Who is the ‘Mother’, In ‘How I Met Your Mother’?

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Posted March 18, 2012 by Oshee in EntertainME

The Mother is the mystery, an enigma (if you will) and many just watch the show for this. Here are a few clues to get your mind working into who the mother could be. By the way, only creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas know who the mother is. No one else in the production team does.

While not much is known about the mother, the following has been revealed throughout the series.

1) At the end of Lucky Penny (S02E15), Future Ted says:

“Kids, funny thing about destiny. I thought I was destined to get that job, but I was wrong. My destiny was to stay in New York. Because if I hadn’t, I never would’ve met your mother.”

This strongly suggests that Ted meets the mother in New York, and that at the time of Lucky Penny, Ted had not yet met the mother.

2) At the end of Something Blue (S02E22), Future Ted closes the episode talking about his and Robin’s futures:

“And as hard as it was at the time, in the end we both got what we wanted. She did eventually go on to live in Argentina, and Morocco, Greece, Russia, even Japan for a little while. And I? Well, I met your mom.”

This implies that, at the time of Something Blue, Ted had yet to meet the mother.

3) In Wait For It (S03E01), it’s revealed by Future Ted that the mother’s yellow umbrella factors into the story of how she and Ted met.

4) In No Tomorrow (S03E12), Future Ted states that his future wife was at the same St. Patrick’s Day party he went to, but that they didn’t meet each other, again implying that at the time of this episode, Ted had not met the mother. When going back to the party to find his phone, he picked up the yellow umbrella that belonged to her. However, Ted does bump into some seemingly arbitrary woman whom he seems to notice and who seems to notice him. This woman may turn out to be the mother.

5) In The Three Days Rule (S04E21), Future Ted tells his children that when he got their mother’s phone number, he called her right away. This too implies that, as of The Three Days Rule, Ted had not yet met their mother.

6) In The Leap (S04E24), Ted is shown teaching his first class at Columbia University . Future Ted narrates how this was the best job he’s ever had, and that if it weren’t for that job, he never would have met their mother. However, in Definitions, it’s revealed that Ted was in the wrong room for his first class, and all the students there were Economics students, implying that the mother is (at the time of that episode) an Economics student.

7) In Double Date (S05E02), Future Ted tells his kids that when he first told their mother his “shellfish-selfish” joke, she laughed.

8) In Last Cigarette Ever (S05E11), Future Ted reveals that he eventually stops smoking a few weeks after he first meets the mother.

9) In Girls Versus Suits (S05E12), Ted dates a girl named Cindy. Cindy’s roommate is the mother, as revealed by Future Ted. Although they never meet, while in Cindy’s apartment Ted looks around and discovers things about the roommate/mother that shows they have very similar likes and hobbies, such as: singing show tunes while making breakfast, painting pictures of robots playing sports, and playing bass guitar. Ted also sees what Future Ted states was probably the mother’s feet, as she leaves the bathroom to go into her room.

10) In Big Days (S06E01), Future Ted reveals that “a little ways down the road”, Ted will be giving a wedding toast as the best man, and that he will meet the mother on the day of the wedding. It is later seen in Challenge Accepted that he is in fact the best man to Barney, and that the Mother is most likely a guest at the wedding.

11) In Garbage Island (S06E17), in a scene that flashes forward to 2021, Ted reunites with Wendy the Waitress and tells her that he is now married to “a wonderful woman” and has two kids, revealing that he will have met and married the mother by this time. This fits into the continuity of the series, given that Ted’s kids are in their late teens by 2030.

12) Later in The Exploding Meatball Sub (S06E01), a scene set in April 2021 (ten years into the future) shows Ted wearing a wedding ring, further implying he will have met and married the mother by this time.

Some Theories floating over the internet:

From the Producers:

On the Season Six DVD set, there is a special feature called “What we know about your mother”. In it, Future Ted list all the women it could not be, from Robin to Zoey, talks about the yellow umbrella, and then talks about the woman in the coffee shop who got the orchid that was meant for Zoey. He states while that the woman was not the mother, he list some new information about her. First, the mother always finishes her sandwiches, befriends waitresses to get free dessert (which, according to Future Ted, happens all the time), and her favorite flowers are lilacs, which is the first flower Ted gave her when they met.

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