.png)
What does a good mum look like? Upon hearing the phrase, despite your very best feminist intentions, visions of a nurturing, floral-clad woman holding a freshly baked loaf of bread might already be forming in your mind. It's 2026, but, for many of us, it can still be hard to accept that motherhood is anything but one-size-fits-all.
Perhaps that's why Claire (Danielle Galligan) in The Walsh Sisters, an adaptation of the beloved Marian Keyes series, is such a quiet revelation. The show follows the five grown-up Walsh sisters as they deal with the ups and downs of life, from romances to addiction to friendship to complicated family dynamics. (There's a truly excellent portrayal of the Boomer mom-millennial daughter relationship). From her first appearance, Claire serves up some serious Samantha Jones energy – it's a million miles away from the Little House on the Prairie vibes we've come to expect from our on-screen mothers. Our introduction to Claire is a shot of her grunting as she steps out of a car and slips her feet into a pair of metallic heels, before strutting confidently over to greet her sisters before a family lunch. With her sharp black blazer and her even sharper blunt bob, she's the perfect picture of ballsy, modern woman about town. I'll admit that, at first, I couldn't help but think that the young girl following her from the car looked slightly out of place.
As the first episode continued, I fell more and more in love with Claire, the recently divorced young mum. There she was, animatedly refilling her glass of white wine. And there, swiping left and left and left again on Tinder. And there, flirting with a random guy and the bar before stumbling home, dropping her jacket on the floor, and tumbling into bed, full face of makeup still on. What a diva, I thought! And what an… unusual representation of motherhood!
It's safe to say, Claire bears none of the signifiers of maternal stability we have come to subconsciously expect. She doesn't look or act the way society says mums should look and act. And, instinctively, many viewers have bristled at it. Apparently, she is too selfish, too irresponsible, too unmotherly.
But look closer and you'll see that Claire is a wonderful mother – even if she doesn't fit the socially accepted mould. When it comes to her daughter, she's loving, caring, responsible. Why shouldn't she rock a blazer and swig a little Chardonnay at her family lunch?
Jacob and Margot ain't got nothing on these two.
After all, it's what a stereotypical father would be doing. A 2021 study from the Office for National Statistics found that although working fathers were spending more time caring for their children following the pandemic, the gender imbalance was still firmly in place, with fathers typically spending 65% of the time working mothers spent on unpaid childcare, compared to 54% pre-COVID. Other studies have shown that fathers almost always end up with more leisure time than mothers. Nevertheless, mothers also tend to feel higher levels of guilt about their parenting contributions.
And The Walsh Sisters isn't afraid to point all of this out. It's clear that Claire is held to higher standards than her ex-husband when it comes to parenting. As she notes to her judgmental, more traditional older sister Maggie, he expects to Claire to bring their daughter to visit him whenever he pleases, but never offers the same courtesy to her. When she wakes up a little hungover on her daughter's birthday, he berates her on Zoom for not calling her first thing in the morning.
Later in the series, Claire admits she wouldn't mind being “a weekend dad.” Of course, she loves her daughter – but she dares to ask: why are fathers allowed to have their own, grown-up lives, while mothers are expected to dissolve their own personalities and sacrifice everything?
“I think that when I read that scene first, my mind was blown, because I felt that it was one of those shadow desires of women everywhere,” said Galligan. “Society is hard on mothers, whether you're breastfeeding or you're not, or what kind of birth you had, or are you having an epidural? Did you do it naturally? Everyone has an opinion. There are so many different ways, and there's no such thing as a good or bad mother. Everyone is doing their best.”
This year, mums get messy in Die My Love, Hamnet and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.
She added, “I think that kind of struggle of co-parenting, gender and being a single mother was summed up to me in that scene. Stefanie did such a brilliant job of not judging Claire in that moment. Because I think that a lot of people probably will judge her for that, but the show never does. That's a beautiful thing.”
Claire is a reminder that good mums don't always have to be “maternal” – and they certainly don't need to mother absolutely everyone else in their lives, too. They can work! Date! Get drunk! And, yes, they can still be their for their children and raise them well. In a world that increasingly seems to be regressing to traditional views on gender roles, particularly in the domestic sphere, The Walsh Sisters confronts us with a refreshing alternative.
The Walsh Sisters premieres on BBC One on Saturday, 21 February at 9:15pm.
