Team Mom

aka: Team Mum

Who said you need to be over 18 to act like a mother?

Janeway: I'm not a parent!
Q: Maybe not in the biological sense, but you're certainly a mommy to this crew. Just look how quickly you housebroke that Borg drone.

— Star Trek: Voyager, "Q2"

In an ensemble show, especially of the fighting kind, there needs to be someone to hold this Ragtag Bunch of Misfits together before they kill each other or wander off into the woods like so many Player Characters. The Team Mom basically acts as the mother figure for everyone else in the group, regardless of age or family relations. Although the role itself is traditionally female, the overprotective dad or older brother can qualify for Team Mom, and the same goes for a Cool Big Sis who grows Older and Wiser. In many cases, she actually is a parent or older sibling to at least one other character.

Not always The Leader in action or adventure, but the leader The Team needs in everyday life and practical matters. Quells fights, makes sure everyone cleans behind their ears and eats their greens. Can be pretty bossy. Usually, they're gentle, cute, kind, and capable of stern mothering (or papaing, even).

Often enough, they're The Medic or The Heart. May be a Nice Girl, White Magician Girl, or All-Loving Hero. If they're a literal mom and a more physical fighter, might be an Action Mom. They are by definition never the loner, and will in fact tend to be the one who pulls them into the cast's orbit as a Sixth Ranger. If anyone can break through and bring about a Heel–Face Turn or Cooldown Hug, it's them.

While they tend to be less combat capable than their teammates, Beware the Nice Ones most definitely applies; if any of their surrogate children or siblings are threatened, they can snap into angry Mama Bear mode and kick some ass. Their absence (be it emotional or physical) will most certainly put the team on edge as their ability to function as, well, a team, comes into jeopardy. Thus these instances serve as a reminder of their value when the team grows complacent. And by the way? Villains should NOT threaten or harm them. Ever. Her family will not be pleased.

She may have to engage in, or on rare occasions be the recipient of, Familial Chiding.

The Team Mom is frequently shipped with the Team Dad, for obvious reasons.

See also the aforementioned Team Dad, a role that tends to take a slightly stricter, more disciplinary approach. If these two frequently work together, they serve as the Designated Parents. The high school counterpart is the Cute Sports Club Manager. Related to The Face. Compare and contrast Cool Big Sis, Morality Pet. See also Only Sane Man, Only Sane Employee, Harem Nanny, Promotion to Parent, A Father to His Men, Team Kids, and Apron Matron. May be the person holding the Morality Chain. They often use The "Mom" Voice.

