Absurdly Youthful Mother

It works for dads, too.

When you subtract the age (or apparent age) of a child from that of their parent, this results.

Typically done to justify a Hot Mom, but sometimes, she really was that young when she gave birth (or the other gender around). Sometimes she only appears this way because of the art style.

In Real Life, a girl can conceive as soon as she has her first menstrual cycle, generally around 11 or 12 years old... although in rare cases this can occur at an even younger age, such as five years old.

Somewhat justified if set in the past when girls might get married at 12-14 and boys at 15-19. In modern times, it depends on your country and the culture you live. Avoid posting examples of why you believe a relationship is squicky unless it is declared as such in-universe by the author or the characters themselves. This trope isn't about the morality of Teen Pregnancy or what is considered statutory rape.

Compare Playing Gertrude if the actress playing the mother is absurdly youthful. No Real Life Examples, Please. This is for Fridge Logic parent ages where the issue is swept under the rug, not parent ages that could (hypothetically) be possible.

Examples of Absurdly Youthful Mother include:

• Small Parent-Child Age Difference
• Remarriage, adoption, or gained custody through other means
• Supernatural, Sci-fi, or Immortality

Parent and child ages (or looks) are somehow modified

Children are born, then their age is retconned.

These examples are listed under Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.

No actual small age difference between the characters

The parent looks younger, or the child looks older

Anime and Manga

• Nana Sawada, mother of protagonist Tsunayoshi from Katekyo Hitman Reborn, is in her mid-late thirties but looks barely older than her teenage son.
• Miyuki Asaka of Game X Rush falls squarely into this trope; even the mangaka mentions that "I feel like her face and personality are stuck as a little girl forever." Also a borderline Type 1 case since simple math shows she'd have been 18 when she had her son.
• In Otaku no Musume San, Taeko and her mother are respectively Younger and Older Than They Look. Taeko is occasionally assumed to be the mother although she's still in high school.
• Kusanagi in The Sky Crawlers looks about twelve to fifteen, but is older than she looks.
• In Clannad, Sanae Furukawa looks like she's only slightly older, at most, than her daughter Nagisa. Fitting, seeing as she's a Hot Shonen Mom. She looks young enough to pass for being the granddaughter of her granddaughter's paternal great-grandmother, who is herself quite young for being a great grandmother.
  • Despite the show/game being filled with Generic Cuteness, Tomoya specifically states Sanae's youthful appearance is strange and mysterious. This is made extremely apparent when you compare her to Yagi, the midwife who delivered little Ushio. Mr. Yagi was actually a classmate of Sanae's in high school.
  • She also fits in the "pregnancy at a young age folder" since its stated that she was pregnant at a young age. Combine it with this folder and it comes as no surprise that she is also a hot grandma, who perfectly could to be mistaken by the mother of her granddaughter, at least.
• In a similar vein to Sanae, Miyuki Takara's mother Yukari in Lucky Star looks like she could pass herself off as an older sister. Then again, it is a Improbably-Female Cast.
  • And if Yukari, then certainly Miki, the mother of Inori, Matsuri, Kagami, and Tsukasa. She's claimed to be 47, and although it was a lie (she thought it was cute and expected), a 47-year-old woman could easily have four college-age daughters... but she still looks like she could be one of the sisters herself.
• Ah! My Goddess: Takano Morisato could pass for a sister of Keiichi and Megumi, instead of their mother.
  • Hild is the Queen of Demons, so she goes under Immortality, for looking like Urd's sister. Kami-sama is The Faceless, so we don't know about him.
• In Star Driver, up until the reveal, the best evidence against the theory that Reiji Miyabe/Head was Takuto's father was that he didn't look like he was out of highschool himself, much less old enough to father a fifteen-year-old son. Turns out that he ages really well. Or not at all, apparently.
• In Medaka Box, Zenkichi's mother even passes as an elementary school student, despite being 42 years old.
• Bulma's mother from Dragon Ball. While Bulma's character model is appropriately updated for her age, as she goes from 16 to 43, her mother's never changes. The result is that in some of her last appearances she actually looks younger than her own daughter.
• Akira's parents in Family Complex could pass off as 17 despite being around 40 years old.
  • Lampshaded in the Princess Princess crossover manga when Toru and Yuujiro try to guess who is who in the Sakamoto family. They tend to get it wrong.
• In Code Breaker, Sakura's mother was mistaken as her elementary school sister.
• A Spear Counterpart example from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Jotaro Kujo is 40 years old and a father as of Stone Ocean, but you'd never know it from the way he's drawn. At most, he looks maybe a couple of years older than his teenage daughter, Jolyne.
• Suite Pretty Cure has Kanade's mom Misora. When the fans first saw her on the previews for episode 4, they thought she was a candidate for a possible Sixth Ranger.

