Breaking Bad: 5 Times Skyler Was A Good Mom (& 5 Times She Wasn’t)
Breaking Bad's Skyler caused a lot of controversies, but, in the end, was she a good mother to her children?
It’s safe to say that Skyler White has received her fair share of criticism over the course of the last decade, even though her husband Walter White was the one pulling all the strings in Breaking Bad.
Fans tend to believe the treatment of Skyler from the fans was harsh, to say the least, but there are a few points that need to be made regarding her time on the show.
Skyler’s life tends to revolve around her children 90% of the time, but fans do firmly believe that there are a few black marks on her record that need to be pointed out.
GOOD – Kids Living With Hank & Marie
When Skyler just can’t handle the idea of her kids being in the house anymore whilst this drug enterprise continues to build, she decides to ship them off to her sister Marie’s house where they would live with her and Hank.
It was always going to be viewed as a pretty suspicious move, but thankfully, nobody really opened their eyes and saw what was happening. For the kids, it was the best thing that could’ve happened to them because as viewers know, it would’ve been a whole lot more dangerous for them to be at home.
WASN’T – Smoking While Pregnant
Even before Walt’s big secret is finally revealed, Skyler starts going off the rails in a pretty big way. This is where a lot of fans found something of a disconnect with her as if she wasn’t being fair to Walt – even though he was murdering people and making meth behind the scenes.
Skyler can’t take the stress of life any longer and takes it upon herself to start smoking, even though she’s pregnant. Anyone watching knows how awful this moment is, but at that point, she no longer appeared to care.
GOOD – Giving Walt Jr A Chance To Say His Peace
Walter White was ready to accept his impending death from lung cancer, and instead of leaving his family with an incredible amount of debt due to the treatment he’d have to go through, he decided to speed up the process by proceedings with his life as he was before the diagnosis.
During the subsequent intervention in the living room, Skyler makes the brave decision to allow Walt Jr to voice his opinion to his father’s face.
It had to happen, if only because Walter had to hear what he was putting his son through.
WASN’T – Choosing Walt Over Hank & Marie
In the second half of the final season, it quickly becomes clear that Hank now knows the identity of Heisenberg – and he knows that Walter has been lying to him.
When Hank finds out, he decides to have a sitdown meeting with Skyler. At that moment it seems as if she’s going to give in and hand Walter over to the DEA, but instead, she turns her back on Hank, and her sister Marie, and sticks by the side of her husband.
In doing so, she completely goes against her children and continues to keep them in the dark.
GOOD – The Clothing Store Scene
In the first season, as viewers continue to learn more about the characters, there’s a scene that sees Walt Jr shopping at a clothing store with his parents. Due to his cerebral palsy, he isn’t able to try on clothes without their assistance, leading to mockery from some guys who are watching.
While fans all loved Walt teaching them a lesson, they also enjoyed Skyler’s measured approach. She tries to calm her son down and assure him that everything is okay, which many actually thought was a pretty efficient way of dealing with it.
WASN’T – Annoyed About Walt Jr’s Beer Run
When one’s family is in pieces and one has their own struggles to deal with, trying to score some beer with friends shouldn’t be that big of a deal – even if everyone happens to be underage.
When Hank goes to pick up Walt Jr to get him out of the sticky situation he finds him in, he doesn’t appear to be all that angry with him.
When he returns home, however, the first words from Skyler’s mouth are “I don’t even know what to say to you”. Fans understand her motherly concern, but as Hank correctly points out, Walt Jr has bigger things on his mind.
GOOD – Family Breakfast
A small idea such as having breakfast alongside one’s family every single morning doesn’t seem like it should be that big of a deal. In fans’ minds, though, many like the thought that Skyler probably had when deciding to make it a ‘thing’.
As opposed to everyone just doing their own routine every single morning, the three of them sit down around the table and discuss what their day has in store. Sure, this caused quite a few memes to be made regarding Walt Jr’s love of breakfast, but it’s an underrated feature of being a parent.
WASN’T – Walt Takes Holly
Skyler decided to take matters into her own hands when it became clear that Walt, in some way, had been involved in the death of Hank.
She attempts to physically attack him with a knife, and when she comes up short, Walt Jr is there to protect her.
Walt proceeds to take their daughter, Holly, kidnapping her from the house. While there’s an argument to be made that there was nothing she could’ve done to prevent him from taking her, the fact that she was in the danger zone when it all went down goes against her ideology completely.
GOOD – The Car Wash
Skyler is eventually drawn into the web of lies that Walt, aka Heisenberg, creates, and she decides to partner up with him in an attempt to launder the money that he is earning.
The main way they do that is through the car wash they purchase together. That whole enterprise, from the initial purchase all the way through to when it collapsed, put business first and family second.
Skyler had clearly started to enjoy it all a great deal, and while she may never admit that, her actions said it all.
WASN’T – Sleeping With Ted
When finding out about Walt’s secret, Skyler clearly felt more trapped than she ever has been before. She can’t leave Walt in the conventional sense, so as a way of getting back at him, she decides to sleep with her boss Ted.
Her mind was solely focused on getting back at Walt and harming him in some way, shape or form. She doesn’t take into consideration how this is going to impact her children, probably because she doesn’t even care at that moment.
It was selfish, and it was calculated.