Not to be confused with the MTV show Teen Mom.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• BanG Dream!:
  • Lisa Imai makes almost everyone, other than Yukina, into the Team Kids, but in her own band, Roselia, there's Ako, Rinko, and Sayo. She also tends to look out for Afterglow's members, as they all attend her school, she works with Moca, and Afterglow doesn't actually have a Team Mom, with Tsugumi, The Reliable One, also serving as The Baby of the Bunch, though Tomoe does serve as a Cool Big Sis to her band.
  • Poppin' Party's drummer, Saaya Yamabuki, has her hands full with Tae, Kasumi, and Rimi. She also looks out for Moca of Afterglow, who's probably the best customer Yamabuki Bakery has.
• Farnese from Berserk. She's Casca's caretaker and has a willingness to take care of everyone's basic needs in Guts' team.
• Dragon Lady Shenhua from Black Lagoon acts as this to her teammates Sawyer the Cleaner and Lotton the Wizard, even letting them live with her.
• Captain Retsu Unohana from Bleach, among the Shinigami, though she's really not less combat-capable than others. Kon lampshades the trope when he refers to her as "okaasan", aka "mom".
  • There's also a subversion in the Kurosaki family, where the one handling the housework and keeping the family fed and well taken care of is actually an eleven-year-old girl, Ichigo's little sister Yuzu.
  • We also have a villainous example in the Third Espada Tia Harribel, who seems to have a quite close relationship with her all female Fraccion.
• Rin Okumura from Blue Exorcist, of all people is this to the rest of the cram students. He acts an emotional pillar for them, sometimes cooks meals for them, will go ballistic if they are attacked, and is surprisingly one of the more even-tempered members.
• Shizuka from Boys over Flowers seems to have formerly filled this role for the F4, and her absence may have something to do with the extreme levels of jerkassery they've fallen to by the beginning of the series.
• A male example occurs in Brave10 with Rokuro. He's always keeping everyone in tea and in line (often forcefully), but always remaining rational and occasionally offering a pep talk to those who need them in his own way. Naturally, he gets along easily with Kakei, the Team Dad, as both are relatively orthodox people in a cast of eccentrics.
• Sanae Nakazawa, Yukari Nishimoto, Yayoi Aoba, Yoshiko Fujisawa, Machiko Machida and (in the videogames) Youko Katagiri from Captain Tsubasa. Justified trope since they're all the managers of their respective teams, so they're literally the team moms. Kumi Sugimoto is an exception: she's an assistant too, but doesn't fill in since she's actually a newbie to the sport.
  • Also, Tsubasa's mother Natsuko (specially in the first tournament arc) and Hyuga's manager Kaori Matsumoto.
• In Cowboy Bebop, Jet Black is an odd masculine Cool Old Guy male version of this trope. Though he has plenty of badass moments, he is very much the Team Mom in domestic concerns aboard the Bebop, especially when it comes to feeding the crew. He's also a good example of a Team Dad as well, particularly when it comes to Spike and Faye. This is at least in part due to a truly massive lack of competition for the job. Who else is going to do it? Spike? Faye? Ed?! The second most responsible person on the crew is probably Ein, and he's a dog.
• Francoise Arnoul aka 003 of Cyborg 009, more in the 2001 adaptation than the others. Not only she takes care of baby Ivan/001 as if he was either her child or baby brother and aids Dr. Gilmore when he's gotta take care of the others, but at some point she talks to a disgruntled Jet/002 as if she was lecturing a whiny kid, despite them being the same age (they were both made cyborgs when they were teenagers). Lampshaded in a 2001 episode where she's kidnapped by a supercomputer with huge Mommy Issues, and one of the reasons behind that is speculated to be Francoise's motherly behavior.
• Sora Takenouchi from Digimon Adventure falls into this rather frequently. In episode 26, she had a nervous breakdown about how she feels like she couldn't live up to everyone's expectations of her achieving this role. In that same episode, T.K. tells Sora with her around he doesn't miss his mother as much.
• Nanako Misonoo from Dear Brother comes as this once in a while, specially when Kaoru has a fit of pain and Nanako first gets her medicines, then takes care of her. (And she slaps Rei for not really helping her at first, too.)
• Dragon Ball:
  • Launch/Lunch, in her darker (or blue) haired form, was easily this for Goku and Kuririn/Krillin in the early series, being motherly and affectionate and the one who did the cooking at Kami house. She apparently taught Goku numbers so he could figure out his age in the World Tournament(in the dub, at least). This naturally contrasts with her aggressive blonde form who has a Hair-Trigger Temper and only feeds her friends bullets.
  • Actual moms Chi-Chi and Blooma/Bulma generally juggle between this depending on the situation. In the anime and non-serial movies Chi-Chi is mainly the one who keeps the heroes in line and even personally makes sure Cowardly Lion Kuririn/Krillin gets his ass into gear and flies to battlefield in Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13!. In the manga Blooma/Bulma has more moments of this, having not only bathed Goku herself but is the one frequently trying to talk sense into the Dragon Team in the Android Saga.
• EDENS ZERO: Witch Regret of the Four Shining Stars has a kind and motherly nature that allows her to bring comfort to her crewmates during hard times, and goes into full Mama Bear mode when anyone threatens her beloved "family". This gets lampshaded during the Nero 66 arc, where Rebecca calls Witch the crew's mom and Shiki dubbing her the "Mother of Edens" while honoring her along with those who died in the battle. This takes up another meaning in the final arc where flashbacks from when Witch and her fellow Shining Stars were humans implies that she may be the mother of the protagonist Shiki Granbell, which is finally confirmed in chapter 273 by Mother.
• Yuka, Kouta's cousin from Elfen Lied. Lampshaded in the anime, where she's sometimes referred to as the "mother" of the group. Even more when she and Kouta are given custody of Mayu, making her the girl's adoptive mother.
• Mamori Anezaki from Eyeshield 21. She even manages to (sort of) mother Hiruma, machine guns and all. What's more, her affection for Sena is explicitly maternal in nature.
• Fern of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is a stoic Nice Girl who reins in the rest of the party, especially her adoptive mother Frieren who's an elf with Immortal Immaturity.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Tohru Honda is a traditional example, who heals and held the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits together with the Power of Love.
  • Kyoko Honda nee Katsunuma is a rare loner example, who recruits quite the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, including her own daughter after her husband, Katsuya, healed her with the Power of Love.
• Namiko of GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class— Lampshaded by her version of the ending that said she practically "mothers" the others.
• Colonel Volcott from Galaxy Angel takes on this role even though he's a guy. Since it's played for comedy, he completely fails at being a Team Mom, and ends up being more of a 'team maid' doing all the menial chores.
• In Great Pretender, Cynthia is the nicest member of Team Confidence, and is often kind to Makoto. Even in her Pola Dickens personality, she tries her best to be kind and understanding with him before he knows who she is.
• Reki from Haibane Renmei, whose job is to look after the children of Old Home, still acts as the de facto leader and voice of reason within her group, and while somewhat gloomy and sarcastic, is generally seen as kind and reliable. Her reasoning for this, however, is the conflict that drives the later episodes.
• Haikyuu!! has at least two confirmed male Team Moms:
  • Koushi Sugawara is the vice-captain and motherly counterpart to Team Dad Daichi Sawamura. He is known for being Karasuno's nicest player and is very caring and soothing. He is one of the rare people able to calm Kageyama down and tends to invigorate his teammates when he enters the court, earning the nickname "Mr. Refreshing", courtesy of Oikawa.
  • Morisuke Yaku is Nekoma's mom friend, chastising and pushing his teammates further, but also caring a lot about their well-being. For instance, Yaku teared up when he saw Kenma quickly befriending Hinata.
  • Keiji Akaashi could also qualify with the way he became an expert in dealing with Bokuto's mood swings.
• Haruhi Suzumiya takes up the role from time to time. Like when she takes care of Kyon after he falls off a cliff during the Mystery Murder, plays with Kyon's little sister and other kids, stays by Kyon's bedside for three days when he's hospitalized during Disappearance or watches over the sick Yuki in the beginning of Volume 10.
• Hellsing's Integra acts this way sometimes in the manga, in particular as contrast to "Team Dad" Alucard in their guidance of Seras Victoria. While he tries to be harsh, lying down the rules and teaching her practical matters in his twisted way, Integra nurtures her in own way, gives Cool Down Hugs and feeds her (via her own blood) with more diplomacy. At the epilogue, she chides at her like a mother would to a naughty child.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • Male example: Antonio/Spain, who raises Lovino/South Italy almost on his own.
  • Elizaveta/Hungary (who starts as Feliciano/North Italy's Cool Big Sis and is promoted to Team Mom when she marries Team Dad Roderich/Austria)
  • Ukraine is less lucky since her younger siblings are both Yanderes, but seems to do fine with Poland.
  • China is the Team Mom of the Allies, trying to remain as the Only Sane Man as they all struggle. This goes double in regards to the Asians since he often tries to give them advice or assert some authority over them... only for them, save for Korea, to see him as overbearing and nagging instead.
  • The Team Mom of the Nordics is Sweden: he's levelheaded, serious, good at woodcrafts, and has even adopted two child micronations (Sealand and Ladonia).
  • Among the Nyotalia girls, female!England seems to fit in here. Not only she's seen wearing a World War II nurse uniform and carrying a broom in official art, when Estonia meets the Nyotalias she stops female!America from hitting him in a manner that resembles like a mother or caretaker scolding a naughty kid.
• Rias Gremory from High School D×D acts as this for her demon peerage. She regularly gives out motherly hugs, tells them how proud she is of them, and even scolds them on occasion. Not to mention that she will go berserk if her enemies disparage or threaten them. Azazel even calls her out at one point for coddling them too much. And that's all in spite of the fact that most of them are her competition for Issei's affections.
• Hozuki's Coolheadedness: Shikimi, a chief of staff of one of Hell's kings like Hozuki, has such a sweet and loving personality that her subordinates remark that she makes them want to call her "Mom". Visitors to the office express the same connection. Her "Mom-ness" goes so far that when someone is confirmed to be lying in her judge's court, the immediate punishment is 100 spankings on the butt administered by Shikimi.
  Hozuki: She's one tough mama of a chief of staff.
• Kagome Higurashi in Inuyasha. As The Lancer in the Five-Man Band, she keeps The Hero in line ("SIT, BOY!"), acts like the Tagalong Kid's Parental Substitute, offers The Big Girl moral support and ships her with The Smart Guy.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind gives us a male example in Bruno Bucciarati, a man with a habit of recruiting wayward teenagers to the familia to get them off the streets. He treats them as his children more than subordinates, encouraging them to make the best decisions for themselves and defending them fiercely in fights. It's especially prominent with Narancia, who initially wanted to join the gang after Bruno paid his hospital bills... and immediately got shot down, being told he's too young and that he needs to go home and get his ass back in school.
• Almost every Clan in K has male ones.
  • Kuroh for Hakumaitou, who sits the others down and starts cooking for them, even while he's still trying to kill them, and keeps making lunch for them (leading to Shiro's comment that Kuroh is his wife).
  • Kusanagi for HOMRA, the one who makes all of the plans for the group, holds them all together, and knows exactly how to manage them emotionally (like in season 1 episode, 3, when he knows just what to tell Misaki and Rikio to get them to focus on the task and not worry about Mikoto).
  • Iwafune for Jungle - he cooks for the group, keeps them playing nice with each other, and is definitely like a father to Nagare, the Green King.
• In the anime Kamigami no Asobi, Kusanagi Yui acts as this for the group of gods from different pantheons. She tries to make them all get along with each other and deals with their shenanigans patiently. She comforts them when they are feeling down and defends them when they get in trouble. She is ultimately The Heart that ties them together.
• Nozomi in Love Live! - she is the one who gets the team together, guiding all of the members into realizing they want to be in the group, and she cares for them emotionally after they're all assembled as well. She also picked the name of the group - there are nine muses, and the cards told her there would be nine members.
  • Dia from the Sequel Series, Love Live! Sunshine!! - she is initially an Obstructive Bureaucrat because she wants to protect the new wannabe school idols from the harsh reality surrounding the Love Live and at the same time, subtly guiding them on what they actually need to compete such as a composer and sufficient club members. After the club officially formed, she continued supporting them in the background through words and actions such as turning on the generators in Episode 3 and comforting them after their Tokyo performance. After she joined the club, she becomes more of an Apron Matron.
  • In Sunshine Kanan also fits, as she's a selfless Nice Girl who looks after everyone's well-being even to the point she ignores her own feelings to do so. She's also a Cool Big Sis to Chika, You and later even Riko, who admire her maturity and see her as kind of a role model. Kanan is typically kind and mature, and in turn looks after them and offers advice much like a real older sister; her Big Sister Instinct indeed is displayed to the younger members, mostly to the second year trio in general, but she's especially protective of Chika, whom she outright considers a younger sister of hers, also preventing her from performing the special routine the third years originally devised years ago, as not only is it difficult to pull off, it could risk injuring her or worse.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • The Yagami Family has two Team Moms. Within the Wolkenritter there's Shamal, who performs the most overtly feminine tasks of the group (support spells, food shopping [but not cooking], and her main hobby is gossiping among the neighborhood housewives). Hayate meanwhile serves as one for the Yagami family as a whole, and outright referred to the Wolkenritter as her children even back when she was nine.
  • Lindy pulls double duty as both this and the Big Good in both the first season and A's, though it's more pronounced in the latter. Considering that she actually is a mother and all of the important characters serving under her are children, it's understandable that she'd naturally fall into the role. Incidentally, out of the six aforementioned children serving under her, only one of them doesn't become her actual child (whether by birth, marriage, or adoption) by the time of StrikerS.
  • This is a running gag with Victoria in in the ViVid Life Yonkoma, where her friends will often refer to her as having a very motherly personality. It's even a plot point in the second ViVid Strike! OVA, where she's the only one whose able to get close to Rinne for this very reason (that, and she's the only competitor who is Rinne's social equal).
• Mahou Shoujo No Kareinaru Yosei: Shijima Reimei is the youngest of the girls in her dorm, being fourteen when her dormmates, rendered The Ageless by being retired magical girls, range from the mid-30s to a full millenium. However, the elder magical girls are drunken, voyeuristic, and/or Hikkikomori layabouts who live off cup ramen and don't do a bit of actual cleaning for themselves. When Shijima takes it upon herself to fulfill these tasks, and in the process learns how to corral her unruly seniors, the other girls start calling her "Shijimama". This extends to other characters who see her in action, such as her school friends Hairi and Nanahoshi and the school principal Noix.
• The Mobile Suit Gundam series, either from the Universal Century continuity or the numerous AU series, seem to REALLY love to apply this trope to their girls:
  • In the original Mobile Suit Gundam, we have both White Base helmswoman Mirai Yashima and Lieutenant Matilda Ajan. Mirai's place as Team Mom is acknowledged in canon when Ace Pilot Sleggar tells Cameron Bloom that he should respect Mirai's wishes, since she's the mother of the White Base and is confirmed when she gets involved with Bright, the Team Dad. Frau Bow also was a bit of a Team Mom, though younger and more childish than the other two.
  • Princess Marina Ismail, emphasized when she mothers a bunch of kids who are refugees from her destroyed Kingdom
• My Hero Academia:
  • Momo Yaoyorozu, overlaps between this and Cool Big Sis being the most mature of the Class-A girls she effortlessly gives supportive encouragement and care to her peers (especially to the other girls like Jiro) despite the perversion of Mineta or the douchery of Bakuro.
  • To a lesser extent Ochaco Uraraka is this for her team, specifically during the Cavalry Battle Arc. She’s was the first first to notice when the usually collected Tsuyu Asui was upset and readily gives support to Tenya Ida and Midoriya (although she has a crush on the latter).
  • Surprisingly as seen in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Dressed Like a Dominatrix Nemuri Kayama aka Midnight actually has shades of this in her civilian persona, giving motherly support to others like Pop☆Step and Hina despite the latter being a villain.
• NANA: Nana "Hachi" Komatsu, who is usually the childish one in most of her relationships, is actually quite motherly towards the members of Blast (with the exception of Yasu, who is this type of character too), even before she finds out she's pregnant. Afterwards, it only increases especially in regard to her taking care of Nana O. after Ren's death. Shin even starts referring to her as his mother.
• Naruto:
  • Tsunade isn't just Team Mom for the titular character and his allies, Tsunade is the Team Mom for all of Konohagakure (Leaf Village) during her time as Hokage and she also manages to be Team Mom for other Kages.
  • Kurenai is a literal Team Mom for Team 8. She even adopted Hinata when her Abusive Parents kicked her out of the Hyūga family.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Chisame fills the role in the Magic World Arc, making sure everybody stays on track and keeping the more Cloud Cuckoo Lander characters in check.
• Nami of One Piece, although she's a particularly selfish example, she's still the most responsible of the early crew. This ends when Robin pretty much takes over the role of Team Mom over time, even managing to mother Nami herself.
  • Word of God confirms this, saying that in regards to family dynamic, Robin is this (which gives some interesting perspective to the mild Ship Tease with Franky, who Eiichiro Oda said was the Team Dad of the Straw Hats prior to Jimbei taking that role from him.)
• Ouran High School Host Club: Kyoya is dubbed Team Mom by self-proclaimed Team Dad Tamaki, and Tamaki ups this a notch by addressing Kyoya as "Mom" or "Mommy" quite frequently. Technically, however, Tamaki is more of the Team Mom, while Kyoya is the Team Dad.
• Penguindrum: Shouma Takakura is a Supreme Chef and often does the household chores, making him the perfect House Husband. Himari lampshades this in the last episode when she comments that after their parents disappeared, Shouma pretty much took on the role of their mother.; even more, Kanba and Himari also refer to him as a Yamato Nadeshiko, aka the pérfect Japanese wife.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Brock, as the Supreme Team Chef, mediator, and voice of reason (at least, until a pretty girl shows up).
  • Dawn's Togekiss looks to be one of these too, which is Lampshaded when she looks after Piplup as if it were, well, a little chick. Played terribly straight in the final episode of the DP saga, when she comforts Pikachu and Piplup as they cry uncontrollably because Ash and Pikachu have to go back to Kanto.
  • In BW, we have Ash's Snivy, who seems to have taken up guiding the more childish Pokemon in the group as its calling. Shown in BW 57, when it has to save Axew and Scraggy after they accidentally enrage a wild Garbodor in the middle of the night.
  • For the Sun and Moon saga, Mallow is the one who takes up this role as she's always looking out for the other characters, especially Lillie and Lana.
• Go, the Knight of Fire in Prétear takes on the Team Mom role for the Leafe Knights. He's not the team leader, but he's the one consistently making sure that the three child knights (and magical girl Himeno) are fed, napped, and kept out of trouble. Even the more important main knights defer to Go when it comes to field calls for the kids. By the end of the series, Go (sends the kids away from the main battle so that some remnant of the Knights will survive to carry on the fight.)
• The Prince of Tennis:
  • Oishi Shuichiro: Vice-captain of Seigaku's tennis team, he is often nicknamed "Mother Hen of Seigaku" by his teammates for his motherly nature. In the parody where the teammates are portrayed as a large extended family, he's the mother.
  • Jackal Kuwahara from Rikkai also is the Team Mom. More specifically, he's often asked to take care of his Bratty Half-Pint kouhai Akaya Kirihara.
• Lussuria of Reborn! (2004) refers to himself as the "Mommy" of the Varia, so much so that his underlings actually call him "big sis".
• Rebuild World: The Friendly Shop Keeper Shizuka is this for Elena, Sara, and especially Akira, who she’s like a mix of an adoptive parent and Cool Big Sis for. Shizuka shows Anger Born of Worry, gives lots of advice, orders equipment she doesn’t sell on their behalf, tries to settle conflicts within the group, and acts as The Confidant.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Setsuna/Pluto fits this role as a mediator between the idealistic Inner Senshi and the pragmatic Outer Senshi.
  • Among the Inner Seishi, Makoto/Jupiter and Ami/Mercury have shades of this. Mako is the one who takes care more of housekeeping stuff and the Senshi as a whole adore her cooking, and Ami is the more Closer to Earth of the girls and often keeps her teammates grounded. And God help you if you look at the other Senshi wrong: either of these girls will FUCK YOUR SHIT UP.
  • In the Slice of Life episodes of the first anime, Haruna Sakurada was this and a Stern Teacher who equally scolded Usagi and her friends, but also showed sincere care for their well-being. (i.e., when she once found Umino and Naru knocked out, her first reaction was to check on them and then try finding help, before she also was caught by the Monster of the Week.) Too bad she got Demoted to Extra after the R season.
  • Even Luna the Cat has the Team Mom ball on her kitten back more than once. This is specially obvious in the early parts of the anime: when Usagi was getting used to the Sailor Senshi deals, Luna had to often scold her like a naughty kid and push her towards action, while also making sure she'd be okay.
• In Saint Beast, Rey tries to fulfil this role, being the cook, The Heart, and the mediator, but occasionally fails thanks to his foil Gai, who is good at bringing out his immature side.
• Despite being the same age as her companions, Aquila Yuna from Saint Seiya Omega basically keeps the team together. Her role becomes further reinforced in the Twelve Houses arc, where she becomes the guardian of Kouga's sanity and actively tries to make Eden become part of the team.
• Saiyuki has a male example in Hakkai, who, while very much combat-capable, explicitly serves as the team's primary support, handling conflicts and being the Team Chef as well as The Medic. Although one of the reasons everyone listens to him seems to be the fear of triggering his anger. Regardless, he fits this role in the "family" pretty well, with Sanzo being the Dad,^note he acts more like the Grandpa, despite only being a year older, and Gojyo and Goku being the older and the younger child, respectively; this dynamic gets played up a lot in the audio dramas.
• Fuu in Samurai Champloo, keeps Mugen and Jin from killing each other, sometimes literally.
• Ibuki of Samurai Harem: Asu no Yoichi fits this to a T, as a natural result of Promotion to Parent after their parents left her and her sisters alone as children.
• School-Live! has two of these:
  • Megu-nee, the girl's teacher, is the only adult alive due to the Zombie Apocalypse. She acts as a maternal figure to the girls and especially Yuki, who is the most sensitive and immature of the main characters. She committed a Heroic Sacrifice rather early into the apocalypse though. Even in death she managed to be a guidance figure to the group, albeit through Yuki's hallucinations of her.
  • Yuuri is in the same age as everyone else but plays the Cool Big Sis of the group. It helps that she is literally an older sister, though she blocked out the memory until dozens of chapters in.
• In A Silent Voice, Shouko is this for the bridge friendship group despite ironically being the one in most need of care herself being deaf. Yet her disability doesn’t stop her being extremely caring figure to everyone and is always willingly to help her friends, to the utter annoyance of Alpha Bitch Ueno. Other than Shouko, Sahara has shades of this being the first to try and break up arguments.
• In Soul Eater, we have two examples, one among the students and one among the teachers of the DWMA, both act as The Heart for their groups:
  • Among the students, specifically the Spartoi, (group containing our main characters), we have Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, the most level-headed and emotionally mature of the students. She's always there to give motherly support to her friends, especially Black☆Star.
  • Among the teachers, we have Marie Mjolnir. As opposed to the other teachers' hardcore attitudes, Marie is downright motherly to her students, and in particular becomes a surrogate mother to Crona.
• Kitty Kitten from Space Runaway Ideon is this to the orphans she took under her wing. To a degree, Lin and Karala fit in too.
• Tiger & Bunny has two male examples. Kotetsu tries to "mother" his partner Barnaby and make sure he eats properly (somewhat ironic considering the fact that Barnaby's an orphan), but ends up being more successful in the case of Ivan, Pao-Lin and Karina. The other "mom", Nathan, is more than happy to listen to his fellow superheroes' woes — lending helpful and worldly advice whenever possible.
• Haise Sasaki from Tokyo Ghoul :Re is The Leader of the Quinx, and would like to pretend he's stern enough to be their Team Dad. In reality, he admits to being too soft on them and cooks their meals, with the group worrying about being fed when he's too busy with work. It even gets lampshaded, with Saiko calling him "Maman" (the French variant of "Mama"). But just don't mess with his kids.
• Mari is this to the kids in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. She befriends the siblings after the earthquake and promises to take them home, being their adult supervision throughout the series. Mari herself is a widow with a toddler daughter, so she has experience with kids and is pretty maternal.
• Fai is not only frequently referred to as the team mom in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- but makes sure everyone knows Kurogane's the Team Dad, too. (Much to Kurogane's disgust and the Yaoi Fangirls delight.) They also double as Mama Bear and Papa Wolf.
• Flute becomes this in Violinist of Hameln. It's even commented on by others, and pointed out that since most of them lost their own mothers at a young age, Flute just sort of naturally becomes a surrogate parent to them. Flute's own mother Queen Horn seems to be this for all of Sforzando.
• The Team Mom in Wa ga Na wa Umishi is more like the team grandpa, old Gramp. Without him there's a better than 80% chance that the rest of Nanba Salvage would have killed each other by now.
• Yun/Yoon is the Team Mom of the Happy Hungry Bunch in Yona of the Dawn to the point where they jokingly call him "mother," which he finds irritating and a little touching.
• Zombie Land Saga: Yugiri shares this role in alternating fashion with Sakura. She sometimes acts motherly towards the other girls, showing concern and acting the most mature. This makes sense given that she is the oldest girl at the time of death other than Tae (who is The Unintelligible) and Junko (who's the same age, just two months older) as well as being from the earliest time period.

