***Thanks for all the comments, but I’m closing down commenting on this article. It’s at over 650 comments and that’s a ton to read, People are saying the same things over and over. In the spirit of keeping the conversation going, I’ve summed up the bulk of the post and what people are saying here and have started a new thread called More on Who is the mother from HIMYM.
Like most posts tat I really enjoy it’s overly in depth, check it out and let me know what you think!
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I feel that a big question for How I Met Your Mother fans has always been “Who is the mother?” And while we don’t have a definite answer, we can take what we do know so far and begin to formulate some ideas. This is a long one so go grab a drink and pull up a chair. By the way, HIMYM returns to us on March 17th! So hopefully soon there will be more to add to this list! Disclaimer: I love theories, but I have not posted anything here that cannot be backed up. Enjoy!
Who we know is NOT:
1. Robin is not the Mother. We learn this in the first episode and and it is reconfirmed countless times in all 3 seasons. No matter how much people “want it to happen, ” it just won’t. Get used to disappointment. In fact, for those still
letting the thought wonder in the empty space in your head let me share the best explanation / recap on the subject from tv.com forum user RUdaPs:
To explain the surprise of the “…and that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” line in the pilot…
If you pay attention throughout the pilot, Future Ted always says things like “…and then I went to her apartment.” The assumption is that the kids are thinking the whole time that “she” and “her” are their mother because Future Ted says that he’s telling the story of how he met their mother. The only thing is, he doesn’t say a name. So at the end when he says “…and that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” the kids are surprised.
It’s like watching “The Sixth Sense” for the first time. (If you haven’t seen it and would like to you should stop reading this and skip to the next paragraph.) You always assume that Bruce Willis is alive but it is never clearly stated. Then if you go back and watch it again, you realize that only the kid talks to him throughout the movie. Even though you thought it was obvious the story was about one thing it was clearly about another and you can go back and see what it was really about
2. The string of possible girls throughout Season 1. There was Natalie (Return of the Shirt), Ted’s old girlfriend, who knew Krav Maga. Coat Check Girl (OK Awesome), that Carter Bays even joked that if the writers strike ruined the show for good, she was the mother. Even though we never meet her (which would be a great idea for this season…hint, hint), the Slutty Pumpkin (from oddly enough the episode called the Slutty Pumpkin). Dr. Sara O’Brien (Matchmaker), the engaged 9.6 match found by love solutions. Trudy (the Pineapple Incident), who came back in the Third Wheel…let me side track here for a moment. Ted only says “I left Trudy a message, but she never called me back”…to me this implies he never saw her again, but I suppose that was the way around things for that episode (that and “Some stories you tell, some stories you don’t”…seriously, would would ever tell their kids they rode the tricycle)…anyhow moving on. There was Victoria from episodes 12-18, she was great, would have been nice, but she won’t be back (at least not as marriage material). Let’s not leave off Mary the Paralegal (and that is a shame…but when you don’t laugh it just seems mean). And I can sum all these up as “not the mama” because in the episode Lucky Penny from Season 2, Ted says:
“My destiny was to stay in New York. Because if I hadn’t, I never would have met your mother.”
Thus saying that up to this point, he has not met the mother yet, so we have not seen her. Take a moment and let that sink in if you need to.
3. Ted’s soul mate. Let’s camp on this one for a moment. Season 1 episode 21, Milk, the dating company finally comes through and finds Ted’s soul mate. Now if #2 is true then she could be included in that group. However, Ted never actually met her in person. Will this be a loophole? Will she ever play back in? I leave it to you…personally I feel, the “Soul Mate” is out of the picture or at very least not the mother…I just felt she needed to be mentioned.
4. The girls form Season 3 (so far). Well Season 2 was a wash as far as “the mother” because Ted was with Robin the whole time. And in Season 3 so far I don’t think we have seen any potential for a “mother character”. In some of the recent interviews with the creators of HIMYM they confirm this thought (more or less). In the Platinum Rule, Ted say something about that being all with Dr. Stella for now…but I seriously doubt she is the mom…and here is why….
WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW SO FAR:
1. Her name. Now this is just a theory but it seems to be a pretty strong one. The mother’s name is Tracy…don’t believe me? Season 1 Episode 9, Belly Full of Turkey, at the end of the episode a “burlesque entertainment artist” approaches Ted and says what he did was sweet… She says “I’m Amber”…then says “Actually, I’m Tracy”… then future Ted’s (Bob Saget) voice pops in and says “And that kids is the true story of how I met your mother.”
The kids are blown away surprised. He does say he is kidding…however ponder this if you will…why would the kids even believe it for a moment if their mother’s name was not Tracy?
*Update: Here is some more info on the Tracy Theory.
2. They meet in New York. This is a slight assumption too, however in Lucky Penny he says if he wouldn’t have stayed in New York he would have never met her.
