeared Dad status. Essentially, we ultimately end up with a downplayed precursor version of The Brady Bunch.
• The premise of My Two Dads.
• This is a Discussed Trope in Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the episode featuring Eegah!. Crow and Tom are confused as to why the main heroine only has a father and Joel explains that, back during the time the movie was made, divorce was a taboo topic still, so to allow a father to be a swinging bachelor and still dispense wisdom for the younger characters, this trope was used.
• In the TV series of The Naked Brothers Band, the mother is dead despite the fact that The Movie (which was actually a cute indie film...) had them address the camera operator as "Mom".
• Nancy Drew: As with the books, Nancy's mother died when she was a kid, leaving her husband, Carson Drew, a single father. However, it's later revealed that Nancy was adopted. Her biological mother, Lucy Sable, is dead, but her biological father, Ryan Hudson, is still alive.
• The Nanny: Sara Sheffield died before the show started in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The exact same situation used on Full House. Hope it wasn't the same drunk...
• NCIS: We never meet or hear about Tony or Gibbs' mothers until Season 7, when we found out they died—or in Gibbs' case, wasn't just dying from cancer, but separated and decided to commit suicide rather than wither. NCIS is bad about this. We know so much about Tony, Gibbs and Ziva's fathers, but where are any of their mothers? Shannon Gibbs also counts, as she was a mother... but daughter Kelly Gibbs died, too.
  • Ziva becomes this in later seasons, though not by choice. She seemingly dies in season 13, and Tony becomes the sole caregiver of their two-year-old daughter, Tali, whom he was previously unaware of. In season 17, it's revealed that death was faked; Ziva is being hunted by an associate of her rogue assassin brother, Ari, and that attempt to throw Sahar off her trail failed. And until Sahar is dealt with, Ziva can't even have contact with Tali because Sahar doesn't know she exists, and Ziva wants to keep it that way. She tells Gibbs she hasn't seen her daughter since shortly after faking her death, so over three years. And it's clearly eating her up inside. She, Tony, and Tali get a Big Damn Reunion offscreen after that threat is finally eliminated.
• Never Have I Ever: Eleanor's mom left her, both when she was 7 and in the show.
• The Night Agent: Maddie's mother died from cancer when she was little.
• In NUMB3RS, Don and Charlie's mom died a few years prior to the show. Definitely a case of adult-onset Missing Mom. Her death is mentioned repeatedly, appropriate given how recently it happened. She makes an appearance in Charlie and Alan's dreams in the Season 2 episode Hotshot.
• On My Block: Monse's mother left her when she was very young. On Halloween she comes across Julia, a woman who she thinks might be her mother, and babysits for her under a false name. When Julia mentions being in another country the year she was born, Monse is crushed. However, Julia's reaction to seeing a picture of Monse's father suggests she actually is Monse's mother.
• Orphan Black: Sarah, before the events of the show started. She disappeared for a whole year and left Kira with Mrs. S.
  • Sarah and Helena's surrogate mom, until she is revealed in the the penultimate episode of Season 1.
• The parentage of the various members of Team Machine in Person of Interest are rarely mentioned, and when they are, it's always the father that is discussed. We know that Shaw's father died in a car accident when she was young, and Finch's father's body died of Alzheimer's in 1981 (Finch considers his father's mind to have succumbed to the disease several years earlier), but the whereabouts of their mothers (and everyone else's mothers, for that matter) are never mentioned.
• The Power (2023): Roxy's mom is murdered by two thugs who break into their house.
• Power Rangers:
  • This is true for a lot of villains. The fate, as well as the identity, of Rita Repulsa's mother are a mystery to this day; the mothers of Trakeena and Nadira (both daughters of the respective Big Bad) are never mentioned, if they even had any.
  • Power Rangers Turbo: Justin's mother died before he debuted in The Movie, and it's implied that his relationship with his father also enters When You Coming Home, Dad? and Parental Abandonment territory at times.
• Pretty Little Liars: Toby's mother died sometime before the series started.