Comic Books

• Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp, while she's certainly more flirty and amorous than Sue below is still a very supportive mother figure for The Avengers, ever since the 60s. It's taken to a logical extreme in Secret Wars (1984) where Janet is literally playing Team Mom for Marvel's collective heroes and when it seems like the villains have killed Janet, the good guys (especially She-Hulk) go on an Unstoppable Rage.
• Alfred fits the role for the Bat-Family, providing basic care-giving and moral support, and occasionally being the only reason that the more obsessive members of the group (particularly Bruce) ever get any food or sleep. Dick actually called him his mom at one point, and Tim tells him (and only him) all of his secrets and asks for dating advice from him.
• Paulie from Circles is very kind and motherly to his friends and the others in his residence. He even prefers to call those who live in the residence his family.
• Donna Troy often acts as a motherly figure to the other Titans. It gets to the point where she complains about it overstressing her because she has responsibilities of her own to deal with. Unusually, Donna's actual parenting skills weren't as great. She was a neglectful mother who focused more on being a superhero than her own family.
• Susan Storm from the Fantastic Four is this literally (having two young children) and figuratively, proving moral and emotional support for the whole team. This was the biggest reason her Stripperific costume in Tom Defalco's run was a failure that fans and critics alike hated; even the biggest fans of She-Hulk and Power Girl don't see Sue as the type.
• Mother of Champions is this to the Great Ten, serving as a paragon of wisdom and emotional strength. It takes some kind of woman to lose 25 children eight days after they're born and remain in control. She's actually had sex with most of her teammates - but that's because these couplings produce soldiers with even greater abilities.
• The absent-minded cleric Piffany provides the moral center for the group in Nodwick (she's also The Medic). Her status as a likable, ditzy Purity Sue (by canon!) has her teammates be able to identify who the truly evil people in the setting are by them being mean to her. Gods save you from these Sociopathic Heroes if you make her cry.
• Wonder Woman can sometimes invoke this for Justice Society of America and Justice League, Diana has been an emotional anchor for even the most stoic members and she's broken up fights between heroes multiple times. Even Diana's Darker and Grittier revamp in New 52 and to a lesser extent Rebirth, she remains a caring figure for the team.
• X-Men:
  • Jean Grey has always played Team Mom, whether it be for the original team or later on where Jean had taken multiple levels in badassery. Kitty Pryde and Jubilee especially have appreciated Jean's affection and strong care, as has her son Nate Grey (notoriously, she's the only person other than Big Brother Mentor Spider-Man and possibly his actual big brother Cable who has any real influence on him). However, Jean herself has tried her best to defy this trope at times even as early as X-Men #12 when she had to play nursemaid to the wounded X-Men. Nowadays, she embraces it, but is quite clear that it's not even close to all of what she is.
    Beast: My mother used to kiss me to expedite my recovery.
    Jean: I do not happen to be your mother, Mr McCoy.
  • Storm is also very much a Team Mom, helped by the fact she was the leader of the X-Men for a lot of the 70s era. Not only was Storm there for Kitty as a maternal figure but she was one of the few people who can make Wolverine detract his claws and cool him down from a Berserker Rage.
  • Emma Frost has shown to be capable of being a Team Mom for her students, the Hellions, whom she cares for explicitly and was guilt-ridden at their deaths. Emma also cares for Stepford Cuckoos and even X-23 in this manner.
  • Ironically Kitty Pryde once the Tagalong Kid becomes the Team Mom for All-New X-Men who are the younger versions of the original four X-Men. Kitty especially cares for Jean in the same way older Jean cared for her in earlier comics.
• When Robin, Superboy, and Impulse first started out as Young Justice, Robin remarked with disgust that they were acting more like Impulse's parents than his teammates. To which Superboy responded "Whoa, hey! I am not the mom, okay? I am NOT the mom!"

Fan Works

• Adventures in the Human Realm: Camilla finds herself the de facto mother of half a dozen kids. Despite the workload, she is nothing but nurturing and supportive of them. Hunter, who experienced massive abuse from Belos, is very much appreciative.
• Diana/Wonder Woman seems set to adopt this role for at least a third of the Avengers in Avenger Goddess, considering that she saw Howard Stark as a brother after working with him during the Second World War- and thus sees Tony as a kind of nephew- and also essentially adopts the future Black Widow when she destroys the Red Room in 1992, with 'Natalia' being the oldest of the current class and quickly coming to see Diana as a mentor.
• Better Bones AU: Icewing acts as a mother figure to some of the younger Dark Forest trainees, protecting them and in part joining the Dark Forest in the first place to look after her son Beetlewhisker, which later extends to the other cats there.
• Blixemi: In "What Your Other Favorite Warrior Cat Says About You", Ferncloud fans are portrayed as being the "mother of the group" who always has snacks on hand.
• In The Bridge, Mothra Lea fills the role for the core Terran Defender kaiju comprised of herself, Godzilla Junior, Rodan, and Anguirus. She's the most composed and culture savvy of the four, helping immensely in smoothing relations with the Equestrians; and can quickly call the other three into order. Ironically enough, while they are all around the same mental maturity ^note Rodan withstanding as younger, she's biologically the youngest of the lot.
• In Child of the Storm, this usually alternates between Pepper (to the Avengers as a whole, ensuring that they stay organised and approximately sane - she even helps Harry pick the colours of his room) and Frigga (to everyone in range because she's the Goddess of Motherhood, often of the Mama Bear variety to Harry and Diana). However, surprisingly enough, Thor actually has a few traits, usually where his son is concerned, that fit this trope better than Team Dad.
  • Sue Storm is this to her little brother, with her second on-screen appearance being chasing after him at a skating rink as he predictably goes zooming off at uncontrollable speeds.
  • Wanda, usually to Harry for whom she's a Parental Substitute (being his godmother), though she's more than willing to extend it to his friends, and Lorna Dane, her much younger half-sister, should they need it.
  • Jean Grey, who despite only being seventeen, is this to Harry (her cousin), Maddie/Rachel (her stolen-at-birth twin sister), and just about everyone younger than her, including the younger Xavier Institute students (many of whom were traumatised by an experience with the Red Room, or a near-death experience in Bobby Drake's case) - partly because she's the de facto Head Girl. Unfortunately, in chapter 49 of the sequel, the pressures of this, her academics and responsibilities as captain of her school soccer (football) team all pile up and cause her to burn out.
• In Children of an Elder God, Misato becomes this to her squad of teen mecha pilots. She leads them, looks after them and plays the peacemaker when they argue or fight. During the War, she takes Shinji and Asuka in. After the War, the four fourteen-year-old kids have not relatives or friends left, and she becomes their caretaker, not giving a damn about what other people could think.
• Children of Time has three: the TARDIS, who is essentially this to the Doctor and his Companions; Sally Watson, who is both an actual new mom and finds herself taking care of the younger Baker Street Irregulars; and Beth Lestrade, who helps Sally take care of the Irregulars and becomes The Leader.
• In fitting with the Comic Book example above, Sue Dibny is the Team Mom of almost the entire superhero community in DC Nation. It helps when you're the political liaison for the Justice League and used to take the senior Titans out for ice-cream after report cards.
• In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, the first four official trainee women Assassins are from disparate nationalities and backgrounds. Three are in their late teens or early twenties. The fourth is in her forties and the others soon realise she is the Team Mum, or at least the Team Slightly Crotchety Maiden Aunt, the glue who holds the four together. Over the fifteen months of the Mature Students' Course, Johanna, Emmanuelle and Alice realise they owe a lot to Joan and they each (although none would really openly admit it) consider her to be the best friend they have.
  • in The Price of Flight, the City Air Watch has its oldest pilot, Sergeant Nadezhda Popova, who is over forty and stands out in an organisation where the average age of a Witch-pilot is about twenty. Nadezhda inevitably becomes Mother Hen to the younger girls, and especially to the Fledglings, the youngest of all, the Air Cadets of the Watch.
• It may change in the future, but "Donna Noble and the Magic Castle" has Donna basically adopt this role after she's de-aged to 11 and sent back to 1991 at the moment of her death, often offering emotional support to Harry, Hermione and Neville once she starts at Hogwarts, aided by her own memories of being the emotionally awkward child who never quite fit in anywhere.
• Riza Hawkeye is heavily implied to have been this for the members of Roy Mustang's unit in the Elemental Chess Trilogy. She and Mustang are even playfully described at one point as having been "mommy and daddy to four rowdy little boys," and one of the 'rowdy little boys' admits that it's not entirely wrong.
• In En Tempus Veritas, Martha is an obvious example of this, with Lois immediately asking Martha for any advice on how to be a good parent. However, when Lois is present for Chloe's reunion with Moira, Moira gives her niece her own advice on being a mother.
• Of all people, Vexen is completely this in Fill The Moon; he basically raised the incredibly dysfunctional Badass Family that was the Apprentices during their time in Radiant Garden, and continues to do so after they all become Nobodies. Once the Organization's ranks begin to swell, he manages to accept the others as surrogate children. Well, except for Marluxia, but he's his lover.
• Fluorite becomes something of a mother figure to both the Off-Colors and Pink Diamond in Fractures (SpaceDimentio), comforting them and counseling them when they are upset. Pink Diamond even openly refers to her as being like a mother, explaining other what mothers are from her interactions with humans.
• In Game Theory, Precia invoked this trope when she created her Familiar, Linith. Precia herself is simply not capable of providing Fate with the emotional comfort she needs, but she needed Fate to be stable enough to carry out her plans, so she had Linith fill that roll. Linith later does the same for Nanoha and Vesta as well.
• In A Green Dragon's Hoard, Nemuri is noticeably nurturing and caring towards her students, wanting to make sure everyone's doing their best. It only takes a couple days for some members of the class to start calling her "Kayamama".
• In the Peggy Sue fic I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!, Hinata treats Shino and Kiba more like her sons rather than her teammates. Given that Hinata is twenty-five years their senior, and she has a son currently older than them, it wasn't hard for her to get into the role.
• Johanna Mason: They Will Never See Me Cry:
  • District 7 escort Laleney is constantly available to provide support and a voice of maturity for Johanna and Blight, with Johanna calling Lalaney her "Capitol Mom" at least once.
  • District 3 Victor Agnes, in addition to having actual kids, lives in the same house as the shellshocked Wiress, implicitly to give her emotional support (although it’s unclear which of the pair is older) and also invites their District's youngest Victor, orphaned sixteen-year-old Byte, and his little sister to live with them.
• Xander in Living History is the only one of the Scoobies to actually take the time to get to know the younger Slayers. As a result, every Slayer not named Buffy, Faith, or Kennedy comes to him with all their problems. More than one character notes he's probably the only thing holding the new Council together.
  • In general, almost every Buffy the Vampire Slayer story that takes place after the Series Finale portrays Xander as the most nurturing of the Scoobies and the one people trust to look after them. It helps that canon has Xander referred to as both a white knight and the heart of the group.
• In My Huntsman Academia, Izuku is a rare male example of this. He's by far the most empathetic person on the team, a great listener, and a constant source of positivity. He's always there to pick his friends up with a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech and is nurturing towards his lonely and repressed friends Pyrrha, Weiss, and Blake. He also picks up a variety of typically girly hobbies, becoming Team MNVW's best cook and making pastries for special occasions as well as helping Nora fill up on pancakes.
• In the Harry Potter harem fic The Power of Seven, Katie takes on an unconventionally sexual version of this role in Harry's harem, showing concern for Harry and Ginny's physical and emotional well-being even before she becomes an active part of the relationship and offering Harry emotional support during their private sessions.
• Charlene Bellis in the Thomas & Friends fanfic Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure Bad Ending, being the new controller of the North Western Railway, is naturally this to the engines. One way to get on her bad side is to threaten one of her engines with scrap, as Holmes, a diesel working for the Barrow Union of Diesels, learned the hard way when he threatened to scrap Oliver.
• In the X-Men: Evolution fanfic The SuperStarr Chronicles, Clara Creed takes up this role to the Brotherhood after she finds out that they have no one watching over them after Mystique seemingly got blown up during the episode "The Cauldron".
• Deconstructed in Survival (ATLA). Katara's mother died when she was young, so she feels the urge to act as a mother figure towards her (older) brother. Katara's strong maternal feelings also extend to children in general as well as her tribe as a whole. This want to protect others at the cost to herself leads to self-destructive eating habits. Katara stops eating meals so that there's more food to go around, but it quickly warps into an eating disorder.
• Jeri Katou in the Tamers Forever Series is a Team Mama Bear, as even when she Takes A Level In Badass and becomes an Action Girl she is still the most protective of the tamers.
• Through Her Eyes: Ruby might be the leader and heart of the team, bringing the girls together and inspiring them to be better, but it is Yang who smooths over jagged conflicts of personality between them and does her best to create a positive teamwork experience and comfortable homelife in the dorm.
  • For JNPR, it is unquestionably Jaune. His earnest desire to help and learn, his blasé reaction to Pyrrha's fame and his insistence on treating his teammates like family he simply hasn't seen for a while all conspired to pull his unrelated group together. While not stated directly, the story implies that between Jaune's experience in a big family and the overall less volatile temperament of it's members, JNPR get by with a lot less drama than RWBY most of the time.
• In Vocaloid fanon, Meiko tends to take this role when not being a drunkard. Due to her shared status as The Lad-ette, however, she tends to be either a My Beloved Smother or Mama Bear as well. When it's not her, it's usually Luka.
• After learning about what goes bump in the night, Joyce Summers in Xendra acts like a mother to all the Scoobies, even the adults (barring Giles). Since she can't really fight, she mostly supports them by cooking for them and making sure everyone eats right and gets enough sleep. When she learns Wesley stayed up all night translating an old scroll, he's noted as looking like a child whose mother caught him staying up late watching cartoons. It helps that not only is she Buffy's mother but due to Xendra being The Key, she's also Xander's adopted mother.
  • Xander later suggests a DRI agent call Joyce mom, claiming "All the cool kids are doing it".
• Astis in you can only use your own takes care of Chara and is probably the kindest of the fallen humans.

