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I asked everyone for recs of books with dads, and I now want to make the same post for moms! (I was going to wait until I had had a chance to read more of the recs in the dad post -- thank you everyone!! -- but then

forestofglory had an interesting post about where all the SFF moms have gone which made me think I should go ahead and ask :) )

The rules of the game are as before: Please rec me books with moms who are important characters (important secondary character is fine, and "important" can be defined as you like -- important enough to remember a month later? :) ) and for whom parenting is an important component of their character, with kids who are older at the time of canon (I said teenager in the other post, but really I mean not babies or toddlers). They don't need to be good parents, necessarily, and they can make horrible mistakes, but they should be (relatively?) non-abusive and clearly love their kid(s). (

forestofglory's post was about SFF books, but you do not have to be limited to SFF here.)

The interesting thing is, at first I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with any, but looking at our bookshelf there seem to be more moms than dads. I strongly suspect this is a me-filtering thing, in that I tend to remember strong moms, and maybe don't remember the good dads that much? And also books that I've hung on to seem to have tended to have strong moms?

-The Broken Earth (Jemisin), Essun (arguably she falls into "abusive," but I'm gonna leave her here anyway because the books are actually partially about examining that dynamic)
-Tenar in the later Earthsea books
-Cordelia and Ekaterin in the Vorkosigan books
-Tagiri in Pastwatch (Card)
-Actually a lot of Card's stuff during what I call his "good period" -- Novinha in Speaker for the Dead, DeAnne Fletcher in Lost Boys (whom I rather imprinted on in high school, actually), Rasa in the Homecoming series
-The POV character in "Story of Your Life" (Ted Chiang)
-Dione in Throne of Isis (Judith Tarr)
-I never managed to finish the Gap series (Donaldson), but I'm pretty sure I remember Morn Hyland being a mom is a Big Thing
-Abigail Tillerman! I'm gonna go ahead and mention Liza too, because even though her actual screen time is maybe one page, I still consider her a major character in the first two books. (I guess the Professor is also a dad who is a major character in Solitary Blue, which somehow I both totally glossed over in the dad post and had to think about for a minute to come up with here ("There must be a sympathetic dad character in these books!"))
-Little Women and sequels
-Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu from the Rihannsu books (Duane)
-I believe Hild's mom is a reasonably important character but I don't remember super well (Griffith)
-Ingray's mom in Provenance (maybe? She does seem to care about Ingray, even if she has pretty terrible ways of showing it)

Honorable mentions (characters that might not completely fit my criteria but I'm gonna mention them anyway, and hey, if you have an idea that doesn't exactly fit, feel free to mention it):
-Meg Murry O'Keefe (I actually really like that she gives up being a mathematician for a while, because valid choice, but on the other hand she doesn't get a big role in the books once she becomes a mom, which is in retrospect kind of annoying)
-FMA, which has everything else, doesn't have an important living mom of a non-small-child unless you count Mrs. Bradley, which maybe I should because what she lacks in screen time she makes up by being totally awesome, although Selim... probably... counts as a small child
-The Connie Willis story "And Come from Miles Around" has a mom whose kid is a toddler, but I mention it anyway because it is my favorite SF story (possibly the only story) about a stay-at-home-mom saving the day
-Selenay in the Valdemar books, although I can't remember how old Elspeth was at the time of the books... I seem to remember she was older than she was acting, though

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Amelia Peabody in the Amelia Peabody series (Elizabeth Peters).

Ah! I have a friend who I know has a bunch of those on her bookshelf. Will investigate further :)

The child is non-existent at the beginning of the series, and then he's a small child, but he grows up. :) Amelia and her husband also acquire another series-important child later at about age 12, IIRC.

Elspeth started out as... 8ish, I want to say? But maybe she was a bit older than that. Anyway, she's adult in later books when Selenay is still around, even if she spends much of that time away from home.

I would also suggest:

In Diane Duane's Young Wizards books, Nita Callahan's parents are both significant supporting characters for the first few. Then her mother dies (of cancer), but she's a significant character throughout that and in memory later.

Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. Okay, the characters would refer to themselves as godmothers, IIRC, and are careful not to claim the place of Rosie's birth mother (since they're raising her in hiding to protect her), but... they raise her from infancy to a teenager. They're her adoptive mothers in every way that matters, really.

As mentioned on forestofglory's post, Catelyn Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire certainly qualifies. Cersei Lannister... um... technically non-abusive? certainly loves her kids? but not really a role model.

Copying over my comment from there:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Lady Jessica in Dune, one of the most powerful and significant SF/F mothers of all time.

