Sitcoms have always been zeitgeists of the era in which they were created, clumsily tackling important issues with jokes while simultaneously upholding the values of the time. The Mary Tyler Moore Show offered audiences an independent woman in the workplace after the rise of feminism in the late '60s, The Jeffersons presented an African-American family finally "getting a piece of the pie" by moving into a luxury apartment in Manhattan from a blue-collar neighborhood in Queens and Bewitched confirmed what a dangerous decision it was for us to stop burning witches.

But when sitcoms so accurately reflect the collective climate of the time period in which they are created, you have to wonder why, then, networks decided the 1980s were a good time to start killing off moms.

"... then her heart stopped and I closed her eyes with my fingers."

That's not to say that every show in the 1980s was motherless. There were plenty of popular, family-centric sitcoms with moms during the decade, but it's also a little startling how many shows there were where the mother was either dead or willing to abandon her child in the pilot episode. Even more bizarre was how many of those shows became runaway successes. It suggests that sitcom creators weren't just firing in the dark, but rather responding to a theme that resonated with audiences way too often for it to be a coincidence. I have a theory why all those sitcoms killed off the mothers specifically in the 1980s, and it revolves around this commercial: