And one day soon, my darling, I will pass on. Your father will go on to marry some horrible woman, but fear not. Such hardship will give you the ability to talk to animals, be incredibly good at cleaning, and lead you to marry an incredibly rich, handsome man.
In the hard times, when you wish to remember me, just pull out my fabulous hat, and my heart will be there with you.
If Disney Mothers Lived…
- Marlin would have been less over-protective, and Nemo would have dozens of siblings and a full home. Also, Nemo would have been safe.
- Ariel’s mother would have calmed King Triton down, and convinced him to let Ariel have legs for a few days so she could date this nice young human.
- Belle’s mother would have convinced Maurice going into the enchanted forest was a particularly bad idea, and could have found ways to manipulate Gaston out of her daughter’s life.
- Jasmine’s mother would have kept the palace organized, keeping the Sultan from relying on Jafar.
“All you do all day is hang out with that monkey.”
- Aladdin’s mother would have helped Aladdin get a job, and have a classier bachelor pad.
- Snow White and Cinderella would have had functional, warm homes. And have more than animals for friends.
- Children would be less traumatized when watching Bambi.
Mothers are not perfect. However…
Mothers are safety. Mothers are home. Mothers are the backbone of a functional schedule and transportation system. Mothers are fun and warm. Mothers are the key to learning to walk, to clothe ourselves, to function as a reasonable and likable human being.
They are human beings doing their best to help the next generation of people. However, without mothers, conflict and strife easily abounds. While these leads to better story telling and adventure, it also leads to darker paths and trickier challenges.
In other words, without mothers, we may be better able to find a handsome prince on the other side of a dark forest, but it would be a fairly miserable trek.
I would rather find a reasonably handsome bookkeeper or grocery clerk and grow up in a functional, loving home with a mother.*
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And, of course, a Shout Out to my own mother, who lied to my two older sisters and I many times during our first trip to Disneyland as a family. These lies include:
- We were just going to visit friends. (Told as we were piled into the car. Revealed to be a lie as we pulled into the Disneyland parking lot.)
- Big Thunder Mountain has two rides: One that is fast, and one that is the speed of it coming into the loading area. (Revealed to be a lie as we sped down the first hill, terrified.)
- After the initial trauma of Big Thunder Mountain, Mom told us there were no falls on Pirates of the Carribean. (Spoiler Alert: There are several falls. One of them is fairly big.)
It is these lies and other ridiculous tales that have led me to who I am today… which I think is pretty good.
To my own mother, and all the other mom’s out there, whether biological, adopted, or acquired through the road of life…
Happy Mother’s Day
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To give you a broader perspective on my mother, here’s a video I put together a couple years ago for Mom. (This includes some of the “Other Children”, those who are not actually my siblings, but may as well be):
And here’s a warm video on motherhood:
What else would change if Disney Mothers lived? What makes moms great? What are you doing to celebrate the moms in your life?
The L. Palmer Chronicles 
I want to find some way to incorporate “Mother Knows Best” from Tangled into here…I can’t think of anything witty. It’s not Rapunzel’s real mother, but a damn fun song.
Peter Pan also has “Your Mother and Mine” which is sweet and because they had a mother, they realized they couldn’t stay in Never Never Land and they had to grow up. That Disney movie got it right!
However, everything else is pretty funny. Thanks for the post. What a surprising number of Disney movies where the mother is absent! Lots of things could have been prevented. I also love how you’re doing these little fictional snippets in the beginning. They’re really fun to read!
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I hadn’t thought of the Mother and Mine song from Peter Pan. I do love that the whole point of Peter Pan is that it’s fun to be kids, but moms are important too.
Mother’s Day in the UK was back in March, but it’s nice to see the day more than once, at least on the blogosphere. 😉
Double the Mom-Fun.
Meh. Fathers can do all those things too when they’re not dreadfully incompetent at parenting.
Fathers are great too. I thought about that, but, considering Mother’s Day is Sunday, I focused on Moms. I personally believe both are extremely important.
I love this post! It’s a great lead-in to Mother’s Day. ^_^
Quite the epidemic how many Disney movies had missing mothers! The stories would have gone differently for sure.
I hope you had a great Mother’s Day yourself.
What a wonderful post! What a great way to celebrate mother’s day.
by the way, I loved the line “Aladdin’s mom would have helped him get a classier bachelor pad” 😉 Thanks for stopping by my blog, it’s always wonderful to meet and hear from fellow bloggers!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by as well!
What great tribute to mothers, good job! The only thing about Disney mothers is how they gave stepmoms a bad rap. I mean, you have Cinderella’s stepmother who was a really piece of work. Thank goodness for the fact Cinderella was a balanced, well-adjusted individual otherwise her stepmom would have eaten her alive! And I’m not talking zombies here! 😉
The bad rap for stepmothers is unfortunate, but an epidemic in a long history of fairy tales dating further back than Disney.
Is there a Cinderella zombie story? If not, I’m surprised.
If Donald Duck had a mother, he probably would’ve learned how to keep his temper in check.
What is with that duck’s family, anyway? All he has are uncles and nephews.
Theories:
1. Duckdom is a highly patriarchal society where women stay at home and do not go into the public – making Daisy a major rebel?
2. Donald just has a lot of male relatives?
3. Disney’s cartoons cover the male bonding trips because ridiculous things happen, and not the female-bonding trips because females tend not to do quite as ridiculous things? (The Wendy-Mother influence in Peter Pan, for example)
Another question, who are Huey, Louie and Dewie’s parents? Or did they come from eggs found on the side of the road?
More food for thought. The little girl ducks that sometimes followed Daisy around — April May and June — are Daisy’s nieces!
No one seems to give birth to anyone else in Duckburg!
Or, their not really shoe who anyone belongs to with all of those random eggs lying around. No wonder there was an ugly duckling.