Film — Animated

• In The Book of Life, La Muerte Gives off this vibe when she protects Manolo and his family from her husband when she confronts him on his cheating. There's also her motherly interactions with the Detention Kids as Mary-Beth.
• In Despicable Me, Margo is this for her fellow orphans Edith and Agnes. By the sequel she's playing this role to Gru too, and in Despicable Me 3 she's even giving advice to Lucy on how to be a good stepmother.
• Master Crane from Kung Fu Panda is described as the "Mother Hen", despite being male. And voiced by David Cross.
• In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White takes up this role after being taken in by the dwarves. She even tells them, grown (albeit short) men, they'll get no supper till they wash up!
• In Turning Red, Miriam is the most levelheaded of Mei's friend group, keeping the girls in check, and is the first to reach out to Mei to comfort her when she is depressed about the red panda situation. She is the voice of reason, and most empathetic of the trio of Mei's friends between the hyperactive Abby and the stoic Priya. Miriam also appears to be the most protective of her friends, especially when she suspects something bothers them.

Film — Live-Action

• In Angel (1984), Mae is a feather-boa clad blonde transvestite who watches over Angel and the other young prostitutes like a mother hen.
• Avatar: Grace settles into this role to Jake and Norm, but especially Jake, who she acts very motherly to after she warms up to him, which is best exemplified when she tucks him in after he falls asleep while making a video recording and when she becomes makes him eat something before he goes into his avatar.
• Sam Gerard in The Fugitive manages to be both Team Mom and Team Dad: he refers to his team as his 'kids' and is constantly concerned about their well-being, to the extent that this spills over to reassuring and taking care of Richard Kimble (the titular fugitive himself) at the end of the film.
• Balin takes on this role in The Hobbit. So does Dori, but usually when it concerns his youngest brother Ori.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Interestingly, Black Widow seems to fall into this role for Avengers more often than not. She's quite the emotional support to Hawkeye, Cap, and even Tony especially in The Avengers and Captain America: Civil War. At one point in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Natasha even complains about having to pick up after "you boys" like they're a bunch of kids and she's the babysitter. It comes to a head in Avengers: Endgame where Natasha is literally keeping tabs on everyone and treats the Avengers like they're her family, so when she dies, the original Avengers become absolutely distraught.
  • Gamora similarly is this for Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), as while Star-Lord, Rocket, Drax, Rocket, and Groot are a bunch of Man children she's the Only Sane Man and can be a supportive figure when she wants. It becomes even more blatant in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 where she's very motherly to Baby Groot and Mantis.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: Nancy provides leadership, emotional support, and protection to the traumatized teenage patients under her care, helping them understand what is happening to them and fight back.
• Jason Scott from Power Rangers (2017) is the Team Mom. He's always looking out for the others, his own well-being inconsequential. He's ready to take the blame when things go wrong and is the one most of the others turn to when they're upset.
• Mia in Rovdyr. She ensures all of the group know the hiking safety rules; defends her bother against Roger's bullying; encourages Camilla to stand up Roger's abusive behaviour (and warns Roger that she's watching him); tends to Camilla's wound after she is scratched by the vagrant; and even angrily confronts their abductors, demanding to know who they are and what they want. That last one was probably a bad idea.
• Tara in Shrooms, who organises everyone; is the first one to be concerned and arranges a search when Bluto goes missing; and even packs extra tampons for the other women on the trip.
• Princess Leia from Star Wars, while she started off as the token girl, as the movies went on she becomes more like the Team Mom being the Only Sane Man compared to more childish Han, Lando and to lesser extent Luke. Hell even in the first movie she put a blanket over Luke when he was traumatized over Obi-Wan's death. It's most blatant in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi where she's a mother figure for Rey, Poe and the whole Rebellion as a whole.
• According to his toy bio, Demolishor from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen acts as a guardian to a leaderless group of Decepticons on Earth. Giant. One-wheeled. Rampaging. Demolishor.
• Van Helsing: Verona is a villainous version. In addition to her desire for actual motherhood, she cares about the safety of Dracula and the other brides and speaks against a few strategies that will endanger them.
• Hal Moore's wife does this in We Were Soldiers personally handing the notifications to the families of the fallen.
• Rose becomes this in We're the Millers, despite initially just getting into the role as a cover.
• X-Men: Apocalypse:
  • As a man with an androgynous personality, Professor X is a father figure to his surrogate family who also has a prominent "motherly" side. Xavier had already exhibited strong nurturing tendencies in X-Men: First Class, and here, he calls his students "my darlings" when he sends them off to bed, and he even uses a Mary Poppins reference (the joke being that he behaves slightly like a "governess" around the younger children). He is very gentle and caring when he soothes Jean's fears about her death-filled "nightmare" and her telepathy. After Raven becomes his Number Two within the X-Men, Charles' "maternal" approach appears more pronounced because Mystique is the drill sergeant who molds the team into soldiers, and he's the one who takes charge of their academic education and their emotional well-being.
  • Ororo is the matriarch of her small band of street urchins. She steals to feed them, and they obey her when she shoos them off so that she can have a private conversation with Apocalypse.

Literature

• In Animorphs, Cassie gives emotional comfort and moral advice to the others… whether they want it or not. Her boyfriend, Jake, is the Team Dad.
• In A Brother's Price Jerin fills this position for his younger siblings, to the point that the younger ones act as if they're losing their father a second time when they are told that Jerin will leave.
• Vanity, from John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos is universally recognized as team mom, despite being the third youngest member. She cemented her status by getting fire, food, and dry clothes for the team after their previous leader inadvertently dropped them into a river.
• Among the three guides from The Divine Comedy, Beatrice is the one who the protagonist is most dependent on emotionally and intellectually. He occasionally compares this dependence to a child who looks back at his mother either for affirmation or for a sense of security.
• Fitz Kreiner, from the Doctor Who Expanded Universe Eighth Doctor Adventures, once brought three meals a day to the Doctor's door when the Doctor was mourning the death of a loved one, for almost four whole days. The Doctor never actually ate any of them. He also once carried around a pair of clean socks for days while the Doctor was wandering through a jungle — when the Doctor reemerges, he finds he does in fact need them. Whenever the Doctor gets hurt, it's almost inevitably Fitz's job to get him to take a break and then tend to him. He's also the first character to start treating Trix civilly, even though she stowed away on the TARDIS, and he often functions as The Heart of the group when the Doctor is making morally-dubious decisions. When the Doctor develops Trauma-Induced Amnesia, Fitz ends up with the most functional seniority on the TARDIS. Although the Doctor is also the Team Chef and often protective of the other characters, Fitz is so overly loyal to the Doctor that he doesn't always call him on his shit, and Anji is responsible for the vast majority of the series' sensible decision-making, see the following exchange, in which Fitz behaves like Molly Weasley and the Doctor lampshades it:
  A moment later, she heard the footsteps on the stairs and Fitz banged in. He glared at the Doctor.
  'Here you are! I've been all over the bloody place not knowing what had happened to you. You ever hear of leaving someone a note?'
  'Sorry, Da,' murmured the Doctor.
• Mina Harker serves this role in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's a little muddled at times, what with her also being the Damsel in Distress, but it really shows at the beginning of the third act. With team morale failing, Mina talks to each of the men and convinces them to keep fighting, not just for her sake, but to avenge fallen friends and to cleanse the world of evil.
• Earth Girl: When the Contamination Situation occurs, Jarra is alone in charge of three trainees. After evacuating with them, they find that the rest of the class have been evacuated elsewhere. Jarra therefore remains in charge of the terrified trainees, keeping them safe and calm while terrified herself, and making sure they get their medicine when available.
• In David Eddings' The Elenium series, Sephrenia is this for the Pandion Order, and to a lesser extent the other three Orders. The knights all call her 'little mother', and if you threaten her, you'll have roughly 100,000 highly trained paladins ready to kill you. Even Martel, an exiled Pandion who's one of the main villains of the Elenium trilogy, still holds that attitude.
• In The Fight for Home Fae Kirin becomes this to the crew aboard the RAINE. She encourages the crew to set aside their differences and work together, as well as help keep the general morale and mood of the crew from snapping.
• Mommy fills this role in The Fire-Us Trilogy for a group of orphans trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
• There's Molly Weasley of Harry Potter, who is the mother of seven children. She considers Harry to be like a son, treats Hermione like a daughter and acts as hostess to the whole Order of the Phoenix as well.
  • Among the younger main characters, Hermione herself acts as this, often looking after Harry and Ron's safety and reminding them of things they need to do (occasionally to their annoyance). She's also the oldest of the three, being born ten months before Harry, who was born four months after Ron.
• Cora from The Hearts We Sold takes on this role for the rest of the heartless troop, as she's the oldest. She explains what the deal is to new members, and tries to keep tabs on the others so she can protect them as best she can. This also extends to potential members, as she tries to talk Riley out of joining, since Cora thinks it'll ruin her (Riley's) life if she does.
• Hive Mind (2016): This is explicitly part of Megan's job as Amber's unit administrator. Many telepaths are on poor terms with their families, so the administrator's role includes acting as a parental substitute. She is also The Medic, fully imprinted as a doctor and counselor, and in charge of the physical and mental health of the entire unit, especially the telepath.
• The Hunger Games: Effie Trinket, to an extent. Seems more obvious in the movies.
• In Death: Dr. Mira. She has explicitly told Eve in Judgment In Death that she considers her a surrogate daughter.
• Charlotte Branwell from The Infernal Devices. Her main function is basically making sure everybody doesn't kill everybody.
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Edmund Pevensie claims Susan always tries to act like Mother, bossing the two youngest Pevensies around. He's right. Her goal is to keep them safe.
• In the latter two books of the Newsflesh trilogy, Maggie plays this role, offering her friends safe places to stay, cooking for them, refereeing conflicts, watching over their health, and providing substantial financial aid.
• In Nine Goblins, Sergeant Nessilka was the eldest of six children and brings much the same approach to guiding her Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
• Renie Sulaweyo adopts this role to some extent in Otherland, acting as the leader, spokesperson, and Mama Bear for the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits infiltrating the computer network. Of course, she's not (with a few exceptions) herding around a bunch of kids, and so the others frequently resent this behavior.
• Wendy Moira Angela Darling from Peter Pan acts as mother to the Lost Boys, advising them, offering comfort when needed, and telling bedtime stories.
• In Robert Asprin's Phule's Company series of books, the female Legionnaire Rose is a painfully shy soldier who can only communicate when using a radio. She is apparently becomes very good at it and becomes the main communications point of the company, with everyone calling her "Mother" for being the kindly nag that she is, about things like eating and sleeping. She even mothers Phule and Brandy.
• In Protector of the Small, Kel takes this role from the start and escalates it through the series. From the leader of a study group in book one to a refugee camp in book four. She's even a full-fledged Parental Substitute for Tobe. (She even makes Neal eat his vegetables in their very first year. Neal is a few years older than Kel.)
• In Spoonbenders, Irene was tasked with playing the part of "the responsible" member of the family, something was made so much worse once her mother died, making her the only responsible member of the family.
• Spots the Space Marine - Magda "Spots" Guitart kicks tail while providing the quiet voice of experience to the squad.
• Teen Power Inc.: Liz got the group together in the first place and is the person most likely to spend her time helping the others or listening to them in earnest.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: In the Marie Route Alternate Timeline Web Novel series, Marie is made into this. She takes care of a Dysfunction Junction of The Shut-In girls who she plays The Matchmaker for, acting almost like a special needs teacher making them behave and take care of themselves. As well as treating the childlike A.I. installed in the Arroganz Like a Son to Me. One of Marie's themes is creating a Family of Choice to replace her abusive blood family, and insulting them will make her really angry.
• Cordelia, in the Vorkosigan Saga, is this in her role as a Betan Survey Captain, noting that her subordinates frequently disregard orders in favor of their democratically-determined ones. Much of her job consists of mothering a crew of scientists with dubious social skills as they fumble over unexplored planets and each other. On Barrayar, she becomes this to Emperor Gregor and Vorkosigan House, and her social campaigning is her attempt to be this for the entire planet. Unlike other examples of this trope, she is in a position of significant authority, and her Team Mom qualities are mostly an extension of her approach to leadership. Fittingly, her husband is A Father to His Men and explicitly described as treating his subordinates like his sons.
• In Warrior Cats, Daisy's main role is to care for the kits and help new mothers with the trials of motherhood. She's a literal team mom.
• Kanga fits this trope in Winnie the Pooh, being the only girl of the main cast, being the most sensible of the main cast (at least in the Disney adaptations, in the original books she can be as reckless as everybody else) and being the actual mother of Roo, plus the adoptive mother of Tigger. Rabbit also fills this trope albeit to a much lesser degree, as Word of God states that he and Owl were not based on one of the real Christopher Robin's toys, but on what A. A. Milne believed Christopher viewed as being his mother and father, respectively.

