Happy Mother’s Day to all our readers! And with it being Mother’s Day what better time to chat about Kdrama Mothers. So much to say…. so little of it nice.
When I first started outlining this post I thought it would be easy as pie to throw out the top five favorite moms real quick and call it good. Turns out, it is a lot harder to find a nice/positive kdrama momma than you would expect. So first let’s chat about what makes a good kdrama mom.
#1 Don’t force your child to marry someone for money.
Despite what you see in Asian entertainment. Money is not the end all and be all of a relationship. Sure it makes life easier, but should not be gained at the expense of your child’s happiness.
#2 Don’t kill, maim, make homeless, or anything else that could cause lasting damage to a person’s psyche.
This is just self-explanatory. Sure you might be forgiven in the end (especially in family dramas) but it makes you a horrible person. Karma will come back and kick you in the butt.
#3 Support your child no matter what.
These are always the best moms. The one’s that go that extra mile or even just say “the heck with my child being a bad student, I love them anyway.”
Now that we have a basics for what makes an awesome mom, let’s check out my favorites.
#6 Ugly Alert
This mom wasn’t in the show long, but her teachings of love, forgiveness, and holding out for true love, impacted all her children and earns her a top spot in my faves.
# 5 Angry Mom
This falls in that catagory of mom’s that will do anything for their kids. Faking that you are 19 is a pretty awesome way to prove to your child that you love them.
#4 Mischievous Kiss – Love in Tokyo
This drama has been remade in almost every Asian country and in every version I fall in love with the leading man’s mother. She is perky…..she is obsessive……. and she want’s her dream daughter-in-law. She is also willing to get that daughter-in-law no matter what. This mom makes me laugh and reminds me that all drama moms don’t have to have evil hidden motives.
#3 Twenty Again
Sometimes being a good mom means making changes in your life that will improve yourself. These changes trickle down to your family and changes everything for the better. Nowhere do we see this better than in the drama Twenty Again. A mom goes back to college to finally find her own dreams after dedicating 20 years to her child. Nothing says “I Love You” more than being happy in all aspects of your life.
#2 Gods Gift : 14 days
You know you are a dedicated mom when you are willing to fight serial killers, horrible husbands, and time itself in order to save your child. This is what we see in God’s Gift: 14 Days. It also helps when you have an amazing actress playing the time traveling mom. I consider this one of Lee BoYoung’s best performances to date.
#1 Reply 1988
The Reply series is known for several things. One of the main concepts is that of loving strong parents. And in Reply 1988 we got not only one awesome mom but three. These ladies are perfect examples of what all moms should hope to achieve. They love their families, their neighborhood, and each other. They are literally the backbone of this awesome drama which is why they are #1 in my books.
Woot! That concludes our special Mother’s Day Edition. Do you have your own favorite kdrama mama? Be sure to let us know which awesome moms we missed.
Til next time,
Kmuse
Agreed that many mothers in dramas are terrible (the demon moms in Boys Over Flowers and Secret Garden). The good ones can get killed off (I Hear Your Voice – I still haven’t forgiven the writers) or aren’t the focus of the story (Reply 1997, Kill Me Heal Me). There are good single moms (Last Scandal of my Life, Punch). But I remember most vividly the women who mother someone not her own child. The first of these is Lady Choi, who watched out for and advised her nephew, the leader of the king’s guard (Faith). My favorite are the women who you watch getting to know and slowly care about children that come into their orbits. In two stories that were nearly ruined by the-return-of-the-not-dead-wife (Prime Minister and I, Blade Man) the lead ladies connected in a tender way with children who had lost their mothers. A woman in Bad Family was the fake mom to the little girl whose real mother was killed in a wreck. Watch as she takes responsibility for that little girl. The latest is Ok Da Jung (Ms. Temper), who first shows sympathy and then a kind of hard-line support for the little boy who lives across the hall. These kinds of women all deserve recognition on Mothers Day.
Sassy go go/cheer up had a wonderful supportive mom. Eun Do and mom’s relationship was one of my favorite part of the drama.