With Mother's Day over, the whole world has spent time reflecting on their mothers, their grandmothers, adoptive mothers, and other mother figures. The moms we love are selfless, hardworking, and genuinely care for our well-being. So in honoring great moms everywhere, I've taken the liberty of assembling a list of five incredible movie moms that we all would love to be like. This is by no means exhaustive, but more a representation of movie moms that I've come to admire, and I think they are pretty universally wonderful.
1. Rosemary Pendergast from "Easy A."
Rosemary is easy to love. She's spunky, she's sassy, but most of all she is a great mother to her daughter and main character, Olive. She offers Olive something that is hard for most moms, and that is she lets her daughter be herself, only occasionally questioning and offering suggestions. All this is because she knows Olive's character and trusts her. She bravely accepts her daughter's teenage weirdness with a great sense of humor.
2. Bren MacGuff from "Juno."
Bren has one of the hardest jobs in the world -- being a stepmom to a pregnant teenager. Although she and her stepdaughter Juno rarely see eye to eye, Bren guides her with all the wisdom and experience she has, and she steps up in a time of need. She also doesn't place her any higher or lower in importance than her own biological daughter, Liberty Bell.
3. Eudora from "Princess and the Frog."
Eudora is a family woman, through and through, and she works hard to take care of her family, including her daughter, Tiana. She worked hard even when Tiana was little and her father was still alive, but after he passes, she continues to keep Tiana's best interest at heart. She supports Tiana's big dreams even when they look a little different than what she imagined for her daughter. Most importantly, she reminds Tiana that the love you receive from your family is more important than any financial and economic success.
4. Leeann Tuohy from "The Blind Side."
Leeann gets bonus points for being based on a real woman. She took in a son that wasn't originally hers. She clothed him, taught him, instructed him, and became a stronger woman for it. We love Leeann because she crossed racial and cultural boundaries to do what was right, and because she included in her family someone who didn't share her blood and couldn't be more different.
5. Aibileen Clark from "The Help."
Aibileen was the mother of her own children, but what we love so much about Aibileen is the children she mothered that weren't hers. As a black nanny for rich, white women, there is definitely a moral courage that we admire in Aibileen. She persists in loving children who are taught to hate her, and families that diminish her importance. There couldn't be a more wonderful mother than Aibileen Clark.
Of course, we all have that mother figure in our lives that we look up to with the highest amount of respect and reverence. Remember these women, today and always, and tell them how much you appreciate them. We may never know how much our mothers love us, but we can commit to making it worth it. It can't be said enough -- thank you, Mom!