Most critics come down in favour of Motherland, though not by a wide margin. The praise clusters on its accuracy: the reviews agree it captures the panic and vertigo of early parenthood closely enough to be uncomfortable, and several treat that discomfort as the point. The cynicism is the other thing admired, with the school-gate politics, the performative alpha mothers and the slacker mum Liz singled out, and the children kept firmly as props rather than cute distractions. Its refusal of sentiment is repeatedly held up against softer family sitcoms.
The spread is wide rather than narrow, with nobody sitting in the middle. The dissenters, all American, find the same qualities exhausting: The Hollywood Reporter calls it forced and frantic, IndieWire finds the chaos taxing rather than funny, and Paste faults a clueless, unlikeable lead and misses the warmth of Catastrophe. The British reviews are the warm ones, which may say something about who recognises these mothers.