Mother’s Day: All of One Chicago’s different moms
It’s Mother’s Day in One Chicago, so we’re looking at the mothers of Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med, and how they’re all very different moms.
Mother’s Day is here and that means it’s time to celebrate all of the mothers we have in the One Chicago franchise, from Chicago Fire to Chicago PD to Chicago Med.
Whereas we’ve met plenty of fathers throughout One Chicago, we haven’t seen as many moms in our shows. Many of them have either passed away or are somehow absent. But there’s a short list of characters who are mothers, and they all have very different ways of going about it.
For purposes of this article, we’re focusing on characters whom we’ve seen on-screen with their kids. Mothers who’ve only been mentioned, or who’ve only mentioned their kids, aren’t included because we haven’t gotten to see them doing any mothering!
But that’s okay, because the select group of One Chicago moms there are, have given us plenty to talk about. Join us as we walk through the history of motherhood in One Chicago, and look at all the different ways these moms have interacted with their kids.
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Chicago Fire
Chicago Fire has given us a whole cross-section of motherhood. The first mom we met was Matthew Casey’s (Jesse Spencer) mother Nancy, who killed his abusive father and went to prison for it. She was troubled, but you could kind of sense at least she was trying.
Though Casey eventually got his mother released on parole, they had a difficult time living together and went their separate ways. Nancy hasn’t been seen since the midpoint of Chicago Fire season 1.
Conversely, we met Kelly Severide’s (Taylor Kinney) mother Jennifer Sheridan this season. As played by Kim Delaney, Jennifer may be the most well-adjusted mom in the whole One Chicago franchise—working for a church and genuinely adoring her son.
But she doesn’t have the best sense about men either, as evidenced by her relationship with Benny (Treat Williams) that she briefly rekindled. One wonders if she’s spoken to her son since she blamed him for Benny breaking up with her again. (And does anyone else find it interesting that Severide and Casey’s mothers, like Severide and Casey themselves, couldn’t be more different people?)
Cindy Herrmann (Robyn Coffin) deserves credit for wrangling all of her kids and her husband Christopher (David Eigenberg), while likewise we have Donna Robbins-Boden (Melissa Ponzio) being the rock for Wallace (Eamonn Walker) at the same time she’s helping kids in her job.
The one Chicago Fire main character who’s been a mother is Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund), who was an excellent foster mother to Louie and this season became a bit of a surrogate mom to Bria (Quinn Cooke). Family is incredibly important to Dawson; she gave up her ambition of being a firefighter to ensure she’d be there for Louie, and now she’s willing to risk her life to have a child of her own.
Dawson is undoubtedly One Chicago’s most devoted mom and deserves the chance to be one again. Let’s just hope she gets there, because we don’t know where she’s headed now thanks to that season finale cliffhanger.
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Chicago PD
There’s only one mom we’ve really met on Chicago PD, but that’s okay because she’s more than enough on her own: Bunny Fletcher (Markie Post), the scheming and dysfunctional mother of Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush).
Bunny did nothing but cause trouble for Lindsay and Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) while they had to help her out of all kinds of jams over the years, up to and including what would be Lindsay’s last episode in Chicago PD season 4. She was a terrible mother and not much better of a person, and we’re better off not having seen her since her daughter moved to New York.
Laura Dawson (America Olivo) was seen in a handful of Chicago PD season 1 episodes when she and her husband Antonio (Jon Seda) were still together, but then vanished except to turn up last season and yell at his then-girlfriend Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) in one episode of Fire.
And there’s Kim Burgess’s (Marina Squerciati) sister Nicole Silver (Jules Willcox), who’s mom to Kim’s niece Zoe, but we hardly know her—she was only in two episodes last season and one of those was when she was attacked. Hopefully we’ll get to see her again someday, when she’s doing better.
Chicago Med
Chicago Med‘s Dr. Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) is the only main character in One Chicago who we’ve actually followed throughout motherhood. She was pregnant with her son Owen during the first season, and now he’s growing up quickly.
But to be fair, she’s not perfect either. When Med shifted the focus to Natalie’s romantic life during Chicago Med season 2, Owen disappeared from the show except for one Skype appearance. That trend has continued this season—her mothering has taken a back seat to her relationship with Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss), except for that time Owen gave Will a nice shiner and how we saw him briefly in “This Is Now” when Will brought him and his nanny to the hospital.
Because Natalie is the only series regular who’s also a regular mom (at least until/if Dawson gets to stop having her family dream crushed), that gives her a unique perspective within One Chicago. We just wish the show used it more, and showed us more of Owen, instead of making us feel like he only gets mentioned when she doesn’t have a date.
Then there’s April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta), who was all set to be a mom before her miscarriage last season. The idea of motherhood hasn’t come up for her again, but we hope it does because based on her scenes with ex-fiancee Tate (Deron J. Powell) and his son, she’d be a good one.
Next: Could Monica Raymund be leaving Chicago Fire?
One Chicago has given us a very wide spectrum of moms, even if we haven’t gotten to meet a large number of them. They range from the mothers who just cause trouble for their kids, all the way to the characters who would do anything for their kids. It makes Mother’s Day interesting in our fandom, at least!
Happy Mother’s Day to all our One Chicago mothers on and off-screen, and to all the mothers who are One Chicago fans.