• Princess Silver: Wu You's and Fu Chou's mother Consort Yun died before the series starts.
• The Princess Wei Young: Apart from a brief appearance in the prologue Xin Er's mother is never seen or mentioned, even before the murder of the rest of her family.
• Privileged: Megan and Lily's mother ran out on the family when they were little, sparking the father's alcoholism and Megan's Promotion to Parent status. History repeats itself when Shelby returns, only to con Megan's boyfriend out of quite a significant (to her if not to Will) sum of money and run off once again.
• Psych: Shawn Spencer's mother is absent, but we find out from a bitter remark on Henry's part that she left.
  • In the pilot, when Shawn sees his father for the first time in years, he makes a caustic comment about helping his mother through the divorce.
    • In the Season 2 finale, Shawn opens Henry's front door at the very end and simply says, "Mom." So it looks like she's not so missing after all.
    • During this time we also find out that, contrary to what Shawn thought, She did actually leave them; it wasn't his dad that initiated the breakup.
• Psychopath Diary: Both Dong-sik and In-woo lost their mothers years before the series starts.
• Punky Brewster, anyone? Her mom abandoned her during a shopping trip and she wound up living alone with her dog Brandon in an empty apartment until she was discovered by Henry Warnimont.
• Pushing Daisies:
  • Ned: Missing, then back, then gone for good.
  • Chuck: Missing...it seems that way, doesn't it? Or maybe not, as Aunt Lily confesses on a holistic drug trip that she's really Chuck's mother.
• When Kryten's farewell party on Red Dwarf enters the "maudlin drunk" stage, the crew start sobbing about never having had mothers...
  Rimmer: Well, you can all have mine. Everyone else did.
• The Republic of Sarah: Bella's birth mother abandoned her when she was little.
• The Rifleman: Mark's mother and Lucas' wife died due to disease leaving Lucas to care for his son alone. It comes up frequently in the various episodes whether from Lucas reminiscing, Mark asking a question, or another character bringing it up in some way. However, in a surprising twist, she appears in the afterlife in Season 3, Mary actually makes a sole appearance as a spirit when Mark is critically reeling from sickness and meets her in the realm between life and death, waiting for the day they can all be together again.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: Ya Le, Ning Yi's mother, died when he was a child. Or so he thinks. She was actually imprisoned for over eighteen years. They reunite when he's an adult... shortly before she dies for real.
• The Rising: Katie and Max's mom died prior to the events of the series.
• Riverdale: Both Archie and Jughead have absent mothers. Archie's parents are separated by the time the series begins, with his mother deciding to move away from Riverdale. Jughead's parents experienced a Solomon Divorce; Jughead ended up with his father, while his little sister, Jellybean, ended up with their mother.
• Romper Stomper: Gabe apparently gave Kane up for adoption, admitting she wasn't any kind of mum to him (though she does care for him and tries to steer him away from Neo-Nazism). He resents Gabe for this into the present.
• The Rookie: In her personal life, Nyla's been absent for much of her daughter's life and is legally prohibited from having unsupervised visits by court order.
• Roswell, New Mexico: Liz's mom isn't mentioned or seen at first. Then it turns out that she left years ago after endangering Rosa in a car accident while driving high. In Season 2 she returns briefly, though not for long and things do not work out with her family, to put it mildly.
• The first two seasons of Round the Twist has this apply to the Twist kids. The circumstances of their mother dying are never mentioned in the series (then again, there likely isn't time with all the weirdness going on).
• The eponymous character of Sabrina the Teenage Witch is prevented from seeing her mother by witch law (her mother is mortal) and if she sees her, her mother will turn into a ball of wax. Roxie's mother is also later revealed to have been in prison for years though the two patch things up. The aunts' mother Lydia and her Parental Favoritism is also a plot point in a few episodes but she doesn't actually appear until the fourth season.
• Sanford and Son: Lamont's deceased mother Elizabeth, who Fred is always claiming he's "coming to join" during his fake heart attacks. Also Harold's mother in the Transatlantic Equivalent, Steptoe and Son.