Film

• In Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, Cary Grant was 55 years-old. Jessie Royce Landis, who played his mother, was 63 years-old, meaning she would have to have given birth when she was 8 years old.
• In The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Angela Lansbury was only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son.
• Angela Lansbury was nine years and three months older than Elvis Presley, her son in Blue Hawaii.
• In Earthquake (1974), Lorne Greene and Ava Gardner—only seven years apart in age—played father and daughter.
• In Nowhere Boy (2009), John's mother Julia looks way to young to be a mom
• In the film version of Harold Robbins’ Where Love Has Gone (1964), Bette Davis plays Susan Hayward’s mother, despite being barely ten years older.

Literature

• In Sweet Valley High, Jessica and Elizabeth's mother is in her late 30s-early 40s (thanks to frequent Retcon between different ghost writers, it changes) but it is often stated that she looks like she is in her 20s, and is usually mistaken for the twins' older sister.
• It's been mentioned a few times in The Hollows that witches age slowly once they reach adulthood, which presumably leads to a lot of this. Case in point: Rachel's mother is past retirement age for a human, but can pass for Rachel's sister with the right clothes.

Live Action TV

• Ann's mother in Arrested Development—Michael can't believe that Ann's mom is so hot, and covers it by claiming he can believe she's so young. Maeby asks if she looks old enough to play Topher Grace's mom.
• Merlin's mother Hunith looked normal enough in the first season, when Merlin himself appeared extremely young and was described as a "young boy" in the Opening Narration. Five years pass in the show's time-line, and when Hunith reappears, looking exactly the same as she did half a decade ago despite her son's sudden growth spurt (and now refered to as "a young man"), she is suddenly this trope.

Video Games

• Yuki's mother in Grandia III, who is 34 while he is 16, but looks about 20. For most of the game, they have more of a sibling relationship than a typical parent/child one, made clearest by the fact that Yuki calls her "Miranda" rather than "Mom."
  • Hilariously lampshaded in the X-Play review of the game and in Unskippable.
    • ...heyyukiyourmomishot...
• In Dragon's Lair 2, Princess Daphne has 13 kids, the oldest of whom looks about 13, and she still looks exactly the same as she did in the first game.
• In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Almedha appears to be a beorc woman in her early or mid thirties, a bit too young to be the mother of Pelleas (who appears to be in his early twenties). She is neither. he does have a son, though... and it's Soren, who looks like he's in his late teens.
• In Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots, Big Mama actually looks very well for being almost 80 (and still doing some pretty crazy motorcycle stunts during a highly destructive car chase). Her son Solid Snake also suffers from severe Cloning Blues and has rapidly aged in the last years to look actually older than her, even though she was over 30 when he was born.

Web Animation

• Lampshaded heavily in Bonus Stage when Jessica, Phil's mom, is introduced. We later learn that she looks younger when one of Joel's experiments in de-aging goes haywire.

