It's not just mothers of young children that are missing. Why don't more protagonists, male and female, have some kind of important relationship with their mothers? Dead fathers are much more likely to be plotline important or emotionally important in a story than dead mothers, and even when mothers are alive, they tend to be just sort of... ignored.

Admittedly, I'm writing a story where the protagonist is a teen mother who tends to dump her kid on her mother, with whom she has a very tempestuous relationship, so the issue is heavy on my mind.

Thank you for the list!