It’s no wonder Friday Night Lights‘ Tami Taylor has become a role model for fans. She’s such a great mom even her kids’ friends seek her out for advice. And of course, the coach’s wife always knows the right thing to say.
Related: Hollywood’s Most Controversial Moms
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The pearls! The aprons! The cookies! Leave It to Beaver's June Cleaver is the ultimate TV mom — always ready with a glass of milk, fresh-baked treats and a kind word. But she's no pushover; one look from her, and her rambunctious sons know she means business.
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Sure, she had a wee drinking problem, but O.C. mom Kirsten Cohen also has a big heart. When her bleeding-heart hubby brings home the delinquent Ryan, she treats him as one of her own.
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With her sarcastic one-liners, Modern Family's control-freak Claire Dunphy is deadpan hilarious as she wrangles her four kids (we're counting her man-child hubby Phil). And her rival—and stepmom!—fiesty bombshell Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Vergara) makes smothering look fun.
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An ex-hippie with a Reagan-loving son and a dim-bulb daughter (not to mention a cutie-pie toddler), Family Ties' Elyse Keaton is the queen of the heart-to-heart. Besides, she and her husband Steven (Michael Gross) still seem to have the hots for each other!
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If only the Teen Moms could grow up this well! Independent, funny and incredibly close to daughter Rory, Gilmore Girls' Lorelai Gilmore is the ultimate cool mom. The one you can tell anything to—then raid her closet!
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Who wouldn't want Clair Huxtable as a mom? Warm, wise and beautiful, with a sly sense of humor, The Cosby Show's mom also brings home the bacon as one of TV's first working mothers.
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Why call it Brothers & Sisters? It should be called Mom. As the widowed head of her big family, Nora Walker gets in everyone's business and never seems happier than when her brood is around her table hoisting glasses of wine.
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Is there anything Carmela's lasagna couldn't fix? The original Mob wife, the Sopranos leading lady is the quintessential Italian mama—as apt to push food on her spoiled suburban kids as to give them a smack.
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Here's the story of a lovely lady… With her perma-smile and trademark shag, the Brady Bunch's matriarch presides over her mixed brood of six with a sunniness that's made her family the American ideal.
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She puts the fun in dysfunction! Crass, but caring, Roseanne's blue-collar mom mixes tough love with common sense—and fart jokes!—while keeping the financially stretched Connor family afloat.
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Calm and nurturing for both her temperamental teen daughter and autistic son, Parenthood's Kristine Braverman seems to have bottomless reserves of love. On a show full of moms, she's by far the best. A cancer scare made sure her family knows it.
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Married...With Children's Peggy Bundy made matrimony and motherhood look like a stroll through the mall. As mom to two wisecracking teens, she was a housewife who rarely did any housework. Still, her maternal side was evident every time she hobbled over on her high heels to dole out hugs to her kids (and buffoon of a husband).
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She's anything but a sweet little old lady. Good with a zinger, the Golden Girls' golden girl, is the tart-tongued mom you've got to love. Only this lady could tell her grown daughter, "You're just too competetive. It's always been your worst feature. No, wait. Your ears are your worst feature!"
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Her kids are far from perfect (hello, teen pregnancy!), but wisecracking Reba takes everything—including her ex-husband's new, much-younger wife—in stride.
