Top 20 Times Modern Family Got Real

Some of “Modern Family’s” greatest heartfelt moments arise from Jay’s periodical displays of sentimentality. Throughout the course of the show, we glean that few things matter more to him than his family. This was evidenced pretty early on in the series in the episode “Disneyland”, where we come to learn that Jay was all set to divorce DeDe until he thought of Claire and Mitchell, who were still kids at the time. He put them first and waited until they were grown to do what was best for himself. In season 11, we also learn that business wasn’t always easy for Jay. There was a time where he had to cut a family vacation short and take a night job to keep the lights on.

It’s no secret that Jay and Manny don’t always see eye-to-eye and the two definitely don’t have exactly the typical father-son bond that, say, Luke and Phil have. But, they don’t need that sort of bond to be there for each other. When Manny has an accident on a forklift at Jay’s work, Jay immediately fires the employee who let it happen. While Manny fights for the employee and begs his stepdad to give the worker another chance, Jay knows where his priorities lie. His kid’s safety comes above all else. Manny’s reaction to the term reveals something many blended families go through and it’s really sweet seeing just how touched he is.

Alex is not a quitter. And, as a result, she often doesn’t get to quit. When she’s having a rather poor time at college, she confides in her dad who, with his intentions in the right place, inadvertently sets her off by encouraging her to give things a chance. This isn’t the first time Alex has had trouble fitting in but, luckily, her parents always seem to know how to be there for her. Despite Phil later validating her feelings and assuring her they’d love to have her back home, he also gives her the gentle nudge she needed to get out of her comfort zone.

As it turns out, both Dunphy sisters had a rough time away from home. They say the first one is always the most difficult to let go and that’s precisely what Claire and Phil go through after leaving Haley in her new dorm. The goodbye doesn’t go exactly as they might have wanted after a typical Dunphy catastrophe, but Haley eventually comes around later in the day when she discovers how lonely college can be. Her thank-you and I’ll-miss-you are familiar to so many parents of college-aged kids, and Claire and Phil’s reactions make the moment all the more real. It’s truly the mark of their eldest moving out of her teen years into adulthood… at least until she was kicked out.

All parents and their kids go through rough patches, some of them worse than others. After Haley’s arrest and expulsion from college – which was another super real moment on the show – things are understandably pretty rough between her and her parents. When she begins dating someone who’s nearly her dad’s age, Claire insists that it’s to get back at them and they should stand their ground in the game of chicken. Phil is a little less steadfast. In her final attempt to provoke her parents, Haley divulges her feelings of failure which are entirely relatable to those of us who’ve made bigger mistakes in life. It’s Phil’s confession, however, that always hits us right in the gut, serving as a much-appreciated reminder of what a father’s love looks like.

Until Joe, Lily held the title of the baby of the family. By season 10, however, she wasn’t such a baby anymore. The arrival of her first period sees Mitch and Cam out of sorts as they try to help despite knowing very little about the experience. They call on some outside help (which does more harm than good) and eventually realize that, even if they can’t completely understand what their daughter is going through, they’re the two best equipped to help. Mitch’s speech about Lily growing up brings him to tears and it’s such a stark reminder about a major theme both in the show and in life. Change is scary, but the people around us can make it a little less so.

Gloria’s accent, pronunciation, and confusion of English expressions was a long-running gag on “Modern Family”. But, the show also made sure to shine a light on how difficult it is to speak a second language you didn’t grow up with, as well as Gloria’s frustration with jokes and jibes at her expense. In season 6, Gloria finally gets to speak her mother tongue when a Spanish tutor is hired for Manny. Jay learns what it’s like to be the one out of the loop for once, and Gloria has some great lines about the tribulations of speaking a language you’re not totally comfortable in. It’s relatable to many and a good lesson for native speakers reinforcing that intelligence has nothing to do with how well someone speaks.

As is perfectly on theme for a plot point in this sitcom, Alex’s middle school graduation is cause for something of a panic in Claire. We see her break as she reveals that middle school graduation was around the time that Haley’s moody teenage years put a damper on their mother-daughter relationship and she’s anticipating the same will happen with Alex. Even Phil ends up in tears as he reminisces on Haley as a child versus their interactions when she’s a teen. Later on, we’d see Haley experience something similar when Alex was set to go off to college and she was scared they wouldn’t keep in touch. Parents will never be prepared for a child to leave them, but at least Claire got one thing wrong; they do come back.

Though this episode delves into some pretty weighty topics like teenage insecurities and the importance of emotional connection in romantic relationships, nothing is quite as heavy as the twist that is Jay’s plotline. It’s storming at the Delgado-Pritchett household and Jay spends the entire time trying to get out of the house and to the nearest bar. We initially think it’s just Jay being cynical and trying to get away from all the hullabaloo taking place in his house. By the end, however, we learn of the true reason behind his urgency. The quiet moment he shares with Phil, of all family members, is nothing short of a tear-jerker.

