As the school year madly draws to a close and I’m feeling the burns from desperately clinging to the end of my rope, I am REALLY NEEDING some INSPIRATION TO GET ME THROUGH IT ALL! Hence, today’s Good Mommies in Movies Post. 

Why that old chestnut, E.T., you ask?  Cuz DAMMIT! if Dee Wallace could hold it all together through divorce, single motherhood and an alien visitation, I should be able to pull through 3 talent show performances, a dance recital, field day, and the biggest load of homework that’s come home all year! Only one more week! Woo-Hoo!

 

ET – Okay, in this day and age, an argument could be made that Dee Wallace’s single mom MARY in this

classic, beloved film, isn’t really a good mom. I mean, she leaves ELLIOT home ALONE when he’s sick while she goes to work. She leaves 6 year-old GERTIE home alone while she runs to the school to pick up Elliot after he lets the frogs go. AND she lets the kids go out trick or treating all by themselves with the edict we haven’t heard since WE were kids: “Come home when it gets dark!” In this era of STRANGER DANGER PARANOIA, there’s no way in hell we’d do that. Or that they’d depict a mom in a movie doing that – unless she was a bad mom. But we have to remember, this was a different era. Twenty five years ago, that stuff not only happened, it was the norm. And you’ve got to give Mary her props for holding it all together even though her rat of a husband left her and the kids for another woman. She earns the paycheck and is a loving mom while he’s off in Mexico with “Sally” despite the fact that he “hates Mexico”. And when she reads “Peter Pan” to Gertie, it tugs at our heart strings, just as it does ET’s. We have no doubt, this is a woman who is 100% dedicated to her family. Plus, three kids later, she looks super cute in that skin-tight leopard cat outfit. MEOW!

 

WHERE DO YOU STAND? IN THIS DAY AND AGE WOULD THE MOM IN E.T. BE CONSIDERED A GOOD OR BAD MOM?