Earth Mother

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Like the Empress in the Tarot pack, a big hearty smiling lady who is invariably portrayed as heavily pregnant and holding a brimming cornucopia while children play at her feet, we are talking here about big homely gals who have a lot of love to give, who are generous, who are bountiful, who can make green things grow and flourish, and who want to share that love and bounty in one way or another. They want to love and support and nurture others and generally be mother. She is fertile and fecund - her sexuality can scream Big Beautiful Woman and the downside is that she can get a little cranky if she is not appreciated the way she wants to be. Scorned, she can be lethal—and god help you if you get between her and one of her babies.

If afflicted or badly aspected, can shade into the Jewish Mother or the My Beloved Smother. And bear in mind the flipside of Brawn Hilda is a vengeful Valkyrie with a very big spear.

Examples of Earth Mother include:


Anime and Manga

  • When Sailor Jupiter grows up, she will most likely be this - when she's not mowing down Mooks with incredible lightning powers. Her dream is to own either a bakery or a flower shop, and she has a protective streak a mile wide.


Literature

  • Sybil Vimes in the Discworld stories. Especially after her giving birth to Young Sam Vimes.
  • Eva Wilt in Tom Sharpe's Wilt series. A larger-than-life mother of quadruplet daughters and wife to Henry. Although she is a prime example of the cranky underappreciated kind of Earth Mother.
  • Molly Weasley in Harry Potter. It takes all of two meetings with Harry for her to welcome her into the fold and treat him like an extra son.


Live Action Television

  • Roseanne Barr, naturally.
  • Television gardener Charlie Dimmock on Ground Force. Charlie was famous for going bra-less while gardening on TV, alleging that it was more comfortable. She managed to upstage her two male co-stars in every show, especially if she wore a loose T-shirt with an open neck, and if it ever rained on their gardening tasks, she was Queen of the Wet T-Shirt on British TV. And what was generally overlooked was that she knew her gardening, too.
  • Comedienne Dawn French, especially in her nurturing Vicar of Dibley aspect.
  • Long-running sitcom The Good Life revolved around a suburban couple who give up the rat race to become completely self-sufficient. Barbara Good (Felicity Kendal) is a woman who typifies the other sort of Earth Mother - the green-fingered garden goddess who makes things grow and flourish. She nurtures her animals with love and acts as caring mother to husband Tom, an overgrown adolescent who hasn't quite made it to mature adulthood yet.