Mother's Day is a time to tell your mom thank you for not getting blasted by a killer robot after your dad came back in time to get it on with her. And for other stuff. You will enjoy this list of our favorite moms in nerd-related sci-fi and horror movies and TV.

Sarah Connor, Terminator

With grit and wits Sarah survives a robot assassin's charge, turning the thing into recyclables. Her sense of security taken from her, she robs it back from every survivalist camp and gunrunner in Latin America, with plenty of teachable moments to prepare her young son to become the savior of the human race.

When the machines come for her again, she nearly loses her mind, but she never lost her humanity.

Lwaxana Troi, Star Trek: TNG

A career woman who still finds time to meddle in her grown daughter's love life, all while nurturing a healthy social calendar of her own. Seriously, James T. Kirk wishes he got the kind of play Lwaxana fends off. It's fortunate they never crossed timelines, or Deanna might have inherited a combo psychic ability to sense when someone was horny.

The lady in the barn, Slither

Brenda is a lonely, pretty girl in a small town full of big mouths. When the thing that was her married lover infects her with its space seed, she swells up to the size of a two-car garage. Does she surrender to her horror? No! She keeps gobbling putrefying carcasses to maintain her strength. After all, she's eating for 200,000 now.

And when those busybody townies open their mouths, just watch what her little babies do with those wagging tongues.

Mom, Futurama

"Shove a big old squirrel in it!"

She's the (nearly) sole owner of a multi-billion dollar industrial complex, the public face of a beloved brand, and mother of three punching bags. They have names, but nobody cares what they are.

Mom stays in tremendous shape for her age, chiefly because hate burns calories like jet fuel.

Animal Mother, Full Metal Jacket

It's Adam Baldwin. Your argument is invalid.

Irene Duncan (My mom)

Irene is a working mother of four who loves sci-fi, and passed that love on to me like space herpes.

Her house has always been filled with fantastic media. There were Twilight Zone marathons, subscriptions to Omni and Discover Magazines, paperback books with lurid covers begging to be cracked. She never discouraged the collecting of comic books; she only commented that there were a lot fewer ads in them when she bought Superman comics as a kid.

She loves Starman and Stargate and Star Trek -- oh, my! She gave me my first Heinlein, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, and with it, the universe!

(Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Thanks for the gift that keeps on giving.)