It feels so specific to have Luke befriend the crabby next-door neighbor, Walt Kleezak – and, yet, it’s exactly something Luke would do. Claire and Phil, who were spooked by Walt to begin with, have their apprehensions about this new friendship. It’s Luke, however, in his childlike view of the world, that reminds everyone the importance of getting to know someone before we pass judgment. This lesson is brought home when Walt reveals that he was once a fireman and has no ill intentions. That was all real enough but the biggest punch to the gut comes in the next season, when Walt passes away and Luke has to confront grief at such a young age.

When Cam and Mitchell got the call that a pregnant woman had chosen them to adopt her baby and she was in labor, they rushed to the hospital prepared to leave with the newest member of their family. But things didn’t go as planned as the grandmother of the child announced that she was going to raise it. The scene is played for laughs as it plays out like a Telenovela, with angry women, face-slaps and a sexy priest. However, at the core of it all is Cam and Mitch not getting a baby. It’s a difficult moment for the couple and one that leads to them taking a step back and deciding not to pursue adoption for the time being.

Alex is a brilliant girl and an academically driven student who puts a ton of pressure on herself to succeed. It makes for a lot of funny jokes, but in the season five episode, “Under Pressure” this constant need to be the best comes to a head when she breaks down during her 16th birthday party. Alex speaks to a therapist, who she found by herself of course, and it’s during their session that we really get a deeper dive into her stress and her belief that no one really understands how she feels. During an open house at school, Claire begins to realize the stress Alex must be under and at the end gives her a real shoulder to cry on.

Jay, the patriarch of the Pritchett family, is old school, tough and not one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. We know he grew up with a tough, no nonsense father too, but he generally doesn’t share much about how that makes him feel. That is until the family has a session with a doctor and self-help author who forces them, over the course of the day, to clean out their emotional junk drawer. While Jay, and the other Pritchetts don’t take it very seriously at first, eventually Jay has a real moment about his father that brought him, and probably many watching, to tears.

While Jay and Mitchell’s relationship improved over the course of the series, Jay wasn’t always as accepting of his son’s sexuality as he eventually became. Although things had gotten better by season five, some of Jay’s prejudices came to the surface as Mitch and Cam prepared for their wedding. As the cost of the event grows, Jay makes some comments about how they should tone it down and how he doesn’t want his friends there to see it. To hear your father say that just before your wedding day would be hard for anyone, and as a result, Mitch tells Jay to not bother coming. Thankfully father and son work through it though and Jay is ultimately there to walk Mitch down the aisle.

Early on in the series, the discomfort that Jay has with his son being gay is put on display when he introduces Cam as Mitchell’s friend. Obviously, this angers Mitch and he gets back at his dad by telling him one of his friends is gay, even though he isn’t. This first season episode is titled “Fifteen Percent” in reference to Mitchell’s closing monologue about how that is as much as people can change, if they want to. We might argue that, considering where he started, Jay’s “change” over the show’s 11 seasons, especially in regards to his gay son, might have been more than fifteen percent. But this was season one and he wasn’t quite there yet.

As we’ve already discussed, Jay Pritchett considers himself a man’s man who keeps his emotions in check and doesn’t like to look weak. But near the end of season two, we get one of our first cracks in his armor in the “Mother’s Day” episode while he’s making his mom’s sauce with Phil. During the process, they find a poem Jay wrote about the recipe for the perfect mom and their reading of it floods him with unexpected emotions. Later at dinner, he tries to play it off as nothing, but he again breaks down with the whole family around. Instead of pulling back this time, though, he lets himself feel the feels.

“Modern Family” didn’t waste any time getting real with the next item on our list coming in just the second episode of the series. Jay is again at the center of the realness, but this time he is living up to the adage that ends the episode that the biggest part of being a good dad is just being there. Although Jay had a trip planned for him and Gloria, when Manny’s biological father decides he would rather play craps than spend time with Manny at Disneyland as planned, Jay is there. He makes up some excuse for Manny’s father and changes his plans so that he, Gloria and Manny can go to Disneyland together.

Funerals are often times when shows get real and the funeral for Phil’s mom in season four was no exception. The moments that stand out from the episode are the ones with Alex, who was very close to her grandma and at first is confused and disappointed when all her grandma seemingly left her was a lighter and a short letter. However, when more of the letter is discovered it all makes sense as Grandma really did understand her - which as we learned earlier, she didn’t feel like anyone else did. This leads to a closing moment filled with smiles and, if you’re anything like us, a bunch of tears as well.

Sure, Jay and DeDe had their problems: she wasn’t very accepting of Gloria and her relationship with her kids was complicated. But as Jay’s ex-wife and Claire and Mitch’s mom, she was a part of this “Modern Family”; she was loved and her loss affected everyone in their own way. They say that the only two things guaranteed in life are death and taxes, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to loved ones left behind. DeDe’s death was the big shock of season 10, but as we already saw and will again, it wouldn’t be the last time the show would get real with the passing of a member of the family.

By the time season 11 came around, the family had already lost Phil’s mom, Claire and Mitch’s mother and Manny’s turtle, to name a few. But there was one more heart wrenching death to come and that was Phil’s dad, Frank. Phil and his father were definitely two peas in a pod and there are few sons who look up to their dad more than Phil did his. This one hit hard, but as with the death of his mother, who Alex sent off with fireworks, Phil celebrated his dad in the most perfect way he could - with some big penguin footprints!