Web Comics

• In the afterlife of The Order of the Stick when a 28 year old man is somewhat disturbed to discover that his mom has always had the soul of a 19 year old girl.
• In John S. Troutman's extended universe, Robyn, the matriarch of the Flint family is 46 but looks 30 because she discovered the Fountain of Youth when majoring in Historical Archaeology.

Western Animation

• In The Jetsons, Jane is 35 and Judy is 16, but they look more or less the same age.
• In The Little Mermaid 2, Ariel looks almost identical than in the first film and perfectly could to be mistaken by the older sister of her daughter Melody.
• Crystal Zilla from My Dad the Rock Star, who looks barely older than her teenager daughter Serenity.
• Queen Glimia from Dave the Barbarian. Same reason as Jane Jetson and Crystal Zilla.
• Mrs. Ridgemount from Stoked. Let's give an example: look at this picture. One of these women is a middle-aged woman with three kids, the other is a girl in her late teens. Guess which is which.
• June Darby of Transformers Prime has a high school aged son (Jack) but could easily pass for a girl in her twenties.

Borderline Examples

Parents that were young but still considered adults when the child was born

Anime and Manga

• In Prince of Tennis, Taka-san's friend Jin Akutsu from Yamabuki is fourteen, and his mother Yuuki is about 33. She insists on being called 'Yuuki-chan', even by Taka, leading to the other Seigaku regulars believing he has an older girlfriend. When they find out the truth, they freakout and remark that she's a 'young mother'...
• At the beginning of Dragonball Z, which takes place five years following the end of Dragon Ball, Goku and Chichi are both 23, while Gohan is 4.
• Japanese source material stated that Delia Ketchum of Pokémon fame was 28 when Ash embarked on his journey. And since kids start their journey at the age of 10, this makes Delia 18 when she had Ash.
• Sakura from Hanamaru Kindergarten had her daughter Anzu at age 18, so by the time Anzu starts going to the titular school, her mother is still young and pretty. Then again, pretty much every mother in this series is still quite young and beautiful.
• Likely Maka Albarn's mother in Soul Eater. Both her parents were students in the same class at Shibusen and it's canon Spirit was 18 when Maka was born. Although details on the woman herself are sketchy, implications about the staff as a whole makes this a possibility.
• In Weiss Kreuz, Omi's admirer Ouka Sakaki is 15. Her Hot Mom Shizuka is 34. Do the math.

Video Games

• Gears of War had Dominic's wife, Maria. Not much as youthful, but she got pregnant at the age of 16. She did reach her thrities though.

Literature

• Harry Potter's parents Lily Evans and her husband James were only 20 when they had Harry. While wizards are considered adults when they turn 17, it's still a fairly young age to get married and start a family. Justified, as Molly Weasley reveals that during the First Wizarding War, a huge number of couples married and settled down as soon as they could, for fear that they would die in the war. Funnily enough, Molly herself was 21 when she had her eldest, Bill...
  • The pattern of hasty courtships and marriages was repeated somewhat during the Second Wizarding War, so it's not hard to imagine that there were a few instances of this trope in-universe at that point as well.

Live Action TV

• In Only Fools and Horses, Del wins a family holiday for the Trotters by entering a children's art contest with a picture painted by Rodney when he was 14. In order for them to be eligible to claim the prize, Rodney (who's in his early 20s) has to pose as a 14-year-old boy, with Del (who was 16-17 when Rodney was born) pretending to be his father. Del at least has the sense to claim Cassandra, about the same age as Rodney, as a stepmother.
• Tracy Jordan's adult son on 30Rock is far too old. In an aversion, Tracy sees through the deception immediately (while his friends assume the Cloudcuckoolander was actually taken in).

Western Animation

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3, Sokka and Katara fake being Aang's parents at a Fire Nation school. The two of them are barely older than he is and wear unconvincing disguises (Sokka wore a fake beard, Katara wore a pillow stuffed under her shirt to make her look pregnant.) to pass themselves off. To really blow some heads, just remember that in terms of pure chronological age, he could be their great-great grandfather.

