"And the good guy doesn't have a mommy, 'cause his mommy died."
— Zoe, Baby Blues
Perhaps she died. Perhaps she left and there's bitterness involved. Perhaps she's a Damsel in Distress. Regardless of what happened—and regardless of whether or not the viewers find out what happened — Dad seems to have raised his children on his own.
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 First Father Wins): the father will wax poetic about her character and the times they shared, 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 Wicked Stepmother if the father remarries — where the new, cruel 'mother' is contrasted with the saintly dead one.
Death by Childbirth is very often the cause of a Missing Mom, as not only does it get the mother out of the way whilst keeping her sympathetic but it adds an extra touch of tragedy to the protagonist's life. By contrast, if the Missing Mom is alive and willingly abandoned her child, she will probably be portrayed as worse than an absentee dad.note
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 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.
Unbelievably prevalent in pre 1970s American television, where it was frowned upon to talk about divorce. Most plots to stick to a two-at-a-time one-off character scheme where writers would find it hard to write for both parents and usually limit themselves to the one who is relevant. Such plots generally involve a less-than-ideal parent and a troubled child and the one parent who could solve the conflict is dead or absent, with the mom or dad being the toss-up depending on the gender of the child. Sometimes subverted if the one-off characters actually return and the absent parent does get a chance to drop in, or the Parent with New Paramour trope is invoked to fill the missing piece.
Combine with Disappeared Dad, and you get Parental Abandonment. For the inverse, see Missing Child. If the mother's absence is never explained or even acknowledged, you've got the Ambiguously Absent Parent.
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- Suzy Puppy; being from a puppy mill, her mother was slaughtered shortly after her birth. And because of Suzy's severe sickness, she follows her not long after.
Asian Animation
- Flower Fairy: 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. Worse yet, she becomes the energy of the Skytree at some point, meaning she doesn't have a chance to see her daughter again.
Comic Strips
- Baldo: The children are cared for by their father and great-aunt, after having lost their mother in a car accident.
- Liō: One strip from a Christmas arc has him placing flowers at his mother's grave.
- Rush's mom in Mallard Fillmore divorced his dad because he named their son after Rush Limbaugh behind her back.
- Peppermint Patty from Peanuts is raised only by her father, and it's hinted that her mom is dead. (When Marcie 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.
Fairy Tales
- The mothers of the title characters of "Snow White" and "Cinderella" have no role other than dying to leave their respective daughter to the Wicked Stepmother. In the earliest version published by The Brothers Grimm, Snow White has no stepmother — the horrific treatment she receives comes directly from her own biological mother. Ditto for "Hansel and Gretel". It's likely that such stories wound up axing the real mother and putting a stepmother in their place because the concept of a mother conspiring against her own children came to be seen as too disturbing.
- In "Tsarevich Petr and the Wizard", the mother is the object of The Quest.
- In "The Wise Little Girl", the poor brother and his seven-year-old daughter are living alone. The little girl's mother is not seen or even mentioned, and it is said the girl is used to take care of herself when her father is away.
- "The Three Snake Leaves", The main character's mother never mentioned, and it is stated his father barely could support himself and his only son.
- "Tattercoats": The titular character's mother dies at childbirth.
Pinball
- Happens to both Trixie and Victoria in the backstory for WHO dunnit (1995). Trixie's mother died giving birth to her, leaving her to be raised by Tex. Victoria's mother died during her youth, and she grew up in a boarding school as a result.
Puppet Shows
- Based on the evidence available, certainly true for Treelo on Bear in the Big Blue House, almost certainly true for all of the other main kid characters on the show. Bear seems to be raising them all and in one episode remembers taking care of Treelo when he was a baby. It is never, ever talked about, though.
- Parodied by The Muppet Show: Gonzo says that he was born two years after his mother died. No word on whether this is Bizarre Alien Biology or Blatant Lies.
Radio
- In Revolting People Sam Oliphant raised his three children by himself. He seems to have been rather vague as to what happened to their mother, apparently telling Joshua that she was kidnapped by razor-beaked terripins and became Queen of the Sea People. Actually, she's shacked up with a Scotswoman called Agnes.
Roleplay
- In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, while there aren't quite as much missing mothers as there are disappeared dads, the large and varied cast nevertheless leads to a lack of maternal presence for some characters:
- Ciro's mother was only in his life long enough to give birth to him and his siblings, and hasn't been seen since. Since his father is left very busy with work, Ciro ended up taking over much of the maternal responsibilities around the house.
- Daigo believes that his birth mother is dead, though it's left ambiguous what actually happened to her. He then poisoned his step-mother to put an end to her abuse.
- Abby's mother left her and her father after he met with a local politican that caused him to realise things about his sexuality. She's been living with her single father since.
- While not as explicit as the rest of the characters, Katheryn's mother has noticeably gone without mention, as her father shaped a lot of her personality and she has seven other siblings as part of the family.
Theatre
- In The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Olive Ostrovsky's mother abandoned her and her father, supposedly to live in an ashram in India. Olive's sorrow over this is highlighted in her second big number, "The I Love You Song".
- In Anastasia, when Dmitry is talking about his childhood with Anya, he says that his mother died when he was very young and he didn't really remember her.
- In Be More Chill, Jeremy's mother left after divorcing his father. His father does not take it well, developing strange habits like never wearing pants in the house.
- In Beetlejuice, the show opens with the funeral of Emily Deetz, and the story largely revolves around Lydia coping with her mother being gone.
- The first Mrs. Gellman passed away from cancer in Caroline, or Change, and a big plot thread throughout the musical is the lingering grief her son Noah has about it and his father's subsequent remarriage.
- The mothers of Luisa and Matt are never seen during The Fantasticks; Luisa's is only mentioned to be the original owner of Luisa's treasured necklace, and Matt's is never mentioned at all. This is no Teenage Wasteland however, their fathers play major roles in the story.
- In Jasper in Deadland, Agnes's mother is dead, and Jasper's mother left when he was 16.
- In the musical version of The Light Princess, Althea, the eponymous princess, and her love interest, Prince Digby, both lose their mothers when they are children. Their very opposite reactions to their grief are what cause most of the conflict in the show.
- In the Russian theater play An Ordinary Miracle by E. Shwartz, the mother of the heroine (who is a princess) died when said princess was "seven minutes old".
- Same in Naked King (again the princess) and The Shadow (both the princess and Annunciata).
- In Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and thus, in the adaptation My Fair Lady), Eliza has no contact at all with her mother.
- Ragtime: Unlike in the original book, Tateh does not come to the New World with his wife, appearing from the get-go to be raising The Little Girl by himself. It isn't really elaborated on what happened to her mother, other than this line from the prologue: "He ought not lose her as he had her mother. His name was Tateh. He never spoke of his wife. The Little Girl was all he had now."
- In Rigoletto, Gilda never knew her mother, but Rigoletto claims she was an "angel" and still mourns her death. This makes him all the more protective of Gilda.
- Shakespeare is full of missing moms: Ophelia and Laertes of Hamlet, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia of King Lear; and Jessica of The Merchant of Venice all have fathers (Polonius, Lear, and Shylock respectively), but no mention is ever made of their mothers.
- In The Tempest, Miranda's mother is mentioned once.
Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; - The Sound of Music: 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.
- In Urinetown, Mr. Cladwell raised his daughter Hope as a single parent. In Act Two, it's revealed that Penelope Pennywise is Hope's mother, the result of a fling with Cladwell in the chaotic period when the water first started drying up.
- In the musical Violet, the title character's mother died when she was young.
- In Wicked, Elphaba's mother dies while giving birth to Elphaba's sister Nessarose. In the book the musical is based on, she STILL dies in childbirth, except it's with Elphie and Nessa's brother Shell. (He didn't make it into the stage adaptation.)
Visual Novels
- In Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club, Hana's mother died when she was eight. This deeply affected her father and the family's finances.
- In CLANNAD, Tomoya Okazaki lost his mother when he was young, and the grief caused his father to become an alcoholic bum in the process.
- In After Story, the main character works to keep it from repeating with Ushio after getting a wake-up-call. That's because Nagisa, Ushio's mother, died in childbirth.
- In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Sayaka Maizono's mother is said to have died when she was a kid.
- In Double Homework, Dennis’s mom isn’t mentioned, and only his dad figures prominently in his life and mindset.
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- Rena's mother divorced her father and isn't in their life anymore. Rena resents her mother for abandoning her father to marry another.
- Rika's mother died years ago. She was murdered.
- In Katawa Shoujo, a few characters have lost their mothers:
- Hanako Ikezawa lost her mother in the same fire in which her father was killed and she received her scars, because Mrs. Ikezawa shielded her from the flames at the cost of her own life.
- Shizune Hakamichi's mother does not appear in game, even when Hisao visits her home on her route, and is generally assumed to be dead.
- In a milder case, Lilly Satou's mother lives abroad and she's mentioned, but is never seen.
