It’s Time to Rewrite the Script for TV Moms

There’s a laundry list of reasons why moms today don’t have access to affordable childcare and paid leave. Gridlock in Congress. Unwilling state legislatures. An outdated workplace model designed for families with one stay-at-home parent.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about another reason, one that hits much closer to home — specifically, in our very own living rooms. 

What if moms on TV are yet another reason moms in real life don’t have the support we need?

Decades before I founded Girls Who Code to help get more women and girls into tech, I was a little girl raised by The Brady Bunch. My parents couldn’t afford childcare, so I spent my afternoons with Carol Brady, who kept her house effortlessly spotless and never worried about finding a sitter. 

Looking back now as a mom, I see how unrealistic life was for Carol Brady: a home that was always clean; easy, affordable child care — that’s certainly not how my life looks. And I know I’m not alone.   

So, with the expertise of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and the support of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and the Archewell Foundation, I set my sights on a new research target: a study into how mothers are portrayed on television. Geena Davis’s team studied scripted television programs from 2022 that feature mothers in the title cast. Big surprise, those moms don’t represent real moms.  

On TV, moms are mostly white, young, slender, and effortlessly attractive. They’re rarely queer, and they’re virtually never disabled. When there’s a clear breadwinner, nine times out of ten it’s the husband. Single moms are more often stigmatized with mental health illnesses and addiction. Childcare is miraculously taken care of and never discussed. TV moms live in spotless houses without spending any time snaking drains or scrubbing sticky tiles. Moms in workplace shows are rarely shown with their families — and moms in family shows are rarely shown at work. Everything seems easy. Perfect.

And that’s because it isn’t real. Television moms reflect the unrealistic expectations for real moms, perpetuate those impossible standards, and contribute to the guilt and shame moms experience today. The motherhood we see on TV isn’t the motherhood we know. It isn't the reality for moms in America who work long hours to provide for their families, who are single and queer and people of color, who struggle to both keep food on the table and afford the skyrocketing costs of childcare, who kick themselves for not being able to do it all. 

We deserve better.

Of course, TV doesn’t need to represent reality frame-for-frame. No one — moms included — wants to watch every diaper change or minivan meltdown. TV can and should be an escape, a place to meet new characters and experience new worlds — but it shouldn’t leave us feeling like we’re failing in our own. 

The fixes for real moms are clear: We need better paid leave policies, more affordable childcare, and equal pay. We need moms to feel prioritized and valued, and for their roles to be supported by robust public policy solutions. At Moms First, we’re working towards that future every single day, armed with data collected by leaders like those at the Geena Davis Institute.

But until we have the policy fixes that will make all moms’ lives as relaxed and effortless as the ones on TV, we should work to make those depictions better reflect our realities.

Realities plural, because moms aren’t a monolith. We work in every industry, in every role — including at home — every day. We coordinate board meetings and baseball practice; we plan out slide decks and summer camp. We make tough decisions for our kids and our families. And we all deserve better representation. It’s time for us to widen the lens, to show the moms who don’t make gourmet meals every night. Who fall behind on the laundry. Who show up to meetings with pureed peas on our blazers. And who still have love, friendship, and independent lives of our own. 

This work begins before the cameras start rolling — in writers’ rooms and casting calls, in studio offices and pitch meetings. We urge producers to seek gender parity in their staffs and casts. That means offering paid leave and child care benefits so moms can thrive in the industry. We urge writers to draw on their experiences with real moms as they develop their next big hits, and lean into the chaos, the long nights, the competing demands of work and family. We urge set designers to leave some socks on the staircase and some Cheerios in the carpet. And we urge everyone in the industry to think beyond the archetype of the perfect TV mom. 

Clearly, if they do, there’s a market for it. Shows like “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” “Maid,” and “Good Girls” — and the reception they’ve earned — are proof. This year, we’ve seen powerful women shake up the movie and music industries; TV stands to gain by following in their footsteps. 

We can’t take real moms for granted in the media we consume. It’s time to show moms, front and center, as the leading characters we know they are.