For Mother’s Day: June Cleaver is the Television Mom Americans Would Have Liked to Have Growing Up

Growing up, who didn’t, at one point or another, look at their television and think to themselves, "wow, I wish my mom was that cool"? The top mom that Americans would like to have had when they were growing up harkens back to the "simpler" days of the 1950s. The Beaver’s mom, June Cleaver of Leave it to Beaver tops the list. Coming in at number two is Claire Huxtable, from The Cosby Show. In at number three is the lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls, Carol Brady of The Brady Bunch. Rounding out the top five television moms are Fonzie’s favorite, Marion "Mrs. C" Cunningham of Happy Days and Donna Stone of The Donna Reed Show.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,529 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive^® between April 7 and 15, 2008.

Another fifties icon, Harriet Nelson of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet comes in at number six while the mom who always had some explaining to do to Ricky, Lucy Ricardo of I Love Lucy, is number seven. Tied for number 8 are three more modern moms – the blue-collar Roseanne Connor of Roseanne; the mom as best friend, or Lorelei Gilmore of Gilmore Girls; and the ever-suffering Bart’s mom, Marge Simpson of The Simpsons.

Different groups all have their favorite moms. First, men prefer the fifties mom of June Cleaver, while women go more for the take charge lawyer of Claire Huxtable. Looking at this by race and ethnicity, Whites prefer June Cleaver while both African Americans and Hispanics have Claire Huxtable as their top mom. There are also differences by generation. Both Baby Boomers (those aged 44-62) and Matures (those aged 63+) have June Cleaver as number one. Gen Xers (those aged 32-43) go for 1970’s icon Carol Brady while the Echo Boomers (those aged 18-31) say Lorelei Gilmore is the television mom they wished they had.

While the Obama/Clinton/McCain fight continues, maybe television moms can broker some bipartisanship? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Republicans claim Carol Brady as their favorite while Democrats cite Claire Huxtable and Independents say June Cleaver is the mom they would have wanted growing up.

When it comes to their own moms, just under half (48%) of those whose mothers are alive will send cards for Mother’s Day while 47 percent will buy their moms a present and the same number will call their moms. Three in ten (29%) will take their moms to lunch of dinner while one-quarter (26%) will buy or send their moms flowers. Further down the list, one in ten (10%) will cook for their moms while 2 percent will take them to a museum, show or event and 5 percent say they will do nothing for their moms.

Men and women do different things for their mothers. Over half of women (53%) will buy their moms a present compared to two in five men (41%) who will do so. Half of men (49%) will call their moms as will 45 percent of women.

"Thinking of television mothers, who would you most like to have had as a mom when you were growing up?"

Base: All adults

"=" prior to a number indicates a tie

"What will you do for your mom on Mother’s Day?"

Base: Mothers are alive

Note: Multiple responses allowed

This Harris Poll^® was conducted online within the United States April 7 and 15, 2008, among 2,529 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

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