In Jane Yolen's Great Alta books and Tanya Huff's Quarters books, the heroine of an earlier book has a child who grows up to be a protagonist in a later book. The earlier heroines do fade into the background a bit once they become mothers, but they're there and significant.

I don't exactly recommend David and Leigh Eddings's Belgariad/Malloreon series, but Polgara is actually a pretty great mother figure (she's technically the hero's many-times-great-aunt but raises him from a baby) and her mother, Poledra, is a significant side character in later books. The series heroine, Ce'Nedra, becomes a mother between series one and series two, but her child is a baby/toddler for all of series two and is also kidnapped very early on, so we don't see her being maternal in any real way.

Ygrawn in Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Arthur books definitely deserves a mention.

Toll in James K. Schmitz's The Witches of Karres is the mother of the titular witches, and doesn't show up much but is terrific when she's there. (She is an almighty good witch.)

I realize there aren't any recent books on the list... I will keep pondering.

On the non-SF/F front, Marilyn Pappano's A Man to Hold on To, a contemporary romance, has a widowed heroine with teen stepkids who's absolutely wonderful. The book is very much about what it means to be a mother—the kids' bio mom basically doesn't want them, and Therese has to step up for them even when they push her away. A real tearjerker, like most of Pappano's books.

I'm not going to get further into women's fiction and contemporary romance because mothers abound there!

Patricia C Wrede’s Caught in Crystal and Brandon Sanderson’s Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (novella) both feature widowed single mothers who are innkeepers and who are forced by circumstances to bring their older kids along on dangerous adventures. (They are otherwise very different works.)

Thanks for the link! I haven't read a couple of these so I will look into them and also keep an eye on the comments here.

Also I'd recommend The Natural History of Dragons books, Isabella does start out as a mom but once her kid is born she has to deal with being a mom and and scientist and it's really well handled. Also Records of a Space Born Few has two viewpoint characters who are moms. It's the thrid book in a serries but stands alone. Oh and Jo Walton's Lifelode, which is kinda hard to find has a serval great mom characters and lots of housework.

I seem to recall Pa Ingalls getting a mention, so Ma Ingalls should.

Not a biological mom, but Marilla Cuthbert really develops into an amazing one in Anne of Green Gables (she's kind of like McGonagall in that she appears strict at first but is actually a big softy and has a dry sense of humor). Watching the new adaptation now and crying a lot.

Ah, I really like families that persist and grow during series :)

Right, Nita Callahan's parents!

ase even brought up her dad on the last post and I didn't think to put her in here. *slaps forehead*

Oh, Spindle's End! It's been a long time since I've read it, long enough that I've forgotten pretty much everything in it, which means it must be time for another reread :D

Haha, Cersei! Yep, she qualifies, although I can see why I didn't come up with her. Should have come up with Catelyn Stark, though. And OH, Lady Jessica! I have Dune right on my shelf, too. YES.

I totally smiled to see Ygrawn's name here! And Emer, while she's a relatively minor character, is certainly pretty great.

I... don't know anything about Pappano! That sounds rather great.

Yeah, I know, a lot of mine were older books too, which I found a little odd/concerning.

HUH. I know I bought Caught in Crystal a long long time ago and never actually got around to reading it, despite having liked other Wrede books. I should see whether it's still around somewhere!

Ah! Yes, I've read the first Natural History of Dragons and I should have realized! Neat, I will have to pick up the second one.

Wow, I went looking up Lifelode and yeah, that looks hard to find, which is too bad because your mention of housework intrigued me :)

I even THOUGHT about her and somehow she didn't make it to the post, poor Ma. So thanks :) (And she totally gets a mention, gosh, she had to put up with a lot.)

Which also reminds me of Katie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was also brought up in the previous post :)

yessssss Marilla and Matthew!! <3

I've been rereading Spindle's End, and Aunt and Katriona, while not biological mothers, raise Rose, and there's a lot of emphasis on parenting.

Matthew reminds me of my paternal grandfather

genarti mentioned that too! I've read it, but so long ago that I literally remember nothing about it -- time to pick it back up again, clearly :)

Iza in Clan of the Cave Bear! (No italics because I'm on my phone.)

Aw! That's lovely. (And I forgot to say, adoptive parents TOTALLY COUNT. ABSOLUTELY.)

Did you ever pick up A String in the Harp? Curious what you thought.

Ellen and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.

The Signature of All Things has a prominent mom and dad in the first half or so.

Caroline by Sarah Miller is Little House on the Prairie (book, not series) from Ma's perspective.

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