Listicle: 10 onscreen housewives we’d happily swap lives with

Can we switch lives with these 10 screen housewives? They shut down haters, run with the pack, stay fierce, all with a cake still in the oven

Gloria Pritchett. Modern Family’s matriarch looks like a trophy wife… until she speaks. There’s that Latina accent, the quick wit and the fierce protectiveness for everyone: Her sons, her second husband, his gay son and partner, their adopted daughter, her husband’s daughter and her chaotic family, even the wife Gloria displaced. Put her in high-heel ‘choos’, let her go crazy in animal print. But don’t cross her: “Do you know how smart I am in Spanish?”.

Karen Wheeler from Stranger Things battled underworld demons to protect her kids. Yes, mama!

Karen Wheeler. She started out on Stranger Things as the ideal ’80s SAHM – cooking, doing aerobics in the living room, flirting with the cute teen lifeguard, but ultimately choosing her dull husband. Hers is clearly the more well-off family in Hawkins, but Karen was a tiger underneath, battling underworld demons to protect her kids. Plus, blue eyeshadow and fuchsia swimsuit. Yes, mama!

Mad Men’s Betty Draper flirts to her advantage and even picks up a psychology degree. Queen.

Betty Draper. Most viewers come out of Mad Men cheering Peggy, the mousy 1960s secretary who rises to the top. But Betty, former model and trophy wife to Don Draper, deals in a quieter power. When a neighbour scolds her kid, she picks up her rifle and shoots his birds, cigarette never leaving her mouth. She flirts to her advantage and ignores Don’s affairs, picking up a psychology degree before lung cancer takes her. Queen!

Midge Maisel herself says, “I’m not a joke. I’m the whole act”.

Midge Maisel. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel technically has a job in stand-up. But as she says, “I’m not a joke. I’m the whole act”. She mines her life for content, and there’s plenty to laugh and cry about: Perfect Upper West Side marriage, loving husband, two kids, vibrant social life, and much of it gone in a flash. She makes struggle look good (the hair and dresses help). But what we love is the spunk: “I can’t heal from my trauma. What if it makes me less funny?”

Monisha Sarabhai from Sarabhai vs Sarabhai was thrifty before it became fashionable.

Monisha Sarabhai. Middle-class Monisha married into a rich, sophisticated family. Her in-laws lived right next door. Of course, hilarious class-conflict would ensue on Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. Monisha made the most of her humble roots – she bargained hard, was thrifty before it became fashionable, had a cheap hack for everything, and enjoyed simple joys. Maya, her MIL is so judgy. But Monisha, she makes life look rich.

Nothing rattles Morticia Addams. Has any mommy looked this good in all-black?

Morticia Addams. In the OG show, in the ’90s movies, in the Netflix series – Morticia has been the housewife who gives domesticity a dark edge. “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly,” she once said. Oh, she loves Gomez and the kids. But one arch of that black brow and the world will think twice before approaching her. Nothing rattles her, not even her carnivorous plants. Has any mommy looked this good in all-black?

We live for Moira Rose’s minor neuroses and main-character energy in Schitt’s Creek.

Moira Rose. Watch Schitt’s Creek to see a wealthy family hold it all together disastrously, when their charmed life falls apart. Rewatch it for Moira’s minor neuroses. She’s been the main character in her life thus far, so the cold slap of reality isn’t sitting well with her pearls and hats. Nonetheless, Moira persists, with zingers like “I would be pleased to offer you a compliment, but I’m struggling to find the vocabulary”. Sooner or later the world will fall in line, right?

Amy Dunne knows how to make you regret crossing her. She lives for cold, cold vengeance.

Amy Dunne. The girl from Gone Girl could have had a different life. She could have been raised normally, instead of being mined for content by her author parents. She could have stayed back in the city when the economy forced her husband to return to his hometown. When she learnt of her husband’s affair, she could have had an explosive fight. But “cool girls never get angry”. So Amazing Amy gets even, with a long con, a fake diary, a disappearance and cold, cold vengeance.

In Asako Yuzuki’s novel, Hooked, Shoko proudly labels herself “the World’s Worst Wife”.

Shoko Maruo. In Asako Yuzuki’s novel, Hooked, Shoko shares her day with readers of her blog The Diary of Hallie B, the World’s Worst Wife. She doesn’t clean up, “sits on her arse”, hates to cook and feeds her husband (her Demon King) store-bought junk food. She has a forced friendship with the main character Eriko, but forget about that. Just watch her dig into conveyor-belt sushi with not a care in the world. It’s hard not to feel envy.

In the The Namesake, Ashima Ganguli makes the most of her life in a strange, foreign country.

Ashima Ganguli. Gogol’s mother in The Namesake has a hard job right after marriage: To leave her life behind and make an isolating foreign country her home. Ashoke offers gentle support. Their love is softspoken, steady. But “being a foreigner is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts.” What to do when you’re in 1970s America and crave bhel, of all things? Ashima eventually settles in, holding on to hope when everything is falling apart.

From HT Brunch, July 25, 2026

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