• Averted in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Yes, Maria's parents (Alan and Chrissie) are divorced because her Mum ran off with the judo instructor, and yes, Maria lives with her Dad, but Chrissie is a Drop-In Character and is only absent in one story: the same one Alan doesn't appear in.
• Search: Ye-rim's mother, Major Ri, dies in the prologue.
• Teen dramas tend to adore this, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager is no exception.
  • Ben's mom is dead before the series starts. His dad later marries an ex-prostitute. Needless to say, it takes Ben some time to warm up to her.
  • Madison's mom is dead before the series starts as well. She has a stepmom, but the two aren't particularly close due to Madison resenting how "soon" her dad remarried after mom's death. The two eventually do attempt to find some common ground.
  • Adrian's mom also applies to a certain degree. While she is alive and there for Adrian, her job as a flight attendant takes her away for long periods of time.
• Elaine's mother on Seinfeld is never mentioned and presumably dead.
• Explored thoroughly in Single Father when Rita dies and the mini-series follows the lives of her children and husband in the wake of her death.
• Smallville pushes this to a logical extreme. Out of all seventeen main characters over ten seasons, only three (Pete, Jason, and Whitney) definitely have their mothers around and they are all minor. Jason's is an Evil Matriarch to boot. Lois was 6 when Ella Lane passed away. Moira Sullivan was voluntarily institutionalized to protect Chloe. Lilian Luthor died when Lex was 13. Lana's parents were killed in the first meteor shower. Laura Queen died with her husband in a plane crash caused by Lionel Luthor. Jimmy never met his mother. Faora (Davis' mother) is trapped in the Phantom Zone, not that he misses her. Pamela (Tess' birth mother) died of cancer seasons before Tess was even introduced. The deaths of Lara-El and Alura-El (Kara's mother) on Krypton should also probably be mentioned. An interesting side-effect is that due to their missing moms, the three most important girls in Clark's life (Chloe, Lana and Lois) have all looked upon Martha as a mother figure.
• Special Ops: Lioness: Joe is mostly away for work while her husband's with their daughters and the older one, Kate, clearly dislikes her (probably because of this).
• In Spider-Man (Japan), the only parent of Takuya Yamashiro and his siblings seen is their father, who is killed by the Iron Cross Army in the first episode to give Takuya a motivation to agree to become Spider-Man after Garia gives him his spider powers. Takuya, Takuji, and Shinko's mother remains unseen, with her only acknowledgement being when Takuya explains at one point that their mother died prior to the events of the series.
• Stargirl (2020):
  • Cindy's mom died in the past, and it's implied she killed her (though Cindy insists whatever happened was accidental).
  • Mike's mother and Pat divorced for some reason, and we can infer that Pat got custody. She shows up in a single episode in season 2, working at a diner.
• Starman: We know Jenny Hayden freaked out shortly after birthing her half-alien child and ran off, leaving the title character to Walk The Earth raising his son alone. The show's premise was built on this.
• Star Trek loves this:
  • Riker has a father, but no mother - she died when he was a toddler.
  • Both of Beverly Crusher's parents died when she was very young, she was raised by her grandmother.
  • Both of Worf's parents died when he was six, he was adopted.
  • Both of Tasha Yar's parents died when she was five.
  • Geordi's mother dies in the series, as does the mother of Alexander.
  • Jake Sisko's mother was killed by the Borg.
  • Ezri has a very bad relationship with her mother.
  • Ziyal's mother died when she was 13.
  • Kathryn Janeway has a mother, who was still alive by the time of the series, but she was almost never mentioned or even named onscreen. Janeway's motivations are solely about her father.
  • Nog's uncle is part of the main cast. His father regularly appears and his grandmother even appears in a couple of episodes. His mother, however, never does. Apparently, she abandoned him and his father shortly after Nog's birth, having helped her father clean out Rom's finances.
  • Garak's father is introduced during the course of the show, but his mother isn't. It is once mentioned that his father had regularly told him that he wished he had killed Garak's mother before Garak was born, but her status (alive or dead) is never revealed. Ultimately, this is a subtle subversion; the more time Garak spends with Tain's housekeeper, Mila, the more strongly it's implied that she's Garak's mother. (The Expanded Universe explicitly confirmed this.)
  • Sisko's father appears in the show, but his mother is a complicated case. He both has a Missing Mom and he doesn't: an alien possessed a human woman long enough to ensure she married Sisko's father and gave birth to Sisko, then depossessed her. The depossessed mother, having never loved Sisko's father, fled and died somewhere in Australia years before Sisko ever learned that the woman who raised him (also deceased by this point) was not his biological mother. Then he meets the alien who was responsible for arranging his birth and she's sort of his mother as well as a result. So, that's two counts of Missing Mom for Sisko (a dead biological mother he never knew and a dead step-mother who's therefore never appeared in the show) and one case of an alien mother-by-design who actually does appear in the final series of the show.
• Step by Step: Frank Lambert's wife abandoned him and their three children (J.T., Al, and Brendan). Although it is implied that she is still very much alive, she disappeared to parts unknown and has no contact with her children, leaving step-mother Carol Foster to fill the void.
• Strange Empire: Kat says her white mother ran off, leaving her to be raised by her Cree father, with emphasis on the former being a "good Christian" (not) when defending two Blackfeet men that were accused of murder.
• Tessa from Suburgatory.
• Supernatural:
  • The Winchester boys' mother died when Dean was four and Sam was six months old, killed by the Yellow-Eyed Demon. They have issues aplenty regarding her death and what happened to their childhood and lives because of it.
  • Claire Novak resurfaces in Season 10. Not only did she lose her father because he became Castiel's vessel, but her mother Amelia has also disappeared while looking for Castiel and trying to get her husband back. Claire is deeply traumatized by her parents' absence, and Castiel helps her find Amelia, who has been captured and is being fed upon by an evil angel.
• S.W.A.T. (2017): It turns out Powell's one to her son, though not by choice. She gave birth to him at 15, with her parents making her give him up for adoption. Powell's regretted this ever since, and hoped he'd make contact with her when he turned 18, but it hasn't happened yet. Street tells her to not give up hope on this happening.
• Sydney to the Max: Sydney's mother Alicia died five years before the series began, thus her grandmother takes up the motherly role.
• Teen Wolf: Mrs. Stilinski, who died several years before the show.
• Tehran: Tamar's mother died of cancer, and it was a slow, painful death.
• Yoko/Yellow Buster from Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, whose mother disappeared into the subspace thirteen years ago. Hiromu lost both parents the same way, but his arc focuses more on his father.
• Trinkets: Elodie's mom died in a car accident, caused by a drunk driver. She still isn't over the loss, and this is the source of her mental illness.
• In the Season 3 The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "I Sing the Body Electric", a recently widowed father with three children gets a robot "grandmother" to help raise the kids and fill the void left by the mother. The eldest daughter, who was the most resistant to the idea of "Grandma" at first, ends up becoming quite attached after realizing the robot is indestructible and thus cannot leave her in death like her mother did.
• The sitcom the Olsen Twins were in some years after Full House, Two of a Kind, also had a rarely-mentioned dead mother, partially replaced by a recently-hired hip babysitter to take care of the (pre-)teen girly stuff professor dad obviously can't deal with. Several of their earlier movies also have a dead mother.
• Two Sentence Horror Stories: In "Heirloom" the very first scene is of Vivie asking her dad Montrell whether her mom can see their new house from Heaven-he says yes. We don't learn why she's dead, but it was recent and they're still dealing with it. He didn't used to put Vivie into bed or fix her hair for instance.
• Utopia Falls: Aliyah's mother Anna died of a sudden illness when she was four, according to her father. She wants to find out more, but he isn't encouraging. It turns out that she's still alive, Aliyah discovers.
• Velvet
  • In Ana's backstory, she is sent to live with her uncle at the Galerias Velvet because of the death of her mother.
  • Alberto's mother, Isabel, died in childbirth. Except not really, Alberto was taken from her by Rafael and she was placed in a mental institution in Cuba. She does truly die towards the end of the second season, though.
• Veronica Mars' mother ran off before the show began, when Keith lost his job as sheriff. Veronica ends up tracking her mom down and forcing her to enter rehab, and then she returns later in the season to restart her relationship with Keith...only she's still on the booze, so Veronica forces her to leave before she ruins things for Keith again.
• Walker, Texas Ranger LOVES this trope, and it can and will either be gender-inverted or overlap from time to time with Disappeared Dad. Many of the minor characters in the series, oftentimes the Victim of the Week, are dealt with this, but the strongest example of all is the eponymous Texas Ranger, whose parents were killed by a trio of white supremacists when he was 12 years old, and would go on to hunt down and arrest one of the men who did it in Season 4's "Final Justice", though not before nearly letting him fall to his death during their final fight.
  • Ranger Francis Gage and his older sister, Julie, also aren't spared, as revealed in Season 8's "Tall Cotton". While the majority of the plot has the Rangers dealing with the sleazy owner of the titular nightclub kidnapping and threatening to murder Julie after she uncovered evidence of his many crimes while working undercover there, she and Gage lost both their parents when he was 8 years old and she was 10. They were both killed in a car accident due to icy roads while on their way home from a church social. One of their aunts wanted to take them both in, but could only afford one sibling. Gage suggested that Julie go, but she said no, saying they must stick together no matter what. As such, they ended up being sent to a group home for foster children; it wasn't a pleasant experience for both of them, though Julie got to bear most of the brunt of it.
  • Examples of minor and/or one-time characters dealing with this issue include:
    • The Reno siblings, Dana and Keith, in Season 3's "War Zone" lost their mother, Molly, before the events of the episode. Dana, a Texas State Trooper desiring to be a Ranger like her father, Logan (who is a close friend and ex-partner of Walker), often acts as a second mom to her kid brother, Keith, but eventually has to play both roles of mother and father when Logan is killed by the Villain of the Week, Mitch Bolton, while trying to stop one of his high-profile robberies. While helping Dana and Keith cope with their loss, Walker sets out to find and arrest the people who killed Logan.
    • Season 4's "Deadline" gives us Lindsay Hughes, the daughter of Texas State Senator Warren Hughes, and Lyle Eckert, the main villain of the episode. For Lindsay, Warren makes reference to this in rebuffing Walker's offer to help when Eckert and his gang of bank robbers kidnap her and threaten to murder her by burying her alive: "I already lost my wife. If I lose my daughter, I've lost everything!" (luckily, Walker saves her in time, to which Warren decides to not only abandon his proposal to disband the Rangers, but to increase their funding). For Lyle Eckert, he has both this and a Disappeared Dad, having been raised by his Evil Uncle and grows from juvenile delinquent into a life of a master jewel thief and murderer. Despite his upbringing, Eckert admires his uncle and lives with him as he grows into a "10 Most Wanted" criminal, and he and Walker have a long history, considering his extensive criminal record ranging from drug trafficking to robbery, and now, in his threat to kill Lindsay to extort her father's fortune, adding kidnapping to his résumé.
    • Season 7's "Code of the West" had Katie McSpadden, the granddaughter of Judge Arthur "Art" McSpadden, who lost both of her parents to a drunk driver, having moved in with her grandfather six months after the fact, and had a lot of anger built up in her since then, but she later warms up after a while and becomes a big sister figure to the daughter of the episode's villain (whom her grandfather had imprisoned many moons ago and sought revenge against those who put him away) after she moves in with them.
    • "Lost Boys", also in Season 7, gives us the villain, Johnny Blade. His mother passed away when he was 12 years old and was in and out of foster homes through the years, up until his enlistment in the Navy when he was 19. Gender-inverted with Jesse Estrella, the nephew of Carlos Sandoval, as it is unknown of what happened to his father.
