When I was a kid, I wanted to be a single mom. I assumed I would be a single mom. I didn’t know how I would get kids (that came later), but I knew I wanted to live on my own with them and run my own show because my mom was a single mom who made it look fun to me. I liked the stories she told about herself as a single mom. I liked that people thought she was brave and independent.
I did, in fact, become a single mom of four boys, many years after my mother married and left the club. And I was still looking for representation of the kind of mom I was hoping to be. Brave, independent. Maybe a bit funny and cool if at all possible. And so, my search for the most relatable single moms on film began.
We’ve come a long way since Stella Dallas and Mildred Pierce, two mid-century movies about single motherhood that saw us depicted as sort of hard and broken and doomed. And I’ll be honest with you, I have plenty of days where I might feel hard and broken and doomed. But there’s so much more nuance to single motherhood — something I’m happy to report I’ve seen played out in these 11 movies.
J.C. in Baby Boom
Ambitious career gal J.C. Wiatt (Diane Keaton) might not seem like the obvious choice for a super relatable single mom in the 1987 movie Baby Boom. Especially since J.C. does not want children and is instead hyper-focused on her marketing career (because back then, it was always one or the other, apparently). Then her cousin dies, and she inherits a baby girl, sweet little Elizabeth — a little girl her boyfriend does not want, and at first, J.C. doesn’t think she wants her either.
Then, one night, Elizabeth has a fever. The two of them stay up all night, and in the quiet of the early morning, it happens. J.C. is exhausted, overwhelmed, worried, but most of all… she’s a mom. As hard as it gets for J.C. throughout the movie, when they move to the cutest farmhouse you’ve ever seen and she starts falling in love with the local veterinarian (Sam Shepard), J.C. gets real, deep joy from Elizabeth. She talks to her like her little best friend, and this felt so very real to me.
Making millions of dollars on jarred applesauce, less so. But still, we’ll take it.
Stream Baby Boom on Amazon Prime Video.
Amelia in The Babadook
Essie Davis’ portrayal of single mom Amelia in the horror movie The Babadook should come with a trigger warning — not just because it’s a horror movie, but also because she gets the darker days of single motherhood so right. Ameila’s husband died in a tragic car accident mere hours before her son Samuel was born, leaving her to deal with her grief along with a child she can’t quite seem to connect with.
Sam does not sleep. Ever. He doesn’t even sleep long enough for Amelia to enjoy a little private time in the bedroom by herself, which feels almost too real. Amelia is always tired and always checked out, and Sam can feel it. Her dispassion is the scariest thing in the house, including the actual monster he keeps trying to alert her to.
When you are the only adult in the house, making everything your responsibility, it can be easy to forget that there are little people who rely on you to be present. And this is what The Babadook gets horribly, depressingly, wonderfully right. Brace yourselves.
Stream The Babadook on Netflix.
Lynn in The Sixth Sense
Toni Collette’s pitch-perfect version of single mom Lynn Sear in 1999’s The Sixth Sense really culminates in one particular scene. No, it’s not the "I see dead people" thing, and it also has nothing to do with Bruce Willis’ tragic hairpiece. She should win an award for the speech she gives to her son Cole (Haley Joel Osment) when she is trying to figure out what is going on with him. She tells him, "I’m tired in my body. I’m tired in my mind. I’m tired in my heart. I need some help. You know, I don’t know if you noticed, but our little family isn’t doing so good. I mean, I’ve been praying, and I must not be praying right. It looks like we’re just going to have to answer each other’s prayers. If we can’t talk to each other, we’re not going to make it."
Single moms might understand this sentiment in a visceral way like I do— this feeling like you’re so tired and trying so hard, but ultimately, you just want your family to work. Lynn is always fiercely in her son’s corner. She’ll fight anyone who puts him in danger, even that one mean kid who locks him in a cupboard. But she’s also super honest about her struggle. And boy, did this speak to me.
Stream The Sixth Sense on Hulu.
Slim in Enough
Jennifer Lopez deserves her own special badass single mom category for several films, but it really all started with her role as Slim in the 2002 thriller Enough. Here, she plays a waitress who marries a man who seems perfect, which is always a big red flag. Although she is living a seemingly idyllic life in the suburbs with her husband Mitch (Billy Campbell), he turns out to be abusive — so much so that she has to escape with their daughter Gracie for fear that Mitch might kill her.
Lopez really shines once she decides to take matters into her own hands. She’s tired of her daughter being afraid, so she trains to fight back. And maybe being a kickboxing single mom who looks like Jennifer Lopez isn’t the most relatable, but the push to protect her kid and make a better life for the two of them on their own certainly tracks.
Rent Enough for $3.99 on YouTube. Or, for an updated version of Lopez being a bad*ss mom, see The Mother on Netflix.
Miranda in Mrs. Doubtfire
I want you to go back and rewatch Mrs. Doubtfire from 1993 as an adult, then come back and read the rest of this article. Because if you’re anything like me, you’re probably looking back and only thinking of Robin Williams’ iconic role as Euphegenia Doubtfire, aka Daniel Hillard, a recently divorced man who dresses as an English nanny so he can spend more time with his three children. He is the star of the movie; there’s no doubt about it. He’s funny, wild, sweet, and charming, always up to goof around with his kids.
But that’s precisely why his ex-wife Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) is the unsung hero of the movie. She does not have time to be fun. She is working and organizing and cleaning up messes, notably the biggest one made by a massive birthday party Daniel threw for their son, while everyone rolls their eyes at her for being a bore.
