"We all Ot Shit with Our Mamas": Mothers and Daughters on OITNB

[bravelittletoaster]

So I forget now which episode that quote appeared in, but it stuck in my head because there are a lot of fucked up or at the very least fraught mother daughter relationships on this show.  Just off the top of my head:

 

Suzanne and her adopted mother who looks like Piper [actually a lot like the real Piper, funnily enough] and is the source of enough mommy issues for Suzanne that in a confused and emotional state she decked Piper after the Christmas pageant.

 

Piper and her own mother, of whose expectations she's continually falling short and trying to wean herself off of, perhaps finally achieving that in the funeral episode when she abandons that for a burger and a 40 on the bridge.

 

Alex and her mother, whose death provided the final schism for her and Piper that continued to have ripple effects a decade later.

 

Daya and her mother, who it was pointed out last season were a cautionary tale who should tour highschools as part of an abstinence education program and whose history Daya already worries about repeating with her baby.

 

The inmate who gave birth last year and whose visitations with her baby and silent boyfriend where a recurring theme throughout the season as she worried about the effect of her baby girl being raised without her and possibly by some new woman.

 

Nicky and her mother: "She is a cunt, I am a disappointment."

 

Taystee and her quasi maternal figure Vee.

 

I'm sure there's more, as that's what just rattled off the top of my head, and I don't mean to merely list all the examples, but I thought it might be something people could be interested in unpacking.  Clearly it's an important thread throughout the show, that this most basic of human relationships obviously has a huge effect on forming who we are as people, for better or worse.

[Athena]

Tom and Lorenzo mentioned motherhood as a theme in this season in their first recap. I saw it throughout.

 

Someone in another thread mentioned that the reason Vee took over the black group easily is that there was no dominant mother figure in that group. The whites had Red and the Latinas had Gloria. I think there is something to be sad about prison mothers rather than prison wives. It's not just protecting them, it's making them feel supported and appreciated.

 

One of my favourite prison mother/daughter moments is when Nicky went to Red with the heroin. It took a lot for her give it up and she went to the one person she trusted most. She probably loves Red more than her own mother.