Unclear if it is one of the above or a case of Writers Cannot Do Math

Anime and Manga

• In Dragon Ball, it's never stated how old Bulma's mother is.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: It is never stated how old Syaoran's mother Yelan is, only that she looks very young and beautiful enough to stand out in a universe populated by The Beautiful Elite. She is, however, thought to be somewhere in her mid-to-late 30's, and possibly married as a teenager. This is never confirmed, because she is only seen in the first OVA.

Live Action TV

• Supernatural. John Winchester may be ruggedly handsome with a beard, but this hardly hides the fact that he looks MAYBE ten years Dean's senior.
• In One Life to Live, Greg is explicitly stated (in courtroom testimony, no less) to have ten years' experience as a fully licensed practicing neurosurgeon, putting him in his early 40s at the youngest. His mother is played by an actress in her late 40s, and to make things interesting he has a 15-year-old sister. All the characters were introduced during 2009 so SORAS isn't involved.
  • Did they ever say he wasn't a genius who graduated high school at 11, college at 14, and medical school at 18? He'd be around 30, then.
  • Neurosurgical residencies in the US are 7 years, so he'd be 35 at youngest.
    • No, he'd be 33. Once he graduated medical school at age 26, he'd have seven years of residency, making him 33.

Webcomics

• Homestuck. Bro Strider. Most fans think of Bro as being in his early/middle 20s, until you sit down and do the math. He was at least an adult - 18 - when he adopted baby!Dave. Dave is thirteen now, making bro at least 31. The same might apply to Mama Lalonde and Dad Egbert, but Mom and Dad seem to be thought of as "older" than Bro, so I don't know. The whole lot of them don't seem to change in appearance between adopting their children and thirteen years later.
• The Egbert Family. Nana was born in 1910. John was "born" in 1996. Dad appears to be a regular middle aged man, but if Nana had Dad around age 20 (as was normal for a woman of her time period) Dad would have to be in his sixties when John is "born." If Dad is about, say, 40 when John is 13, Nana would have had to have given birth to him in HER fifties-sixties. It's unclear how old Dad is SUPPOSED to be, but so far it doesn't seem to add up when considering Nana's and John's ages.

Clear Cases Of Writers Cannot Do Math

Comic Books

• Kill Killer features a story with a "Dirty Callahan"-like killer of pedophiles who, after a lengthy period in prison for beating the supposed killer of his five year old child, reunites with his partner, the mother of the child... a 19 years old woman. Someone obviously couldn't make a subtraction...

Combination

Fanfic

• Past Sins has Twilight adopt the magically generated Nyx. Biologically, they're a teen/young adult and child respectively, and that's not even going into the newly-made or millennium-old question with Nyx. And things get even weirder when Nyx is artificially aged up to an adult horse...
  • There's also the fact that some of Twilight's blood was used in the ritual to resurrect Nightmare Moon (due to her status as the Element of Magic), possibly making her a Truly Single Parent or some weird case of Has Two Mommies with Princess Luna.
• In Naruto Veangance Revelaitons, Taliana is said to be a clone of Sakura (who in canon is 12-13 pre-timeskip and 15-16 post-timeskip, and whose age is never stated here). She is also Ronan's mother and he is clearly stated to be 13 years old (although considering that Madara has the ability to travel back in time, that might be in play). Meanwhile, Sakura herself falls into a case of an absurdly young birth mother if we are to assume that she's the same age as in canon, since she gets pregnant and gives birth during the fic.

Literature

• A really bizarre case in Twilight with Bella Swan-Cullen and her daughter Renesmee. She gave birth to her just before her nineteenth birthday, but since she got turned into a vampire at the same time AND her daughter ages faster than a normal human, eventually they'll both look the same age.

Western Animation

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars included an episode involving a clone deserter with young children. He's no older than 13 at this point while his children are about 5-6, but he's been fast-grown so physically he's in his mid-twenties, and the children are his step-children.

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