3. The Yellow Umbrella. Season 3 episode 1, Wait for It, Ted says, “Kids, there is more than one story of how I met your mother. You know the short version, the thing with your mom’s yellow umbrella…” So we don’t know much, but we do know there is a yellow umbrella involved (You can thank Captain Obvious for that one).
Also if this is your first time here be sure to check out the How I Met Your Mother Show Reviews for the latest info on “the mother”.
The whole story in HIMYM is about How Ted met the mother of his children.
And about the “Bump-in-Girl-Theory”, well, i know many of you want it to be true. But I don’t belive it. If you look at the age of the woman that Ted bumps in to, i think she’s around 30?
In season 5 episode 1, he tells us that “the Mother” was in that classroom, if you look at the ages of the students they are around 20 all of them. Or does anyone notice somethingelse?
My personal guess is that the mother is the woman that he was suposed to have met in season 1, His soulmate in Episode 21.
But thats my guess, which is build on my own feelings.
And those who hopes that Robin is “the Mom”, well i understand. But that’s not going to happend.
In season 2 (episode Lucky Penny) Ted said: “My destiny was to stay in New York. Because if I hadn’t, I never would have met your mother.”
Even if Robins name isn’t “Robin” it could’nt be her.
If we are going to search for “the Mother” first episodes it have to be someone that Ted have’nt met. (Like the “soulmate”).
Hi , your theorys is very insecure…
The ”kids” tought he was talking about their mother in the first episode when he talked about robin …
And it CANT be Victoria , Nathalie or Stella or any of those girls you said …
Nathalie got married and had kids , Stella wasnt in that class in episode 1 Season 5.
And in Season 5 , episode 1 when Ted is dating Sindy he says that the mother Sindys roommate… So we can count away Victoria because she was in Germany that day…
Please think again and then reply
Oh and it cant be Lily or Robin , Lily is married to marshall and Ted has already said that Robin is the Aunt , not the mother
i think its d love solution match whom ted doesn’t go to see! this is a very strong point, since fate dint want him to meet her then, but later! m soo excited to know how ted meets his wife, coz hes soo cute!!
yea..but he also mentions a lady, whose hair only u cud see, n ted says more on that later. wow its gonna be awsome when ted will recall instances from his life where he encountered his future wife. b’tifully written!
lame seriously, the mother is not robin definitely…or maybe wait! i got some thoughts moving but ye…not robin if the kids call him dad
8 seasons
I wish, she was awesome.
maybe robin and ted killed the mother….jk
Didn’t Ted say that he didn’t see the mother there at St Paddys Day? But he clearly saw the girl he bumped into, so it couldn’t be her.
I’ve got complete faith in the writers to draw things to a close whenever they feel necessary, they’ll do a fantastic job. It’s clear they are pure genius
We don’t know for sure that Victoria was in Germany. A lot of these guesses are being based on hope or reason, but things could have happened in the story in between the bits that Ted is telling us.
My personal opinion is that we haven’t seen her yet. I think it WAS the girl in the queue for the club with the umbrella, but I think the girl he bumped into was a red-herring. I believe it WAS the soul-mate from ‘Milk’, but I don’t think we’ve seen her face on screen yet.
Once again, I’m just basing all this on a gut instinct
Well Simon, thanks for contributing nothing to the discussion…
i believe we didn’t met the mom yet.but i think we can saw her in the first episode of season 2 when older ted said”it was june of 2006″.but the picture can be of the daughter.i’m not sure.
maybe ted met the kids mother, had the kids with her, then the mother died or they got divorced and now the ted telling the story is with robin.
That way it can still work because Robin isn’t the mother as has been pointed out
Ted is the father
and Ted and Robin can eventually end up together. haha.
t
No, no no NO NO NO!!! Robin is NOT the mother!! FFS at least read the ORIGINAL POST if you can’t be bothered to read the other 400+ comments (which is understandable).
Maybe Ted is in a polyamorous relationship with Robin and the kids’ mother and calling her “Aunt Robin” when they were kids is the only way to keep things from being awkward.
On an unrelated note: correct me if I’m wrong, but why has Future Ted never mentioned Future Barney?
Maybe Barney got a sex change through some revolutionary technology that his company invented that enabled him to have ovaries and a female reproductive and system….
…and maybe BARNEY IS THE MOTHER!
Ted just hasn’t met “her” yet because Barney hasn’t had the sex change or legally changed his name to Barbara.
I’m only 68% kidding.
He could of got divorced from the kids mother or (she may have died)
and then he re re-married. – (to robin?)
Therefore if he had re married it would be perfectly reasonable for him to ask “where is my wife” in that episode. so Ari could be right.
are you responding to my comment?
i know robin isnt the mother and i specifically said in my comment that robin ISN’T the mother
at least read the comment propperly even if you cant be bothered to read the other 400+ comments (which is understandable)
to make it clearer
*maybe ted met the kids mother (who is NOT robin), had the kids with her , THEN the mother died, or they got divorced.