Live-Action TV

• The 30 Rock episode "Khonani" was about how Liz Lemon is this, in addition to being the Only Sane Woman, to her co-workers.
• Alex from Ashes to Ashes (2008). Pretty much her entire role in the third series is to sort out the problems of the other characters, and she is the one who offers advice and a shoulder to cry on throughout. There is the distinct implication throughout the first and second series of a lack of balance in the team when she isn't there which is supported by the way it falls apart after Gene shoots her, and the team members are so protective of her that physical or verbal slights towards her committed by outsiders have resulted in severe beatings, death, and an eleven-year-old school boy being thrown in a cell. Almost lampshaded twice:
  *hits man holding a knife to Gene's throat over the head with a crowbar*
  Alex: Say hello to mummy bear
  • And:
  Gene: I left the children playing
• Male example: Sergeant Carwood Lipton (played by Donnie Wahlberg) from Band of Brothers, as he most often is the one looking out for Easy Company.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Penny is occasionally roped into this, as she is too sympathetic to refuse the job. Usually ends up getting stuck with Sheldon when no one else wants to deal with him. She's even taken to calling him "sweetie" in a kind, yet extremely patronizing, manner. This was especially emphasized in the episode "The Guitarist Amplification," where Sheldon runs away to the comic book store, because he can't bear hearing Penny and Leonard fighting. And again after Penny and Leonard break up, he acts like a child whose parents just divorced, complete with an ersatz custody battle.
  • Sheldon's mother and to a lesser extent, Howard's mother, play these to the group, including Penny. Sheldon's mother is the one of the few forces that can get Sheldon back to reason while the rest of the group respect and like her for her kindness. Howard's mother is a stereotypical Jewish mom, but she does dote on her son and his friends on occasion. Tearfully lampshaded when Howard learns his mother died and as Howard and Bernadette head to the funeral, Leonard leads the rest of the group to a toast on how Ms. Wolowitz was a mother to them all.
• On Bones, Cam sometimes fills this role. She even said to Hodgins and Vincent "You know you're both grounded, right?" after they fired a cannon indoors. And rather than firing them, she just bans them from being in the same room without supervision.
  • Recurring character Caroline Julian is a version of this as well. She's one of the oldest major characters, tends to gives stern talking-tos to the younger characters whenever needed, and (while it sometimes might not be obvious) she cares about the team and really tries to take care of them in her own way. In "The Mastodon In The Room", several characters claim that they are the glue that holds the team together and brought them back together. Brennan points out that it was actually Caroline that reached out and pulled them all back together.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: While Sergeant Terry Jeffords has elements of Team Dad, he generally plays this role, being more nurturing to his subordinates. In "The Apartment" he even compares himself to a mother hen, with the precinct being his chicks.
  Jeffords: Jake, you know I love you like I love one of my daughters.
  Peralta: Really?
• Buffyverse:
  • Joyce Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She took care of Willow and Xander when sick, soothed a brokenhearted Spike with cocoa and marshmallows (while he was still evil!), and once clubbed Spike unconscious with an axe in an awesome display of Mama Bear.
  • Angel: Cordelia Chase in a far cry from her Buffy days becomes Team Mom for Angel Investigations being the emotional anchor and glue that keeps the guys together, and she even becomes a surrogate mother for baby Connor in Season 3. Cordelia's absence is also certainly a factor in causing everything to go wrong in the third season.
• Sister Julienne on Call the Midwife. She is, essentially, the glue that holds Nonnatus House together.
• Charmed: Though she yo-yos between Mama Bear and Big Brother Instinct, second-born Piper is this among the Charmed Ones from season four onwards (in fact it's even lampshaded when one of her little sisters asks her to stop mothering them). In seasons 1-3, Prue typically took the motherly role towards Piper and Phoebe, as she had done ever since their mother died when they were children. Piper's taking over of this role is the first indication that she had stepped up into Prue's shoes after the oldest sister's death.
• Deconstructed in Community episode Comparative Religion; Shirley usually fulfills the role in a more benevolent fashion, but here she explicitly does so in a passive-aggressive and emotionally manipulative manner designed to guilt trip and browbeat her friends into doing what she wants to do how she wants to with little consideration for their thoughts on the subject. It's also pointed out that she's not actually their mother, no matter how much she acts like it, and so has no right to do this sort of thing.
  "You can't talk to me like that. You're not Shirley!" [Beat] "And Shirley's not my Mom!"
• One episode of the British documentary Coppers was about a Territorial Support Group - a van load of cops who act as mobile backup. Their sergeant was a woman. She said "I don't actually have any children, but I sometimes feel like a parent when I'm with this lot."
• Aaron Hotchner of Criminal Minds is another male example, although he doesn't fit the role perfectly: if anyone on the team breaks FBI protocol, he'll chastise them for that before he tells them how proud he is. Lampshaded in an early episode when Elle starts referring to him as "Mom". He gets mad and tells her to stop. Lampshaded again after Rossi has joined the team, with the others referring to him and Hotchner as Dad and Mom, respectively.
• CSI had Catherine (who usually took the role of Cool Big Sis, but she had her "Mom" moments, at least until she was Put on a Bus) and now that she's gone, Sara seems to be stepping into the role a bit.
• CSI: Miami had Alexx, who even acted matronly to the corpses that came her way, or did until she was Put on a Bus.
• CSI: NY had Stella (especially to Lindsay) for six years, though Jo Danville kind of took over (especially to Adam) once Stella was Put on a Bus.
• Jon Stewart ends up in this role from time to time as a result of being the Only Sane Man at The Daily Show.
• Dwayne Wayne's mom (played by Patti Labelle) on A Different World mothers all of Dwayne's friends and brings her famous prune cobbler. Lettie and Stevie are this at Gilbert Hall.
• In Doctor Who, the Thirteenth Doctor is this, when she's not being a Womanchild - she loves biscuits and calls her TARDIS team "fam" in the most white-English-mum way possible.
• Despite being male, Ren from Engine Sentai Go-onger fits this pretty well, to the extent that other characters on the show have actually dubbed him the mom of the group.
• Farscape:
  • Zhaan, by virtue of her background as a priest, often acts as a spiritual guide and the voice of reason among the inhabitants of Moya. During the first season she's the most patient and understanding with Fish out of Water John Crichton and often advises him on how to win over the rest of the crew. During a speech before her Heroic Sacrifice she refers to the crew as "My children. My teachers. My loves." and her death marks a significant shift in the show's tone.
  • Moya herself is one, although being a Space Whale Living Ship she can't show it quite as clearly as Zhaan can. She occasionally gets frustrated with the crew's decisions but, as Pilot notes, their presence on board is a great source of comfort and satisfaction for her. The feeling is clearly mutual, Zhaan's sacrifice was to save Moya's life and Crichton explains to Jool that they care for Moya the same way she cares for her own parents.
    Crichton: Still worried about your parents after 22 cycles? That's how we feel about Moya. She raised us.
• In Firefly, Inara fills in this role for Serenity's crew from time to time, most commonly with River. And Mal is the Team Dad. Their Belligerent Sexual Tension makes this trope even more apparent, when Inara and Mal argue it comes off as "Oh no, Mom and Dad are fighting again!"
• Greg Parker in Flashpoint is the more empathetic leader of Team One and definitely cares for the team more openly than team leader/Team Dad Ed who can be strict and harsh on the team if mistakes are made but nevertheless cares deeply for them. Ed is the one who watches Parker's back and keeps an eye out for him, including taking up any slack if Parker misses anything.
• Monica Geller in Friends. The pilot episode alone has her calming Rachel's anxiety attack, comforting a depressed Ross, telling off Joey, restraining Phoebe's craziness and stopping Chandler from spying on her date. In later seasons, after she marries a much more mature Chandler, the pair act as Designated Parents for the gang, though he can still be goofy at times. (They're at their most adult when counselling their friends through tangled romantic problems, having established the only stable relationship on the show).
  • Monica's actress, Courteney Cox, also adopted this role for the real life cast: In an interview when Matt LeBlanc had to describe her in one word he immediately responded with 'mom', Matthew Perry acknowledged her particular support during his drug addiction and the whole cast admitted she was the go-to person for advice.
• Blair is the team mom of Gossip Girl's Non-Judging Breakfast Club, which Nate points out in one episode (though Blair denies it).
  Nate: You're really sweet with him. Worrying about him, offering him food, it's... downright maternal.
  Blair: I'm not maternal, I've just been spending too much time with Cyrus and I'm turning Jewish.
• On Graceland, Charlie serves as the Team Mom for the house, often providing comfort and guidance to the others. This is highlighted in "Bon Voyage", where she's the one who's finally able to convince Mike that he needs to get help for his drug addiction.
• Dr. James Wilson of House. House's "ducklings" are frequently running to him for help, comfort and guidance when House is making their lives miserable. Lampshaded in a season two episode where House is out of town and calls Wilson, beginning the conversation with: "Hi, honey. How are the kids?"
• How I Met Your Mother: While Ted is Lampshaded in-canon as being the Team Dad, he seems to better fit this trope. Both he and Lily spend a lot of time worrying and fussing over the others, making them talk their problems out, bossing them around or doling out much-needed advice.
• iCarly: Carly takes the "parental" role towards the other 3 main characters: to Sam in "iWas a Pageant Girl", to Freddie in "iWill Date Freddie" and to Spencer in a majority of the episodes. "iKiss" had her be a "mom" to all 3 of them in a single episode by motivating Spencer's workout, sympathizing with Freddie and later reprimanding Sam for her on-air attack on Freddie.
• Sal, the protagonist of Jam and Jerusalem. As well as actually being a mother to Tash and James, she takes care of everyone in the community, up to and including the vicar.
• Alex Eames (and, also, Megan Wheeler) of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. When you consider who their partners are - the completely neurotic Bobby Goren and the madcap Zach Nichols - it's easily understandable. Even Captain Danny Ross isn't above acting like a little boy most of the time.
• LazyTown: Stephanie is one of the smartest residents, cares for the other kids, and often sees through Robbie's schemes and is always eager to help others.
• Legends of Tomorrow:
  • Ray Palmer spends all of his time making sure the ship and crew are in good working condition, including morale-building activities like trust falls and game nights.
    Zari: We divvy up cleaning duties by Ray's chore wheel which uses a complex system I pretend not to understand until he eventually does my chores for me.
  • When Sarah's girlfriend Ava joins the crew, she becomes something of a team step-mom, being a more Tough Love version of Ray who does much the same things but complains about it more. Several times she is seen doing chores that other crewmembers should be doing, and she admits that she cleans when she's upset.
• The Librarians has this with Colonel Eve Baird, even though her job description as Guardian is to protect her Librarian(s), she does a lot of mothering. This is lampshaded in the Season 1 finale, where an alternate reality's version of Ezekiel tells her that his Baird was like a mother to him. On the other hand, Cassandra treats Eve as more of a big sister than a mother. Jenkins sometimes takes on the role of Team Dad, especially since his real age makes him several times older than all of them combined.
• Gypsy became this for the Satellite of Love crew on Mystery Science Theater 3000, starting with "The Beatniks" when Joel takes advantage of the fact that both Crow and Servo have inanimate arms and hands to constantly defeat them at Rock Paper Scissors, leading Gypsy to go full on Mama Bear, and ram him into unconsciousness.
• Henrietta 'Hetty' Lange in NCIS: Los Angeles is very much the Team Mom. More emphatically, she's a short, sweet, scary, seventy-year-old spy of a Team Mom. Don't get on her bad side.
• Alex of Noah's Arc generally falls into this role, being the warmest and most nurturing one of the group.
• Power Rangers:
  • In Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, Kendrix tries to encourage harmony among her teammates, is protective of them, and does stuff like making a birthday cake for Damon and cleaning a cut on Maya's face.
  • Both Alyssa Enrile/White Tiger Ranger and Princess Shayla from Power Rangers Wild Force. Alyssa is even seen reading fairy tales to her friends and becomes a schoolteacher after the Grand Finale
  • Katie, the Yellow Time Force Ranger with her legendary hugs.
• Carla of Scrubs. Frequently complains about it, but in all honesty, "it's like crack" to her. She's older and definitely more experienced than the rest of the main cast.
• On Sherlock, Mrs. Hudson mothers her eccentric tenants and does put up with a lot going on. Sherlock and John both adore her, and treat her as sons in a healthy family would treat their mother, including being very protective of her.
  • This was also done previously, in the later episodes of the Granada series of Sherlock Holmes stories featuring Jeremy Brett. The actress who played Mrs. Hudson in those later episodes noted that she and Brett had this sort of relationship in real life, and it carried over onto the screen.
• Stargate Atlantis: Elizabeth Weir is fittingly a world class diplomat, though the team's squabbles are bad enough to challenge her. Sheppard can slip into Team Dad depending on the episode, and the pair are Designated Parents to the whole expedition.
• Star Trek
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Dr. McCoy, up to and including insisting everyone eat their vegetables. Since he's The Medic, this is more or less in the job description.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Captain Kathryn Janeway was likewise both The Captain and Team Mom, settling disputes, ordering her officers to get along, and helping "raise" several characters like Kes and Seven of Nine. Openly Lampshaded in "Barge of the Dead" when B'Elanna encounters her mother in the Klingon afterlife — wearing a Starfleet uniform and using phrases Janeway had said earlier in the episode. Q calls her on it as well, when trying to dump his own teen rebel son on Janeway in "Q2". In "Favorite Son", Kim dreams that his mother said she was suspending him from duty (a line that the Captain had given him that day). There's something about this crew....
  • Star Trek: Picard: Since Raffi has nowhere else to channel her maternal instincts after being estranged from her son, she redirects them to a couple of members of La Sirena's crew. In "Nepenthe", she adopts a motherly role with Jurati after the latter undergoes a fit of anxiety, referring to herself as "Auntie Raffi" when she feeds the younger woman cake and chocolate milk. In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", Elnor is in grave distress over Picard's demise, so Raffi hugs him and permits the young man to weep while he's leaning on her chest.
• Stranger Things
  • Joyce Byers effortlessly fills this role, not only towards the kids but to adults as well (including some government officials). Joyce was especially there for Eleven whom badly needed motherly love, Joyce's voice even calmed her down while she was the Mental World.
    • It's also fitting since Joyce's Love Interest Hopper is Team Dad.
  • Steve Harrington becomes this in season 2 due to his looking after the kids and mentoring of Dustin (who also improves him)
  • Nancy Wheeler becomes this for the kids in Season 3, effortlessly taking control of the group and breaking up their arguments. She's also ready to protect them with a shotgun.
• Stiles from the show Teen Wolf is considered 'Pack Mom,' by most of the fandom. He helps out other characters in various ways, even if it comes at a cost to him. He is also shown as being protective of many of the members in the show even though, most of the time, he's physically weaker than they are.
• In That '70s Show, Eric Forman's mother Kitty mothers everyone in the gang. They need it, since they have abusive or neglectful families.
• Amber of The Tribe mothers or bosses everyone she comes into contact with. To such an extent that she's the de facto leader of the Mall Rats, no matter who else is technically in charge.
• The Walking Dead (2010): Carol is the undisputed Team Mom of Rick's group. She bakes cookies and looks out for everyone, though if anything (walker or human) threatens them, she'll go on an extreme warpath of ruthlessness just to keep them safe. Carol's Mama Bear complex is so deadly she leaves the group just to stop herself from killing.
  Carol: How do you think I do those things?
  Tobin: You're a mom. It's not the cookies or the smiles. It's the hard stuff. The scary stuff. That's how you do it. It's a strength. You're a mom to most people here.
• The West Wing: Leo McGarry, President Bartlet's Chief of Staff, is this to Bartlet's Team Dad. Leo is the one looking out for the younger staff members' wellbeing and the one most likely to step in and tell them to knock it off if they start misbehaving. Best exemplified when Josh Lyman has a PTSD-induced breakdown in the Oval Office. It's Leo who sets him up with a counsellor and waits in the hall until the appointment is over.