    • Season 9's "Child of Hope" has Steve and Cara Parkins, and their infant son, Max^note who is played by Max Carlos Norris, the real-life grandson of Chuck Norris, and son of the episode's director, Michael Norris. Played straight with 19-year-old Steve, who lost both his parents so very young, and made a lot of pretty bad choices in his life, and among those bad choices was befriending a gang of burglars led by Jake Horbart after serving a six-month stint for shoplifting (apparently, the second time he did so and the judge decided to set an example by not going easy on him), who ultimately kill him after he chickens out during a home invasion gone sour. Cara witnessed Horbart and his gang murder Steve and is forced to go into hiding, as well as leave Max in Walker and Alex's care. Downplayed however, with Cara, whose parents live in Fort Worth, and Walker and Alex were able to track down her parents so they could help her raise their baby. Played straight and justified with Max, as his father was killed by the main villains of the episode while his mother left him in Alex's care to ensure Horbart and his gang don't kill him, too, until they were reunited in time for Horbart to try to murder them and Alex, only for him (Horbart) to be killed by Walker.
    • In "Faith", also in Season 9, the titular character, Faith Barry, has both this and a Disappeared Dad. Her mother, the daughter of her maternal grandmother, Dionne Barry (played by Dionne Warwick), died of a drug overdose when she was a little baby, and nobody ever met her father; as such, Dionne has since retired from being a professional singer to raise her. Worst of all, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic liver disorder and is in need of a life-saving transplant, which kicks off the episode's plot.
    • "Desperate Measures" (also in Season 9) gives us mother and son Lara and Griffin Pope. It is unknown what happened to both of Lara's parents, since she grew up in a small town with her taxidermist uncle Walt. Walt did everything for her since then, up until he was murdered by her mobster ex-husband, Garrett Pope, after he received word of her escape from prison for a murder that he framed her for, which brings us to Griffin's situation, where Lara herself serves this role, which is justified and defied. Lara escaped at the beginning of the episode while still chained to another inmate, namely, Jane "Hitch" Harrelson^note who was sentenced to life without parole for killing three men, after the boyfriends of two other escapees ambushed their prison bus. She loves and cares for him deeply and refuses to let Garrett hurt him. Garrett framed Lara for killing his business partner, whom she supposedly had an affair with, and tried to maintain the cover that she was dangerous woman, when in actuality, he was the one having the affair, not to mention his business partner threatened to expose his shady business practices to the feds. While trying to find Griffin, Lara and Harrelson unknowingly give Gage a ride back to Dallas after his motorcycle breaks down due to two thugs cutting his drive belt after he beat them up for harassing them. After Gage apprehends Harrelson, Lara takes off and reunites with Griffin, only for them to be kidnapped by Garrett's men so she could be killed, until the Rangers intervened and arrested Garrett.
    • "6 Hours", yet another Season 9 episode, has 16½-year-old Heather Preston, whose mother passed away well before the events of the episode, likely in her pre-teens/early teens. As if that wasn't enough, for both her and her father alike, the episode's plot has her being kidnapped by her traitorous bodyguard, McNeely, and about to be murdered on live TV within, well, six hours! Of course, Walker saves her Just in Time, with McNeely being killed by his own murder weapon.
• Samantha's mother on Who's the Boss?.
• Wild Bill: Bill's wife, Kelsey's mom, is dead in the present, with Bill him struggling to raise their daughter Kelsey as a single father.
• The Wilds: Only Dot's dad is shown in the flashbacks, and her mom's not mentioned.
• Wishbone: Sam's parents divorced prior to the start of the series and she is only seen with her father; this trope only applies in the physical sense though as Sam apparently visits her mother offscreen.
• Years and Years: Muriel's daughter, the mother of the Lyons siblings, died a few years back of cancer.
• Young Dracula: Vlad and Ingrid's mother ran off with a werewolf, and Jonathon's mother left because of Van Helsing's vampire obsession.
• Zero (2021): Omar's mother has been gone for years, after the police in Senegal took her away. His father claims this was to protect Omar from her, but details are unrevealed.

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