THEN Ted and Robin got together.
That is a way around the fact that it has been repeatedly made clear that robin ISN’T the mother. BUT Ted and Robin could still end up together.
Ted is the father
Robin is not the mother.
but ted and robin get together in the end.
the kids may just want to know about there mother and how there parents met. that doesn;t necessarily mean that Ted and the mother of his children are still together.
that way we get to find out who the mother is and have the whole goose chase AND we get to see Ted and Robin end up together eventually which is what alot of viewers seem to want.
Learn to fucking spell instead of parroting back what I said (and badly spelling it). And read the other comments for examples of what I was responding to…
someone’s a bit hostile! calm down dear.
i apologise for being dyslexic. i’m sorry my spelling offended you so much.
and no one has said that they think its robin for a while now.
Not hostile, but you’re being extremely condescending. Which is baffling considering you tried to be witty by repeating what I said back to me.
400+ comments. Email inbox notifications. There have been enough “robin is the mother” posts to warrant what I (and several others, by the way) said.
Fair enough.
but i was simply asking if you were referring to my post.
Becauseif your comment had of been in response to mine then my repeating what you said was appropriate as you were slating people for not reading the original post, therefore if you were referring to my comment (which we have now established you were not) then you responding to my post incorrectly because you had not read it propperlywould have been pretty hipocrtical.
instead you respond by swearing at me and insulting my spelling? rather than simply saying no you were not responding to my comment.
Kids…be nice or I’ll pull this car over…
clearly they are using the story line from lost and this whole situation of him telling the story is really him in limbo! i do apologise for anyone who is only half way through the box sets of lost!
Who cares! Just enjoy the show, they’re going to reveal it at some point, but in the mean time just enjoy the laughs that we all get every time we watch HIMYM!
why dont we just watch the show then we will find out
Contributing nothing ? I told you guys what it COULDNT have been , but someone here might be a bit to stupid to understand that. And i agree with The Mother. I think that the mother hasnt been on screen yet. They have only described her a little.
Oh and if you dont believe me that it isnt victoria , here is some other reasons :
The mom plays base guitarr in a band*
The mom likes the starwars movies*
AND as final , if Stella , Victoria or Robin would have been in that class in Season 5 Episode 1 , then Ted would have seen her ? Thats why it has to be someone we hasnt seen yet.
Or wait , still dont believe me ? In an interview , Robin SAYS that she honestly dont know who the mother is.
Is anybody shearing the idea that it might be the girl he bumps into in the st patricksday episode? She looks gorgeous, shes at the club where he says his future wife is that night, and from the shot they take outside (when shes waiting in line with her umbrella, they have the same bodyshape and jeans, seems to me.
It’s like a 2 second interaction, but as I watched all seasons several times, there are very little of these interactions without a purpose.
Ive searched for things this girl has in common with Cindys roommate (Cindy is his wifes ex roommate in season 5,the girls vs suits episode)
But I couldn’t find her top or purse in that appartment.
Can’t shake that idea though !
okay it’s definitely not robin… he says the mother was in the first class he taught, which ended up being the wrong classroom… so she was in economics..
stella was a major part of it though, and there was a part with him holding a yellow umbrella and stella came and tapped him from behind, and through that episode he was stressing that it was important to be in the right place at the right time…
Okay…Juliajolie…you are a fucking retard for thinking that barney gets a sex change…wat messed up sh!t is that…that would mess up the entire show…
Wow, you managed to insult both me and the entire worldwide disabled community by using just one word. You also insulted yourself by not realizing that I was FUCKING JOKING.
Is it natural for you to be such a thick, stupid cunt? You should have been a blowjob at best if your parents couldn’t have been sterilized.
When has Ted actually ever said they were HIS kids…. He could be uncle Ted….. ???
Yo i know this is like TOO specific…but the woman with the yellow umbrella was wearing jeans and the lady ted bumped into was wearing leggings… juss sayin
I think the mother should be the secretary from Stella’s office, (played by Britney Spears) that would be a good laugh!
During the “no tomorrow” episode on season 3, Ted goes to a party and says that his future wife was also at that party. You dont ever get to see her, but at one point he walks towards Barney and accidentally hits a girl. He says: “ohhh im sorry” and she says “thats ok”, this part of the scene was really unnecesarry, so i think the creators of the show made it happend for a reason, maybe to confuse us all or maybe she is the mother!
About the fact that How I met Your Mother writers use significant moments from the past and use them in episodes ahead is actually doubtful regarding they did that to the bumping girl at St Patricks Day Party later I think it’s doubtful cuz there was an episode about fighting(Season 4 Episode 10) were they introduced a bartender named Doug Martin who Ted describes as a person who was around and showed moments when he was around and one of those moments was when Barney said “Today I pick up a Lesbian” from a previous episode so what I did was back up to the real episode and saw that Doug wasn’t really there in the original take.
