In this fantastic article for The Mary Sue, Caroline Chao explores the weird lack of importance of mothers in the Star Wars franchise. She writes:
Even before the universe of Star Wars was welcomed into Disney’s custody, Lucasfilm had upheld the Dead Parent Quotas to maximize the Hero’s Angst. Demises of moms tend to be potent fuel for Offspring’s Angst. Mothers play a role in shaping the arc of their protagonist offsprings, but they don’t receive as much thematic prominence as father-son/child relationships in the cinematic world of a galaxy far, far away. If they do, they are noticeably disposable. Shmi Skywalker sees her son walk off to Temple life in the care of a Jedi. The next time she sees her beloved Anakin again, she expires in her son’s arms as a damsel. Shmi’s ass-kicking daughter-in-law Padme soon follows her into the afterlife. Padme gives birth, feebly acknowledges her newborns with sorrow, and perishes because of a “broken heart” (or because women’s health care in the advanced far, far away galaxy is as shoddy as women’s health care on our Earth). And in both instances, they serve The Tragedy of Anakin, not the Tragedy of Shmi Skywalker or Tragedy of Senator Padme Amidala.
While the Star Wars franchise is full of father/son relationships and even father/daughter ones, mothers are continually left in the lurch. As Chao notes:
But even with the existence of exceptions [in the larger Star Wars canon], all moms deserved better. Despite the death marks on mothers or the wider emphasis on their other careers, these women aren’t cheapened by their status as mothers. Rather, the scriptwriters take mothers for granted and don’t know what to do with their maternal greatness. The moms deserved better than to be angst-fodder. Didn’t the Star Wars moms deserve to be alive to spend quality time with their offspring as main players in their drama, rather than martyrs to their tragedy?
You can read the full article on The Mary Sue.