- Mia and Maya's mother, Misty Fey, in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games. Disappeared after the DL-6 incident, leaving Maya and Mia alone. She was ultimately killed in the last case of Trials & Tribulations, while trying to protect poor Maya from a trap prepared by Misty's sister, Morgan..
- Pearl's mother, Morgan, becomes a Missing Mom after being imprisoned in the second case of Justice for All. She's also the mother of Dahlia and Iris.
- From the same series, although their respective fathers are key characters to the plot and backstory, neither Franziska's nor Edgeworth's mothers are ever even mentioned. The fandom's explanation for this is that they're either dead or were not connected to law.
- Kay Faraday has a similar problem. After her father is murdered she says she "went to live with her mom's family" in another town, which indicates either a death or a divorce. Someone on the writing staff had serious mom issues.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney also had this, although we didn't even know his mom was missing until it's revealed that she's Lamiroir/Thalassa Gramarye. Trucy's mother Thalassa disappeared, presumed dead, when Trucy was young. Also secretly Lamiroir! Yeah, that's not contrived at all...
- In Dual Destinies, Jinxie's mother died when she was little, and her daughter explains how the sight of her mother's favorite flower is enough to give her courage. The final case also centers around the death of Athena's mother, Metis Cykes, who was stabbed to death when Athena was a pre-teen...and to spare Athena from being accused of killing her, Simon Blackquill went Taking the Heat for her and spent seven years in prison.
- Pearl's mother, Morgan, becomes a Missing Mom after being imprisoned in the second case of Justice for All. She's also the mother of Dahlia and Iris.
- In Shining Song Starnova, Idol Singer Nemu’s biological mother died when she was very young, and she knows very little about her beyond what she looked like and the fact that she was an idol. Since her father and adoptive mother refuse to talk about it, Nemu asks her producer to see what he can dig up about her, setting the plot of her route in motion. As it turns out, she’s actually alive… and has spent the last eighteen years in a mental hospital following a psychotic breakdown.
- In Songs and Flowers, Mrs. Overstreet left town one day, leaving behind her husband and 2-year-old daughter Jazz. This lead to many nasty rumors spreading around their small town about Jazz and her father, which lead to the two becoming outcasts. Her father, however, always assured her that her mother did love them and she had to be out there somewhere. Jazz, tired of hearing it all, decided to devote herself to finding her mother wherever she may be, with the goal of one day becoming a spy or Knowledge Broker. Things take a dark turn when she gets a call from the police that a sixteen-year-old skeleton was found in a nearby forest. One with a locket that has a picture of her and her dad in it.
- In Umineko: When They Cry, the reason no one's seen Battler in such a long time is because he left his family after his mother Asumu died six years ago. Kyrie is his stepmother. Later it turns out that Asumu isn't his biological mother at all. Learning that sends Battler into a Heroic BSoD, and Ange snaps him out of it in a Heroic Sacrifice. In EP8, it's revealed that Battler's real mother is in fact Kyrie.
Web Animation
- Various examples in many of FreezeFlame's series.
- Carl
- Grace's mother abandoned her family to join a feminist cult when she was a child.
- Dry Bones' mother died in the fire that stripped the rest of his family off their flesh before the series began.
- Logan's biological mother ran off with a scuba instructor shortly after he was born.
- Talia's parents were revealed to have divorced at the beginning of Season 5, with her mother moving out of the kingdom. That said, Talia doesn't really care since she hates her parents anyway.
- Bowser's Koopalings
- Most of the Koopalings' parents died before they hatched from their eggs, so they were adopted by Bowser and Peach. Unfortunately however, Peach went missing in an Airship Crash some years later and has been presumed to be dead ever since then.
- Ludwig's case is special. He is the son of King Johann XVIII of the Bohnenkraut Kingdom and was initially told that his mother, Sophia Eisenhower, was murdered by troops that had gone rouge and that the egg he hatched from was stolen by the Koopa Kingdom. In reality, king Johann, as part of a Conspiracy, ordered for his own wife to be assassinated, but was rescued by her closest confidant and gave Ludwig to Bowser and Peach for protection. Shortly afterwards, they were both apprehended by Johann's forces and executed after they refused to give away Ludwig's location. Ludwig not only loses his adoptive mother, but his biological mother as well.
- Ally lives with her father, but there is never a single mention about her mother. According to Word of God, Ally's mother left her husband because she couldn't stand his attitude when watching soccer games.
- Carl
- Cub's mother in Happy Tree Friends. 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 Negative Continuity 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).
- In Red vs. Blue we find out Allison was this to Carolina.
- RWBY: Yang's biological mother, Raven Branwen, disappeared shortly after Yang was born. Summer Rose stepped in to help Yang's father, adopting Yang as her own and eventually having another daughter, Ruby. Then Summer disappeared as well when Ruby was a toddler. While Summer is presumed dead, Raven is very much alive, but doesn't care enough to return. Her brother, Qrow (who is a much larger presence in the girls' lives) says she has an odd morality. He later confronts Raven that she doesn't seem to care in the slightest what her daughter is going through. Raven retorts that she saved Yang's life once; that's more than she'd give most people.
- Zatanna: Trial of the Crystal Wand: Zatanna and Damon's mother isn't seen or mentioned.
Webcomics
- Masako's mother in Beneath the Clouds died in a house fire.
- Big Break (2019): Troy's mother Helena abandoned him when he was a toddler as she moved to the city to become a model, leaving him to be cared for by his farmer grandparents. Troy has never seen nor heard from her again until only recently, when she tried to contact him to make amends.
- In Blue Yonder, Lena's motive for helping Jared with his lost family is her own lost mother.
- But I'm a Cat Person runs Miranda through multiple flavors of Parental Abandonment, including this one.
- Sam(antha) from Cheer!, implied to be Death by Childbirth.
- And both of Alex's parents are pretty distant with her.
- In Cucumber Quest, Princess Nautilus returns to find this.
- The mother of Michelle Seagal (Chelle), one of the main characters of the Lovecraft Lite horror-comedy-drama Dear Children, isn't in her life any more, a situation about which Chelle is clearly very unhappy.
- Demonseed Redux: Chico's real parents are brought up a few times. His adoptive parents died as well and Hal is his only family. His mother is a demoness Serenity, who stumbled on Hal's bar to birth and died, in his arms, possibly from the experiments. And his biological father turns out to be Galadrel.
- Inverted in Dicebox. Griffen is the Missing Mom. Her disappearance from her birth identity drives the Metaplot of having to coming back and fix what she had wrought in her personal and professional life.
- Dreamkeepers Prelude And Dad exploits as a "struggling single parent."
- Requisite El Goonish Shive example: Tedd's Mother left when he was little and is presently "somewhere in Europe", leaving poor Tedd with some serious abandonment issues. (Although the last one isn't technically the same Tedd...)
- In Endstone, both Kyri and Jon lost their mothers.
- In Exiern Princess Peonie's mother is described as...significant pause..."disappeared". The King is on the hunt for a replacement mother figure for her.
- In Fine Sometimes Rain, Georgia's mother had previously passed away before any of the events in the comic.
- Forestdale: Sora Jeon lost her mother to cancer when she was much younger, forcing her father to play the role of single dad and Sora to become far more self sufficient and mature than a girl her age should have been.
- Muko and Saniko's mother is frequently mentioned in many chapters of Furry Fight Chronicles but never makes an appearance. Her absence is a sore spot for Muko and Saniko.
- In Girl Genius, the identity of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach's mother is unknown, although hinted at.
- Similarly, we've never met Tarvek's mother and don't know much about her beyond her connection to an illustrious family.
- The ultimate fate of Agatha's mother is also unknown (Along with the fate of her father and uncle). Given what has been revealed about Lucrezia Mongfish-Heterodyne so far, Agatha will probably be better off if her mother stays this way.
- In Girls of the Wild's, Jae Gu's mother was unable to handle the stress of raising her children after the death of her husband and abandoned them to be raised alone by him, he understandably harbors a deep hatred for her now.
- Alluded to in Gold Coin Comics.
- Jupiter-Men:
- Passing dialogue between Arrio and Bea implies that Arrio's mom passed away and his closeness to Bea and the twins is a way of overcompensating for the lack of a maternal figure in his life.
- According to Mrs. Jones, Nathan's mom is missing but not dead. This proves an issue with Daejung's disappearance, as Nathan is not an adult and needs a legal guardian. His only relatives left are his grandparents in China until "Aunt Binny" enters the picture.
- In Lucid Spring, the story begins on the anniversary of the death of Pacem's mother, Mulier.
- Ash, from Misfile, initially has no contact with his mother. After a Gender Bender caused by a filing accident made by a pot-smoking angel, Ash's mother is back in the picture, although Ash's parents remain divorced.
- In Motherly Scootaloo, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Tumblr comic, Scootaloo's mother died of cancer a while back.
- In Nip and Tuck, Gus Gunthrie.
- In The Order of the Stick, Haley's mother died. Trying to live up to her injunction to be better than the Vice City they lived in has been a driving force in Haley's life.
- In Our Little Adventure, Julie and Angelika's. Angelika doesn't even remember her, and the family fell apart soon after her death.