LAWYERED!!!!
Ted always said he wanted 2 kids a boy and a girl and Vwala
What is the sex of the two Humans hes talking to.
LAWYERD !!!!!!!!!!
OK i don’t want to be a downer or anything but what if the mums dead … And hes also telling the story of how she died ……… Everyone hates me now don’t they but still its an idea …. Or he keeps saying your mum was there at a lot of places … So maybe its Mary Mother of God ? Ok its probably not anyway just ignore this I’m a weirdo !
AgitoandNakayamaforever♥
XXXX
P.S Ive got a cool name don’t i You won’t get it unless you watch this really good thing called Air Gear its a Anime ! But i still love How i met your Mother !
What if Lily is the mom?
I can’t remember hearing anything about Ted beeing their father, ever, so he could just be telling the story of how he met Lily… 😉
That would explain what happends next after season 5 as it ends with Lily saying something like: “Oh Marshall, put a baby in my belly”
The hypothesis would also allow Robin to be the mother (see above for explaination i.e Ted not beeing the father).
I would appreciate your thoughts on this! 🙂
Regards,
Jonas
Lilly, honesty….u guys suck…
i think it could still be robin ted may have changed a few names to keep the kids guessing and yes the tracey theory is quite good but could also just be a writers slip up.
Another person i think it could be is wendy the waitress shes in it alot just for a random waitress but i have nothing to back this up just a thought
I believe the mother will be reveiled in Season 6. Rachel Bilson is coming back to the show as Cindy and as we know the mother is the roommate. As for who i think it is I don’t know yet but I know its not Robin, Lily, Stella, or Victoria. Very possibly could be the pumpkin girl because he never saw her face to ever know who she was again. Or the date that he never got to go on because of Lily goin to Conneticut in the Fiero. 2 girls he officially didn’t “meet”. So you would never know if they were at the St. Patty’s day party or in the classroom or the roommate of Cindy.
It’s about how he met her. They know who their mother is already, so your theory is not right Anthony.
I think that it could be Victoria (13th ep season 1). Even though she goes to Germany, and the long distance doesn’t work, he still really liked her and all that. He does say at the end “But more on that story later.” It is a possiblility, but I would be pissed if after all that it turned out to be someone from so early on in the story. I’m just saying that she could come back.
Also, there wasn’t any reactions from the kids through the ep, so we don’t know if they recognize the name/job or anything else about her and the story or not.
I forget where I read it but, I did read that the writers denied that her name was Tracey. Plus in the Pilot when Ted was explaining everything that had to do with Robin, the kids were surprised that she wasn’t the mother, so one can deduce the kids giving us hints for names isn’t reliable.
that would actually work to, Victoria was loved by most fans and we know she comes back from her desert fellowship last season and would be back soon, also you can add the comment of “I hurt the 2 most important people in my life” it makes more sense then the uncle theory and even the Tracy theory to some extent… you honestly assume we haven’t met the mother yet, they wouldn’t take it off the air with money still to make, My guess has to be Victoria
Well, I’ve watched all episodes for now, and I can say that Robin shouldn’t be the mother, because when he is in his mother’s apartment with her roomate, he says he got the first glimpse of their mother, and there’s no way her roommate is Robin, lol.
Also, I belive in the story of the girl he meets at St. Patricks day, the girl he bumps intro, but it’s foggy.
And if you watch at the start of the episodes, or whatever, when you see his kids in the sofa, you can see a picture on the shelf behind them, and it looks like Ted + His children and some lady, and she is a brunette, but if someone could look at that picture more closely and tell what they see 😀
It could also be the girl… hmm… Mary or something that Barney introduces him too, as a hooker, but she is a paralegal.. because he says all the time that she is hot, and she talks about star wars, which is important for Ted that his girlfriend loves, lol
You are dumb in so many ways, but I’m only going to give you one reason why.
He_already_met_Lily_. A thousand fucking times. If Lily would have been the mother, the story would have ended when Marshall introduced him to her waaaaaay back. Same thing with Robin, they already met. The show is called How I Met Your Mother and he’s telling the kids how all these things lead to her. Wouldn’t the kids react to him telling the story years past when he met her? And why would Lily be in his classroom? Why would she be Rachel Bilson’s roomate?
To everybody else: I know this is obvious but I had to get it out there.
So what if he already met Lily?
Is there some invisible rule you have in your head saying that Ted can’t be telling the whole story from the first time (he met Lily) until the revelation?
Ted could be just mindfucking with the kids and then reveal the truth (see above).
Why would you reply with such stupid questions if nothing has been truly revealed yet?
Saying peaple are dumb over the internet is a proof of childishness!