Fall 2025 is the Gilmore Girls’ 25th anniversary. Oy with the poodles already! In the 25 years we have had the Gilmore Girls in our lives, we have seen these three generations of Gilmore women go through many formative years of their lives.
We watched Rory grow from a smart and driven teen, to a college student questioning her life choices, to a young adult still figuring out what direction to take. We see Lorelai shift from teen mother to mother with a teen, and from a young adult parent with all the power to influence her smart but naive teen, to having to learn to keep her opinions to herself while parenting young adult Rory, all while remaining a friend first. We saw Emily go from having an estranged daughter to having a full-blown relationship with a daughter and granddaughter, and from wife, to separated, to reconciled to widow.
The series is more than our feel good comfy show. It gives us an excellent guidebook on dealing with family relationships through the ever-changing periods of life. Here are some things we can learn from the Gilmore Girls:
Lorelai “Rory” Gilmore: named after her mother because men name their babies after themselves all the time, so why not women? High school Rory is what we would all love our daughter to be like: herself. She does not try to be anyone else but herself. She loves school and reading, and is not ashamed of where she comes from. We love that version of Rory. She is a wonderful example of making goals and a plan to get where you want to go.
There are many episodes where Rory prioritizes school over things a normal teen would be tempted with. It pays off with her acceptance to three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Rory’s major flaw is that she does not learn from her mistakes, however. In the revival, we see Rory in the same spot she was in when the original series ended. It is frustrating seeing her turn down good jobs writing and teaching to chase projects that are more glamorous or exciting, but that do not work out in the end. She is floundering and unimpressive unlike her teenage self. Then, there is her love life. She still does not understand that you cannot be with a married man. There is no hope for you if you refuse to listen to your best friend or mother (in this case it is the same person) on that.
Lorelai is a fascinating character. In the series, we get to see her in the roles of mother and daughter. As a mother she is great at letting Rory be herself. She is extremely supportive of her daughter. Whenever Rory needs her, she comes to her aid. It says it in the theme song, “Where you lead I will follow anywhere that you tell me to.” She even spends the first night with Rory in her college dorm room.
She is Rory’s friend first, then mom. She uses her “mom card” when necessary and helps guide Rory through the growing pains of life, and does not give her a pass for bad behavior. At the end of the day, we all want our children to know we love them and that they have a soft place to land when they are having a bad teen day. However, as a daughter to her parents, Lorelai is the first to say she has not got that part down. She and her parents have a difficult relationship which is relatable. They speak the same language but somehow do not understand each other. Lorelai does hold past things against her parents that caused her childhood trauma partly from not being heard. However, she does continue a relationship with them, even in her later life when she is not obligated to. This can be seen as trying to forgive and move forward, which is very hard.
There is so much to say about Emily Gilmore, the matriarch of the Gilmore clan. She is both villain and hero in the Gilmore world, and it is deserved. Emily practices an authoritative parenting style without the love and support you normally expect from a parent. Maybe she is there to represent the way older generations took on parenting. That approach does not work on free-spirited, headstrong daughter Lorelai who rejects the type of life her parents lead. We can learn from Emily to have a little bit more humility when it comes to parenting.
Conversely, we can also sympathize with Emily for having a child that she has difficulty relating to and loves dearly. We see over and over again her trying to be a part of Lorelai and Rory’s lives, but only on her terms, and that does not yield the results she wants. From the challenges she faces parenting, she has the most character growth of everyone. And it is in the Revival that we experience the best version of Emily: the one where she has mostly let go of her pride and caring about expectations from others, real and imagined. That version of Emily would have gotten along really well with teenage Lorelai.
Gilmore Girls is more than entertainment. It uses its fast-talking, witty banter to delve deep into difficult relationships that we can all relate to on some level. So when you do your next Gilmore Girls rewatch (why not start tonight?), as you let all of the pop culture and literary references wash over you, keep an eye on how the relationships between the Gilmore Girls grow, evolve, recede, and keep growing.