- In Red's Planet Gene complains that it's not easy being a single parent on the best of days -- but he tried to take his son camping and got them abducted by aliens.
- In Royal Blue Bel's mum went missing when Bel was three.
- Sandra and Woo:
- Sandra's mother Julie died several years before the start of the comic of unspecified causes.
- Luna's mother was killed when a crackhead broke into her family's apartment back when they lived in Camden.
- In Seekers Giselda's mother died when she was rather young. The reason hasn't been explained yet, just that Takchi took care of her like a brother through it.
- Selkie: Selkie's mother left her at an orphanage several years before the start of the comic. Her reasons for doing so have not been fully explored.
- Sleepless Domain: The magical girl Heartful Punch's mother was also a magical girl named Moonlight Spear, who was killed in a monster attack shortly after her daughter was born. She is also estranged from her father after he tried to stop her from becoming a magical girl for fear that she would end up like her mother, and so she currently lives by herself in the Future's Promise dorms.
- In Strays, Meela's mother never appears; she also dreams of a boy whose mother was murdered by her Stalker with a Crush.
- In Tripping Over You, Liam's mom died several years ago, after which his father sent him to a long-term therapy and a boarding school. It's eventually revealed she drank herself to death.
- unOrdinary: John's father and home are seen, but his mother is nowhere to be seen. It's later revealed his father hired a private investigator to find her and that she's being held by the government backed NX Gen company, who are experimenting on her for her power.
- Unsounded: Sette's da told her her mother was drowned by water-women and she has no memory of her. Given the source of the statement its veracity is suspect.
- In The Weave, Tally's mother died when she was approximately ten. We only ever see her in a flashback where she's coughing up blood.
- Wooden Rose: The sisters live with only their dying father. Their mother died when Nessa was only four.
- Fiona's mom has been dead for many years at the start of YU+ME: dream .
Web Original
- In Chrono Hustle Jack grew up not knowing who either of his parents are, although he has since learned that his mother was a Greek Goddess, although he still doesn't know her identity. Also no mention is made of Mary's mother, only her father.
- Cracked examines this in its article "Why Every '80s Sitcom Decided to Kill Off the Mom."
- Four of the eight main characters in Critical Role lost their mothers at some point in their backstories: Scanlan's mother was killed by goblins when he was young, Vex and Vax's mom died in a dragon attack, and Keyleth's mother vanished while on her druidic quest. In addition, there's been no mention made of Grog's mother, Pike seems to have been raised by her grandfather, and Percy's entire family was murdered several years before he joined the party. Even Trinket lost his mother to poachers before being adopted by Vex. Really, the only member of Vox Machina who doesn't fit this trope to some degree is Tiberius.
- The Cry of Mann: The family's original mother is never mentioned; all that's known is that Courtney is their stepmother.
- Daisy Brown 's mother died when Daisy was born. It's one of Alan's favorite things to torment her about, once he learns to talk.
- One of the ongoing story arcs in Demo Reel is what happened to Donnie's dead mom.
- Played for horror in the creepypasta "My Fear of Water."
- Two are known of in Noob:
- Sparadrap can get quite talkative about his family in the webseries version, which lets us know he has a younger brother who's Ystos in-game, a father and a grandmother. The father is apparently a priest and the novels mention that the brothers were raised by their grandmother, whose surname indicates that she's indeed their paternal grandmother. The mother is simply not mentioned, but volumes are spoken about the extent of her absence when Sparadrap, being a Manchild, calls for his grandmother in moments where I Want My Mommy! would be expected.
- The woman who was Tenshirock's wife and Judge Dead's mother, whose death is heavily implied to be linked to some mental condition she had. That notably enabled the father among the two to diagnose the same condition in one of his guildmates.
- Out With Dad: Rose's mother passed away when she was born, due to a sudden heart attack.
- The Warp Zone: Lampshaded in "If Disney Had Facebook".
Bambi: RIP Mom. Nothing is harder than the death of your mother.Cinderella: Yup.Mowgli: Yeah.Tod: Uh-huh.Dumbo: [crying face emoji]Ariel: Get in line.Jasmine: Ja.Belle: Basically.Pocahontas: Yep.Quasimodo: Amen.Linguini: Seriously.Snow White: Yuppers.Tarzan: Totes.Max Goof: Uh-huh!Lilo: ʻAe.Kida: Yes.Nemo: Yup.Elsa: I'm sensing a pattern here...
- Both Generator and Heyoka, in the Whateley Universe. Generator's mom died when she was 11, and Generator hasn't physically aged since then.