Music

• Victoria of K-pop girl group F(x) fills this role, being the oldest member of the group (beats the second-oldest member, Amber, by 5 years). The other girls like to call her 'mom' and she often cooks for them, as well.
• Jin of K-pop boy band "BTS" is commonly called mom by fans, even receiving this nickname from the members sometimes, due to his caring and sometimes effeminate nature.
• Every Tsukipro unit has a team mom. They even give them presents on Mothers' Day. And yes, they are all male. (Gravi's mom is Aoi, Procella's is Yoru, SolidS' is Rikka, Quell's is Eichi, Growth's is Kouki.)
• Dorothy the Dinosaur, a secondary character of Australian childrens' group The Wiggles, is the most responsible and mature of the cast as a whole, although as she is stated to be 5 years old in the franchise's context, she obviously still has her childlike moments.

Podcasts

• Maggie from the Cool Kids Table game Small Magic, self-described Grandmother for Hire, easily falls into this role. She demands they take a break from travelling as soon as she notices that the boys are hungry.
• Serinepth Sinderman of Trials & Trebuchets shows a lot of motherly concern for her teammates, often seeming more worried for their safety than her own, and frequently having to talk the group out of making rash decisions.

Puppet Shows

• On Fraggle Rock, Mokey Fraggle, the oldest of the Fraggle Five, is this to the other four.

Religion

• Older Than Feudalism: In the Gospel of John (19:25-27) Jesus, on the cross and near death, made his mother Mary the Team Mom for the early Christians. And now she's considered Team Mom for the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches; the Protestant churches tend to downplay her importance, although some do it more than others (for instance, Marian devotion can get to near-Catholic levels among some High Church Anglicans).

Toys

• Gali from BIONICLE tends to fill this role as the voice of reason, peacemaker for her teammates.

Video Games

• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has an unnamed offscreen character that clearly fits this trope in one mission. While attacking an enemy base, the radio chatter in the base can be heard. Many speak of the base commander who can be heard to, a woman who is strongly admired and who the soldiers speak of in nothing but admiration for (one even says "The base commander has a daughter. I wonder if she's as beautiful as her mother.") and it's clear that they see themselves as equivalent to her sons. At the end even after defeat she reassures the base that they all fought well.
• Barbarian Hero Karlach in Baldur's Gate III acts as this to the rest of the party, being affectionate toward & fiercely protective of even the Token Evil Teammates, and even calling herself "Mama K" on one occasion. Shadowheart in particular expresses comfort towards the thought of Karlach carrying her to safety. If Lovable Rogue Astarion has a Heel–Face Turn at the end of his storyline she'll act like a proud mother and say she could kiss him, although he'd never allow it.
  • Old Soldier Jaheira acts as the team grandma, especially in a Dark Urge playthrough as he shared the same affliction as her godson as she'll gently watch over him through his night terrors (albeit with blades drawn as a precaution). When visiting her home in the Lower City she'll jokingly tell one of her sons that he's been replaced.
• Aoi in Digimon Survive is a young Yamato Nadeshiko and one of the older members of the group who does her best to look after everyone while scolding them when they act out of line. Plucky Comic Relief Minoru occasionally lampshades this and calls her "mom" sarcastically.
• In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Squall Leonhart is seen having to look after Zidane and Bartz during their journey, and being the voice of reason on the group. Fan artists didn't miss the opportunity. Cecil also takes on this role towards Firion, Terra, and the Onion Knight. It doesn't help Squall any that this characterization extends to Kingdom Hearts II as well when it comes to Sora. Considering that his background is coming from an orphanage, and a good deal of the original game is about parental themes this actually makes perfect sense.
• Cleo from Dragalia Lost fits this trope to a T. Considering that she’s over 300 and was tasked with watching over The Halidom for all that time, it makes sense. Cleo is always the one to call out her friends whenever they act foolish, constantly takes care of her friends, and makes sure that the Halidom is in pristine condition at all times. It’s saying something when one of the main developments for her throughout the game is that she doesn’t need to burden herself so much and can let others work alongside her.
• Dragon Age:
  • Wynne takes this role in Dragon Age: Origins after joining your group, particularly to Alistair and the player character. Morrigan may even grow annoyed and tell Wynne in party banter to stop acting as if the two are her children. This is particularly true of a mage protagonist; the Circle of Mages takes a The Corps Is Mother approach, and if the player chooses, the relationship between Wynne and the Grey Warden can develop a distinct mother/child aspect, which Wynne will lampshade.
  • Varric of Dragon Age II is downright nurturing towards Merrill and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Bethany; he also takes care of Anders after he starts on his downward spiral. Aveline, meanwhile, is more of the Team Dad. Hawke functions as more of a Cool Uncle or Aunt.
• In Final Fantasy VII, Tifa Lockhart is effortlessly Team Mom for AVALANCHE and being motherly and caring to whole party and the first to provide emotional support (especially to the ones who really need it like Cloud). If that wasn’t enough she even cooks the food for the heroes at 7th Heaven and is the one looking after Marlene when her adoptive father Barret is away. Aerith also has shades of this herself, having looked after little kids in the slums and is very caring to other members of the party like Nanaki aka Red XIII.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Eyvel of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 is the leader of the Fiana Freeblades, and acts as something of a surrogate mother to several characters.
  • Titania of Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn is the deputy commander of the Greil Mercenaries, and is regarded as a mother figure by the younger members of the group.
  Boyd: Every time I look at you, Titania... I think that you're the prettiest person I've ever seen!
  Titania: Uh... Um, thank you, Boyd... But I... Look, you and me, we're—
  Boyd: You're like a really nice mom or something! Um... I mean...
  Titania: ...
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • Cordelia has some traces of this, being one of the most responsible members of the Shepherds. Gaius even occasionally calls her "Mother" in their supports.
    • The Avatar fits this role like a glove (even if he's male), as s/he is the only character that all the other Shepherds feel comfortable talking to (even former enemies like Gangrel, Walhart, and Aversa). Best expressed by Noire in her supports with a female Avatar.
    • Among the Kids From The Future group, the closest seems to be Lucina. Her Harvest Scramble Talk with Cynthia has her scolding and then nurturing the younger girl, like a mom or older sister would do to her child/little sibling. Even better if Lucina is Cynthia's actual older sister.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, each country gets team moms and each "army mother" does her "job" in different ways:
    • Despite being a Ms. Fanservice and a huge tease, Princess Camilla easily fills this role for the Nohr faction. She had a Promotion to Parent regarding Leo and Elise's early raising in the Nohrian Decadent Court, is a My Beloved Smother to the Avatar regardless of gender, is a Benevolent Boss to Beruka and Selena, teases her Takumi by trying to feed him like a kid, and some of her lines towards enemies have her talking down to them as if they were naughty children that she's about to spank.
    • Prince Takumi's retainer Oboro is this for the Hoshido group since she's often seen checking on the group's supplies, taking care of others, and even being a little nagging once in a while. She tells Takumi's older brother Ryoma (himself the Team Dad for Hoshido) that this is her way to show her care and support for the army; if they reach S support he will tell Oboro that he fell in love with her while witnessing how hard she works for others. Aside of that she tries to correct Rinkah's Jabba Table Manners, tries to give Mozu a makeover, is an excellent seamstress, etc.
    • Reina is another Hoshidan who takes on this role when not on the battlefield and does it fairly well, save for her bad cooking. The Avatar even voices this trope in their Supports, remarking it a stark contrast to how they thought she was based on her behavior in battle.
    Avatar: Yeah. Usually I think of you as fierce and bloodthirsty, like you are in the field. But after the fighting's over, you put on an apron and it's like you're everyone's mom.
• Canonically, Karan S'jet of Homeworld is the Team Mom of the entire Hiigaran race. It IS canonical that everyone likes her because she's sincere and compassionate. Not to mention that she's currently piloting a Progenitor battleship which could single-handedly annihilate the entire galaxy. You do NOT want to antagonize the Hiigarans - Makaan learned that the hard way.
• Done literally with Helga from Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, who is Buck and Jimmy's cheerful mother. Her special skills are labeled as "Mothering" and much of her special moves involve healing party members by being supportive towards them.
• Chizuru Kagura from The King of Fighters, both during her brief time in the Women Fighters Team (with King and Mai) and as the only female in the team she formed with Kyo and Iori. Yes, this Miko managed to get Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami to work as a team. Wow. Lampshaded by Kyo himself and Terry Bogard in Sky Stage. If you have them beat Kusanagi, whom Chizuru sent to them as a test, he will openly complain that Chizuru is babying the team and Terry will say "she's just worried for our sake". Additionally, Kyo recognizes that the only real reason he's in the "mission" is because Chizuru asked him to.
• Aqua in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, particularly when she meets the Lost Boys. She also serves this role in the main protagonists' Power Trio. At times, the relationship between her, Terra, and Ven more closely resembles two-parents-and-their-child than three friends. This is even lampshaded in the original Japanese text when Scrooge gave Ven the passes to Disney Town. As opposed to the translation, where Ven was told "to take two grownups," he was told to "bring his parents."
• Mass Effect: Shepard can fulfill the role. As a Paragon, (s)he sorts out the crew's emotional baggage and delivers stern lectures when those are needed. Conversely, Renegade Shepard is a "don't make me come over there" type of an abusive parent who keeps the "kids" in line with fear.
  • Vetra Nyx in Mass Effect: Andromeda plays this role for much of the crew of the Tempest, in a "look out for your own" kind of way. She's not significantly older than any of the other crew members, but she had to assume this role for her younger sister Sidera and it translates naturally to her interactions with her allies.
• The Boss of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is frequently referenced as this in relation to the Cobras, (several of whom happen to be older than her,) making her another of the rare villainous examples. Or maybe not so villainous. She also gave birth during the landing on Normandy in WWII, making her the literal Team Mom. The fact that she had a romantic/sexual relationship and a son with one of her team members (who still considered her a maternal figure) is made fun of in The Last Days of FOXHOUND.
• In the interactive romance novel Moonrise, Ishara hands out snacks, lends people blankets, offers a listening ear, and patches up any injuries with her healing magic. Very mom-like.
• Castti frequently acts like a mother figure in Octopath Traveler II. She tells Agnea to take better care of her legs and feet in two of their travel banters, causing Agnea to slip up and call her "Mama." Ochette also calls her "Ma" or "Mama," especially after Castti scolds her about eating better in their first Crossed Path chapter. Throné also wonders what it would've been like to have a mother figure like her instead of her actual parental substitutes. Finally, this gets lampshaded in one of her flashback scenes, where another member of her apothecary group calls her a "mother hen" who's always fussing over everyone else.
• Persona:
  • In the original Persona, ex-delinquent Yukino Mayuzumi is seen as a reliable older sister figure by her fellow students, with the Snow Queen Quest making it particularly clear why this would be the case.
  • In Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Maya Amano is very much the mother figure of the group, as she's constantly working to keep up the spirits of her mostly teenage teammates over the course of the game.
  • Persona 3:
    • As the leader of SEES, Mitsuru Kirijo holds herself responsible for the well-being of the rest of the team — reinforced by her persona being of the Empress Arcana, which represents motherly qualities. She actually expects the team to maintain good grades.
    • Yuko Nishiwaki, the Strength Arcana Social Link, is the manager of the track team, and so acts as the team mom. If you follow her Social Link enough, she takes on the same role for a group of fourth-graders, making it clear she has a very strong maternal instinct in general.
    • Shinjiro Aragaki, of all people, sort of counts when he joins the team. He's a good cook, worries about whether or not everyone's eating properly, tells the protagonist to take care to not get sick... He's practically the ideal House Husband.
  • The Protagonist of Persona 4 is a Rare Male Example; his responsibilities include being the Team Chef and providing key emotional support to his group of friends, as well as taking care of the house once Nanako and Dojima are hospitalized.
  • Persona 5: As the oldest and most responsible member of the Phantom Thieves, Makoto Niijima is constantly looking out for her teammates. This particularly comes into play in her dynamic with Futaba Sakura, the youngest member of the team.
• In Planescape: Torment, Fall-from-Grace's mature, perceptive and compassionate personality make her fit this trope perfectly (although fiery teenager Annah doesn't react well to anything she says or does).
• In a rather darkly comedic example, Shauna from Soul Nomad & the World Eaters ends up playing this role in the Demon Path, as everyone else is too mentally unstable to take care of themselves. However after her Morality Pet Trisha (who in this path has been mentally broken after being raped by her adoptive father Hawthorne) commits suicide, Shauna basically gives up on life and descends into Nietzsche Wannabe territory.
• In Samurai Warriors, Nene acts as the self-imposed Team Mom of the Toyotomi clan—her Gaiden battle even has her showing up during the battle of Sekigahara not aligned with either side so she can beat the snot out of both armies and then lecture them about not getting along with each other.
• Tales Series:
  • Nanaly Fletch from Tales of Destiny 2. She cooks for the party and is accommodating enough to take out ingredients Judas doesn't like, mends clothes, and listens to Reala's problems when she's upset. She does all this while being a Tomboy with a Girly Streak and one of the big people on the team.
  • Yuri Lowell acts as this in Tales of Vesperia, being the one who provides emotional support to the rest of the party and, according to skits and a late-game sidequest, is also the main Team Chef of the group. He doesn't get Ship Tease with a Team Dad...unless you count Flynn, particularly in the Updated Re Release where he's a proper party member.
  • Jude Mathis in Tales of Xillia, being the one doing most of the cooking and providing the most emotional support. And yes, he's got Official Couple status with the resident Team Dad: Milla Maxwell.
  • In Tales of Arise, Kisara is simultaneously Team Mom and Team Dad, played to the point of exaggeration. She's the party's most skilled chef and makes sure to prepare nutritionally balanced meals, scolds the Book Dumb Law into eating his vegetables, mends clothing, does laundry, and generally makes sure everyone is taking care of themselves... but she's also unafraid to dish out discipline, and she also provides for the party by being a fisherwoman. Rinwell outright says that in their little sort-of family, Kisara is the "mom."
• Valkyria Chronicles 4 provides a subversion: Brittany has a Potential called "Team Mom," but instead of making her more caring, it improves her anti-tank stats when other women are around.
• Damsel, the Tsundere Brujah of the Anarchs from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines explicitly identifies herself as the "den mother" of the other Anarchs, and given how she's the one who gives you missions geared towards looking out for vampire community and trying to help you stay out of trouble (trying to convince you jumping ship from anything to do with LaCroix and the Camarilla), that title seems like its more than self-appointed.
• World of Warcraft has Jaina Proudmoore who is something of a champion Team Mom. When the kingdom of Lordaeron fell to the zombie plague, she acted as a mother-figure to the survivors: even though she could have just gone home to Kul Tiras. She was also regarded as something of a mother-figure in Dalaran, particularly after the tragic death of Krasus. Finally, she comes home to Kul Tiras and her own mother, only to find that it needs some mothering sharpish. Oh, yeah, and she is something of a surrogate Mom to King Anduin. The players also generally treat Jaina this way. You'd best not say anything bad about her on the forums or a WoW-themed youtube video, and disrespectful fan art will get you blacklisted. This despite Jaina also being one of the sexiest characters in the game.
  • Vereesa Windrunner is this to the Alliance-aligned forces in Dalaran.
  • Many Forsaken, and many players, view Sylvanas Windrunner this way. Though it turned out this wasn't really how she felt about things.
  • Alexstrazsa to all the dragons, except the Black Flight. Also, generally treated this way by players. You do NOT mess with or diss Alex. Although again, one of the sexiest and indeed sexualized characters in the game.
  • Tyrande Whisperwind to the Night Elves. and more narrowly, in Warcraft III, she was this to her husband Malfurion and his brother Illidan (who hate each other, long story). King Varian also let her act this way towards the entire Alliance on occasion, out of respect for her superior age and considerable skills as a commander.
  • Thalyssra acts as this to the Nightbourne rebellion, and becomes this to the Nightbourne after the rebellion succeeds.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Pyra. She acts very motherly towards many others, being very responsible and looking out for them.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa:
  • Sakura in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. She's the most mature and level-headed of the students and as such usually takes it upon herself to keep everyone else in line. Though she has her own outbursts and is regarded as rather intimidating by the others besides her best friend Aoi Asahina, Sakura still tends to keep her cool even under the pressure of the story's Deadly Game. She demonstrates her status as this trope by doing such things as volunteering to inspect Chihiro's body in Chapter 2's investigation on the grounds that the other students are too squeamish to do so and breaking up a fight between Kiyotaka and Hifumi. Even her death was basically her trying to get her friends to stop fighting and work together.
  • Mahiru in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair has a tendency to act very motherly, doing her best to look after everyone and scolding them for things like not doing their laundry. While this means she's good at nagging, particularly with the boys, it also means she has a gentle and kind heart beneath her initially brash exterior, and she genuinely does care very much about the wellbeing of her classmates. She thinks it is very important for all of them to get along and work together, as she is the only one who thinks of bringing Nagito food while he is tied up in Chapter 2 and doesn't agree with tying him up in the first place despite the danger he poses.
  • Kirumi in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, as the Ultimate Maid, is already rather used to acting as a caretaker, so it's understandable that she takes on this role among her classmates. This gets to the point that she even outright starts being called "mom" by the rest of the cast (especially Kokichi), something she later confesses she kind of resents. She ultimately subverts this after becoming the second murderer, as she was perfectly willing to throw everyone else under the bus to save herself (albeit for a good reason), and tries to emotionally blackmail the others into taking her place on the chopping block.
• In Every Day's Different Girl Next Door Yoko keeps her rather fractious group of friends together, usually being the one to smooth over arguments.
• Ikemen Sengoku:
  • Hideyoshi constantly acts like a mother hen to the rest of the Oda forces, having them all work at his place to keep an eye on them and scolding the main character at various points for doing dangerous or reckless things like staying out late or running in the hallways.
  • Masamune, a Supreme Chef, regularly cooks for Mitsuhide and Mitsunari to make sure they actually remember to eat and also acts like a father to his troops.
• Koihime†Musou has several:
  • Kouchuu fulfils this role for the Shoko faction as both the domestic one among its generals and the one dispensing advice on life. It helps that she's a bona fide Action Mom as well.
  • Kougai is this for the Son family. One of its longest-serving and most respected vassals, she possesses a worldly wisdom as well as a wealth of experience. She's the one that helps their feudal lord and her chief advisor reconcile after a spat.
  • Gi has the calm and collected Kakouen to be the one that apologizes for the antics of her comrades like an embarrassed mother. However, she's sometimes Not So Above It All which can put Kakouen into Cool Big Sis territory.
• Jaehee Kang from Mystic Messenger doubles as both this and the Only Sane Man of the group; she's very much the most cautious and attentive member of the RFA, and she not only acts as Jumin's Beleaguered Assistant who he very much relies on, but she also tries to make sure everyone keeps up good habits, such like reminding Yoosung that he should be doing homework instead of gaming, and asking you if you've eaten today, and if not, to strive to eat well with her. When Zen hurts his ankle doing his route, she goes to his house to take care of him for the day, and she not only cooks for him, but cleans his place and stocks his fridge with actual food besides just water and beer. During the second secret ending, she's the one who makes sure that Saeran's prescence isn't made known to his father, the prime minister, who wants him and his brother Seven dead, and she generally acts as the backbone of the situation's damage control.