Yep, that’s just about right for single moms.
Stream Mrs. Doubtfire on Hulu.
Flor in Spanglish
Paz Vega’s portrayal of Mexican single mom Flor Moreno in Spanglish is really the best thing about the 2004 comedy Spanglish. Flor is quiet at first, working in the house of a privileged white family called the Claskys, who bring her to their beach house in Malibu for the summer along with her daughter, Cristina.
And therein lies the issue: Flor does not want her daughter to be pulled into this other world. She doesn’t want charity or pity, and she certainly doesn’t want her daughter to forget her Mexican heritage. She is trying to hold their lives together without becoming a project for this family, even challenging her boss, John (Adam Sandler), when he pays Cristina for finding the most sea glass on the beach.
If you’ve ever been broke and a single parent, you might relate to this kind of defiance. Even when help is well-intentioned, it can feel condescending.
Rent Spanglish for $3.99 on Amazon Prime.
Jane in It’s Complicated
When It’s Complicated came out in 2009, I didn’t know just how much I would relate to Jane Adler (Meryl Streep). Her youngest child has left the nest. Her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) is married to a much younger woman. She has gone through it, all of it. Now, she’s sort of figuring it out. She has a group of fun friends and is super close to all three of her adult kids. She has a bit of money to renovate her already perfect house, too, because this is a Nancy Meyers movie, and the houses are always amazing.
She’s come into her own. Yes, there’s a whole storyline about her ex-husband wanting her back and a little affair between the two of them, but you can feel that she’s only half in. All of those years of building her new little family are paying off.
So, the good news is that this is relatable for some of us who have run the gamut from The Babadook to It’s Complicated. I’m just saying.
Stream It’s Complicated on Netflix.
Gloria in Waiting to Exhale
It would be easy enough to pretend I didn’t see a little of myself in Gloria (Loretta Devine) in the 1995 classic Waiting to Exhale. Gloria is all wounded vulnerability and, yes, even a little bit desperate. Trying to get her husband to love her again, trying to hold tight to her son even as he grows up and away from her. Even as he’s casting off the idea that he is the man in her life. But the thing is, Glo might just be the most realistic of all the single moms on this list. Aspirational, even. She owns a beauty salon. She has three friends who think she’s the absolute best. And she’s not afraid to be honest about wanting love.
When she finds it with her new neighbor Marvin (Gregory Hines), I dare you not to be caught up in her beautiful fairy tale. It gets me every time.
Stream Waiting to Exhale on Hulu.
Erin in Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich is an actual real person and single mom, so I guess it makes sense that Julia Roberts was very relatable as a single mother in her Oscar-winning performance in the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich. The movie sees her tackling Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for knowingly polluting the water in a small town — despite Erin having no legal training or even a college degree, and she does all of this while trying to raise her three kids.
But it’s the small moments that really got me in this movie. Her oldest son getting mad at her when she has to miss yet another dinner for work. Her silent tears in the car when her boyfriend George (Aaron Eckhart) tells her that her baby girl said her first word while she was gone. Forgoing dinner at a restaurant and telling her kids she’s not hungry because she can’t afford all of their food.
Then, the payoff. Bringing her kids to meet the families she helped. Showing them that it’s OK to be more than their mom. This one gets me every time.
Stream Erin Brockovich on Hulu.
Halley in The Florida Project
This 2017 movie The Florida Project is a tough watch. No one is perfect, far from it. Halley is raising her incredibly precocious little girl Moonee (Brooklyn Pierce) in a budget motel in Orlando, Florida, within running distance of Walt Disney World — a place Halley has no hope of visiting with Moonee.
Calling Halley a good, involved mom would be a stretch of monumental proportions. But there are all of these poignant little scenes that really pulled at my heartstrings as a single mom. For example, Halley takes her daughter to eat at a hotel and just watches her when she knows she is about to lose her. She wants her to be happy and free. Yet, she knows she isn’t doing the right thing by her daughter, even though she desperately wants to.
She’s a different kind of single mom: the kind who doesn’t have a whole lot of help. Watching it, I could imagine how my life could have turned out oh-so differently.
Stream The Florida Project on Netflix.
Jackie but also Isabel in Stepmom
Stepmom was a movie that I could not watch in the months after my divorce. In the 1998 movie, a fairly perfect single mom of two, Jackie (Susan Sarandon), faces off against her ex-husband’s new partner, Isabel (Julia Roberts)… until she learns she has terminal cancer. Honestly, it just ended me. It also ended every other single mom I knew. Not just the deep-down terror that we would die and miss seeing our children growing up, but because of how beautifully Jackie’s relationship with her two kids is portrayed. She gets such joy from them. She doesn’t really seem to need anyone in her life but them. I think we understood that and wanted that in equal measure.
Then there’s Isabel, who tries so hard to get it right and gets foiled at every turn. She feels like a woman in the early days of single motherhood — just struggling with her kids in moments like trying to throw together a last-minute lunch or forgetting it’s purple shirt day at school.
I recently gave it another shot and am happy to report that I made it through. Stepmom is a good (albeit sad) watch and so worthwhile.
Rent Stepmom on Amazon Prime Video for $3.99.
Now that you have a solid list of some good movies about single motherhood, I want you to do something for me. The next time the kids are away on a weekend, curl up and watch a movie. Leave the laundry. Make yourself a tea. Connect with these movie single moms who are all, in their own way, super relatable. Trust me, it always made me feel less alone.
Disclaimer: This story has not been edited by us and is published as shown on Scary Mommy.
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