Web Animation

• hololive:
  • Mio Ookami acts like a Team Mom for much of the JP branch. Collaborations, both online and offline, that involve her often have her actively keep the peace among the other members to make sure things go smoothly. One stream had her acting as both comforting mother and as marriage counselor for Baelz Hakos with regards to her "marriage" with IRyS (the two have an ambiguous Relationship Revolving Door situation generally Played for Laughs). Another stream had Mio lament a bit that her streams pale in terms of creativity or excitement compared to other talents, to which Okayu countered by comparing her to miso soup — perhaps not the most attention-getting, but always a comforting presence.
  • Lamy Yukihana for JP Gen 5, a Nice Girl who often helps others in getting over their own fears, such as with Nene during the latter's debut stream, although she won't hesitate to move into stern mode if the situation calls for it, like if her fellow genmates are attacking an NPC for no reason besides It Amused Me. This compliments well with fellow genmate Botan Shishiro's Team Dad, and shipping of the two isn't uncommon among both fans and other hololive members.
  • Lui Takane for JP Gen 6 HoloX, being (apparently) older than her genmates and frequently acting motherly usually by acting comforting but also putting her foot down as needed, like setting down clear ground rules for Chloe Sakamata that no bath equals no dinner when the two became housemates.
  • Kiara Takanashi for the EN Gen 1 Myth. She has a keen eye for noticing unspoken distresses from others and makes an effort to assauge them out, such as when Amelia Watson had been inadvertently skipped over by the host during the group's 2021 Anime Expo panel and she made sure to praise Amelia's creativity the rest of the time. She's also done multiple unplanned streams when she noticed that other talents had missed their scheduled starts by oversleeping, both to keep their waiting audience entertained and as a way to take the heat off from the oversleepers to keep things from going out of control among the fans. Kiara also mentioned in another stream that she wants to be helpful to future EN members as Myth, being the company's first English-language group, had no one to help them navigate the challenges of VTubing for a Japanese company. This pairs well with Calliope Mori's Team Dad and the two are often paired together, with Ina, Gura, and Amelia the children — Gura even lampshades it one time the group was playing Minecraft together:
    (Kiara and Calli are arguing)
    Gura: Mommy and Daddy are fighting...
    Ina: It's OK, we can just hide in the closet until they're done.
  • Fauna Ceres for EN Gen 2 Council. She tends to act motherly towards her viewers as well as others in Council, especially Mumei when trying to negotiate better working conditions for her employment by Kronii in Minecraft and by being present for moral support for Bae when the latter streamed Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village (Bae does not handle horror games well). It fits her Mother Nature theme.

Webcomics

• Aecast: Mina of the 22nd Magus Expeditionary Unit. Constantly worries about the strength of the team, both physically and mentally. In chapter 3, she is shown giving Hannah a hug after Hannah looks like she's about to break down recalling Valens' death by a Shenmal and her first subsequent enemy kill.
• Cursed Princess Club: President Calpernia, to all members of the Cursed Princess Club. Not only is she the founder and president of the institution, she's also the most mature, level-headed, and competent of all the members. She organizes group activities both inside (sleepovers, prom, daily affirmations) and outside (field trips, volunteering for charitable organizations) the club. She gives the best advice. And she makes it her #1 mission to keep club members happy, healthy, and safe.
• El Goonish Shive: Ellen. She acts like a worrying older sister to Tedd and Grace, functions as an emotional crutch for Nanase, resolves an argument between Elliott and Justin, and is generally the main cast's go-to person for mature advice and support. Ironically, she's actually the youngest of the protagonists. (Sort of. between the cloning and the Fake Memories, it's complicated.)
• Joyce from Fans! even asks herself, "When did I become the mom?"
• Girl Genius: Princess Zulenna manages to combine this with Alpha Bitch by being the main enforcer of the highly political pecking order among the Castle Wulfenbach students, but still looking out for the younger ones, keeping them kempt at the dinner table, telling them not to just believe every story they hear and trying to protect them from the horrors of the highly dangerous world they live in without curtailing their knowledge.
• Zombie from Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name is an odd example, but still counts. He seems cold, but he's always pretty considerate and caring to his allies; going as far as to put himself between them and their attackers in a bad situation. He works hard to keep the others from hurting themselves, and even cooks for Hanna.
• Kanaya Maryam of Homestuck is this to the trolls, and makes a point of helping many of them during the arc. This may have something to do with why she's the only troll Karkat completely respects. Later, she extends her performance of this role to the kids too, directly advising and assisting Jade and Rose. It's even reflected in name, "Maryam" refers to Miriam, or Mary (as in the Virgin Mary), and her screen name, "grimAuxillatrix" is taken from "Virgin Maria Auxiliatrix", and is also derived from auxilium, meaning "assistance" in Latin.
  • This is further reflected with her ancestor, The Dolorosa (a reference to the Virgin Mary), being the adoptive mother of The Sufferer, and who herself acted as the Team Mom to the Sufferer's small group of closest followers.
  • Despite his foul demeanor, Karkat can also be seen this way, since he's basically the voice of reason in the group and the main thing holding them all together. After all, it's Cancer, not Virgo, that the Western zodiac associates with motherhood. He even calmed down a homicidal Gamzee just by patting and shushing him.
  • Then there's Porrim, yet another Maryam to fill this role - and an alternate universe counterpart to the Dolorosa. Not many people filling this role can pull off sleeping with most of their charges at one point or another, but Porrim pulls it off with panache. Hilariously, the Sufferer's counterpart, Kankri, hates being mothered by her and flips out whenever she tries...but still wears the sweater she made him.
• Marionetta: Dotty. She basically is a surrogate parent for Kamille and Julia, trying to help them adjust to life in the circus. She also is one of the oldest of the circus members and literally calls herself "Mama Dotty".
• Jordan from Skins holds the team together and even comes to collect a drunk Vinnie and Rabbit from the bar. Ironic she ended up in this role as she's always describing herself as not maternal.
• Rhea is this to Buwaro and Keiri in Slightly Damned. At one point the two decide to walk a new friend home...and then immediately turn to Rhea to ask if she approves.
  Sammy: Is she their mom or something?
• In Stand Still, Stay Silent, Mikkel fills this role, being The Medic and the Number One to Team Dad Sigrun. Mikkel patches up wounds, decontaminates, comforts and feeds everyone, and looks after the team in general. His two dad traits are his somewhat brusque demeanor and his never-ending stream of dad jokes.
• Monica seems to fill this role in Wapsi Square. Her motherly exploits include taking responsibility for teaching Bud and Brandi how to be human again, helping Shelly deal with nightmares at 3 am, and breaking up fights between other characters.
• Vandi of What Birds Know is this for the trio of girls who venture out into the woods, due to her serious and responsible nature — itself a product of a youthful Promotion to Parent after her mother died in childbirth.

Web Original

• Jammer from Dimension 20's "Misfits and Magic" campaign is this to the exchange students, and it's hinted he was also this back home to his basketball team. His specialty is boosting morale and rallying people together, assuring them that if the team sticks together and has each other's backs, everything will be okay. He offers encouragement whenever his friends need it, but is more than willing to throw down with anyone that may hurt them. "Goat house on three, family on six!"
• Captain-General "Little Kitten" in If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device is a male example to his 'brothers', the Custodians; it's why he was elected Emperor's Caretaker and Captain-General in the first place. Even Whammudes, who bullies him, acknowledges that he looks after the Custodians with as much care as with the Emperor; the example he gives is how he bakes a custom pizza pie for all ten thousand of them every day. His relationship with the Team Dad, the Emperor, is very much platonic father-son, but as the Emperor's favorite, he's less than seriously called the Emperor's wife; Magnus (one of the Emperor's sons) jokingly calls him Stepmother, and one of the other Custodians compares him to a widowed father doing his best for his kids.
  • Saint Celestine seems to be this to the rest of the Imperium. After slaying a powerful demon, she confronts the cultist who summoned it, treating him like a naughty child. The cultist breaks down into tears as he laments his Freudian Excuse, and she comforts him until he apologizes—after which she incinerates him. This is probably a Mercy Kill, given that she knows there is an afterlife, and the Imperium isn't too big on forgiveness.
• Kajortoq of No Evil takes this role in regards to some of the rest of the cast, most notably towards Corn.
• In Noob, Elyx seems to fill that role for Relic Hunter guild. She seems to be the one keeping her guildmaster's Hair-Trigger Temper under control and has given a "just shut up" to the team's dumb Casanova Wannabe at moments where him keeping on talking could only make things worse.
• Maria in Persona Millenium is considered a maternal figure to at least one person, and is generally responsible for keeping her team together.
• Virginia is this to The Platoon of Power Squadron. She does her best to keep the others under control, and constantly refers to them as a family (despite Jonas protesting that they are DEFINITELY NOT).
• In Red vs. Blue North Dakota acts as this for the Freelancers, to the point where the Director even assigns him a timid A.I. with low self esteem because of his nurturing personality. He can be most often seen looking out for his twin sister South, both on missions and off, and frequently shows concern for the other Freelancers' well-being. He's even been known to worry about other Freelancer's A.I. units. North is an interesting case in that he displays traits of both the Team Mom and the Team Dad. He has the disciplinarian, "lead-by-example" nature of the Dad, but also carries the warmth and nurturing of the Team Mom. It's implied that he became like this due to his desire to watch out for his more reckless sister.
• Skippy's List has examples:
  88. Must not refer to 1st Sgt as "Mom".
• Viva La Dirt League parodied the person who takes this role in survival games.
• Whateley Universe:
  • Mindbird of the Wild Pack.** Sizemax of the Vindicators.** Spellbinder of Elite League.** Lucille of the Underdogs, who often say "yes mom" to her just to aggravate her.

Western Animation

• Suzie Chan on The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan is mostly a Cool Big Sis, but every now and then she slides into this territory (ex. chiding the kids for spying on Pop in ep 1, mediating a potential argument between Tom and Alan in ep 8).
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's gently mocked in the episode "The Runaway", where she initially objects to the idea as it says she's the group downer. But the very reason she became this is a Tear Jerker; Sokka explains to Toph that after his and Katara's mother died, their family was pretty messed up and Katara dealt with it by taking on a 'motherly' role in the tribe, especially to him. Of course, Katara's other reaction to her mother's death is something else. One of the most heartbreaking moments in the series occurs during Sokka and Toph's conversation — Sokka can't even remember what his mother looked like anymore, because all he can see when he thinks of motherhood is his sister. His younger sister.
  • Katara's son Tenzin from The Legend of Korra is a male example of this trope. He fusses over Avatar Korra and her friends (and his own children, of course). Heck, he even fusses over his life-long childhood friend Lin Beifong, who is the same age as him.
• The Captain Planet and the Planeteers show features two examples: Gaia, who mixes this with All-Loving Hero^note Possibly excluding her Evil Counterpart, Zarm, especially when he attacks the kids directly. and Mentor, and Gi, the wielder of the Ring of Water. Gi's position in the Five-Man Band shows up in the first episode, during the kids' first ride in the Geo-Cruiser:
  Wheeler: Hey, how come you get to fly this thing?
  Gi: Do you have a driver's license?
• Sypha from Castlevania, she's the sensible and mature one compared to her bickering Manchild companions Trevor and Alucard, Sypha has to repeatedly break up their fighting and tries to teach them to get along.
• Numbuh 362 of Codename: Kids Next Door is this as the Soopreme Leader of all of the KND, despite being barely a pre-teen:
  Numbuh 362: I don't care what level you're on, Numbuh 105, put that video game down, and find out what Knight Brace is doing in Poughkeepsie! Would you guys mind playing Whizbee on the Whizbee deck and not on my bridge?!
  • In Sector V, Numbuh 5 is this, being the second-oldest of the group and with a good level head on her. It's revealed she becomes Soopreme Leader after 362 retires.
• Jessica Cruz is this on DC Super Hero Girls, where she's very caring and nurturing towards her friends ^note She defended Karen Beecher when Kara Danvers threw food at her in the pilot and those who are troubled, ^note She tried comforting Carol Ferris when she saw how troubled she was over her breakup with Hal Jordan and can be stern while still nurturing.^note She picked up that Kara was faking sickness but is indirect about telling her. She's also very adamant on sticking to nonviolent tactics in her heroics.
• 13-year-old Sheila the Thief in the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) TV series. Not only is she the more feminine of the two girls in the group (Diana the Acrobat is a tomboyish Cool Big Sis), but the youngest kid in the gang is her little brother Bobby the Barbarian. While never stated outright, the way she and Bobby act toward each other seems to imply that she was de facto raising her little brother even before ending up in the Realm.
• A male example: Edd ("Double-D") from Ed, Edd n Eddy, who has gone so far as to wipe crumbs from Ed's face and scold Eddy for poor behavior.
• Laney Penn from Grojband fills this role for the eponymous Garage Band, pulling her bandmates down to earth and looking out for them whenever their Zany Schemes and wacky antics go too far. This is even lampshaded in the episode "It's in the Card", where she comments in a prerecorded message that she can often be "grumble grumble" and a "mother hen".
• Rowena to Wamba and Rebecca in Ivanhoe: The King's Knight, due to being the sole adult female character, a mother figure to Rebecca and less strict than Ivanhoe, who does have his moments.
• Kaeloo: Kaeloo is this to the rest of the main four. This includes scolding them for bad behavior, telling them to clean their rooms, and taking care of them in general.
• Despite being only six, Maggie in Maggie and the Ferocious Beast is the most mature and level-headed of her friends. She's good at calming the Beast's tantrums and fears, she's less neurotic than Hamilton, and she's generally good at solving problems, meaning she often helps them out of ruts.
• A Rare Male Example is Mike from Motor City who leads the Burners against Kane and still finds time to ask about their personal issues, even play match-maker on occasion. For a guy who pulls off crazy stunts both in and out of his Cool Car Mike is surprisingly sensitive.
• Megan, the Badass Normal human girl from My Little Pony. If she's not around, Wind Whistler fills in.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, this function is typically performed by Applejack (although other characters may fill the role depending on circumstances) making her the second-most-likely (after Rarity) to pick up on the subtle social cues which reveal that somepony is having a hard time. Highlighted in "Dragonshy" where she demonstrates saintlike patience with Fluttershy's severe timidness. She is also frequently the one shepherding the Cutie Mark Crusaders around, again with saintlike patience.
• On Ready Jet Go!, Sydney usually plays this role to the other kids, being the wisest of them all and the most level-headed.
• In Recess, Miss Grotke is one to the entire fourth grade class (to the point where Spinelli looks up to her like a mom more than her own mother), while Gretchen is one to the main six.
• Reggie Rocket in Rocket Power is only a few years older than her brother and friends and often takes on this role whenever she tries to keep them under control (especially Otto) and from doing anything dangerous, which makes sense considering she's the only female of the family.
• Star Trek: Prodigy: Just like her live-action counterpart, Hologram Janeway is the supportive mentor and teacher to the crew of the Protostar. Even more so, since in this series she's looking after a bunch of literal kids instead of wayward Starfleet officers.
• Hera in Star Wars Rebels alongside Kanan. The fandom has nicknamed them Space Dad and Space Mom.
• Rose Quartz of Steven Universe is very clearly this, a charismatic rebel leader who every member of her squad considered a combination mother, leader and mentor. Sadly she gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven before the series began, and it becomes increasingly obvious that the team is struggling to cope without her. Pearl tries very hard to be an adequate replacement, even seeing Steven as a surrogate son. For the first season, she comes off as overbearing, but is less so as Steven matures.
• Super Mario Bros.: Princess (Peach) Toadstool more of less plays this role in each of the three three Mario cartoons, being the sole female of the group and being level-headed, guiding Toad and the others around. It's much more prevalent in World, where Toadstool serves as a maternal figure to the much younger Yoshi and Oogtar.
• Teen Titans (2003): Bumblebee for the Titans East. The way she interacts with her teammates makes her come off as being like a concerned mother. Perhaps it's why she ends up becoming the leader of Titans East.
• Courtney of Total Drama sees herself as one, but she overdoes it to the point where she's viewed as being obnoxious.

Real Life

• 41-year-old Dara Torres of the 2008 U.S. Olympic swim team is often viewed as this by her teammates. To prove she's no slouch, she won three silver medals (just missing gold in the 50 free by 0.01 seconds).
• A mother, Sgt. Jane Strand, will head to war with her son, Pvt. Timothy Strand. In the National Guard, she "assumed the rank of mom to a collection of younger recruits," according to the article.
• At a wildlife sanctuary in England, a rescued Greyhound, of all things, is surrogate mom to everything from puppies to a barn owl.
• Mary Ann Patten navigated the clipper Neptune's Car around Cape Horn while being The Caretaker to her sick husband and being pregnant to boot. They talk simplistically, though not without justification, about the rigidity of nineteenth-century customs. But New England sea princesses could be awesome when put to it and they don't make em like that anymore.
• Good Queen Victoria was Team Mom to the entire British Empire. Hell, toward the end she was getting to be the Team Mom to the whole of Europe. She was actually known as "the grandmother of Europe" because of how big her family was. World War I reads like the world's biggest, nastiest family spat.
• And a long time before Vicky, Elizabeth I filled the role in a similar fashion. Electing to remain unmarried throughout her life, Elizabeth characterized herself as being married to England itself, and more than once referred to its people as her children.
• Gina Dalfonzo is the moderator at this site and she is almost a classic Team Mom.
• Michelle Bachelet, as the first female President of Chile, is often seen as this by Chilean people.
• Jane Lynch (aka Sue Sylvester) was reportedly this for the entire cast of Glee, to the point where she calls them her "babies."
• To Quentin Tarantino and much of the cast and crew of his movie, film editor Sally Menke was this. Tarantino himself even referred to her as being a second mother to him.
• In Drag, a Drag Mother is both this, and in some cases a Parental Substitute, for young queens just starting out. In some cases, this will result in a "Drag Family", where novice queens will take their Drag Mother's last name as part of their own Stage Names. RuPaul in particular is something of a surrogate Drag Mother for most of the drag community, due to her experience in the business and her approachable demeanor.
• German chancellor Angela Merkel actually got the nickname mom/mommy and she had displayed behavior like this trope on some occasions.
• Ousted Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was sometimes called "Dilmãe" (Dilmom, or Dilmommy) by poorer people.
• Female cats are this to their humans. The reason they bring their owners dead or half-dead animals? That's what cat mothers do to their kittens to feed them and teach them to hunt. The cat is trying to raise her human.
  • Hens when kept as pets can get this way too; when around someone she knows particularly well, a domestic hen will sometimes snuggle up to the person to keep them warm if they get close enough, as if the human was one of her chicks. Because in her eyes, the human is one of her chicks.
• Russian gymnast Aliya Mustafina is this to the Russian women's national team, to the point where young teammate Maria Kharenkova explicitly said "she's like a mom to us." Became literal in July of 2017, when Aliya gave birth to a baby girl, Alisa Mustafina-Zaytseva — and returned to training all of three months later. Now she really is the Russian team's Team Mom.
• Despite being about a decade older, Billie Jean King served this role to tennis players like Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, whether it concerned their personal lives (Chris's broken engagement with Jimmy Connors as one example) or their tennis careers; even warning them not to fall for the media setting them up for a Cat Fight. Even the younger generation of women players look up to King as a role model who paved the way for women in the sport.
• This concept is so common in social circles and friend groups these days that it has a non-troper colloquialism: Mom Friend.
• Vanessa Marshall fills this role for her voice acting friends and family. She has a caring, supportive attitude and will defend them however she can. Its fitting that one of the best roles she's known for is the similarly tempered Hera.
• Hattie Jacques was this to her Carry On co-stars. Everyone adored her, as she provided support and advice.
• S.E. Hinton, writer of The Outsiders, was this to much of the cast of its film adaptation, most of whom were teenage boys who had barely left home, to the point where they called her "mom" while on set. Hinton noted in an interview that she looks back on it fondly and that she's still in touch with some of the cast even decades after the film was released.

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