I recently started rewatching Ginny & Georgia, mostly for background noise while I was doing work, and it somehow sparked an entire debate between me and my roommate. She was passionately defending Georgia while I was at Ginny Miller’s defense like my life depended on it, as if I personally lived in Wellsbury.
Honestly, the playful back-and-forth made me realize something: when it comes to Ginny & Georgia, a lot of viewers treat the show like a mother-daughter competition, as if you can only root for one of them. But this isn’t about picking sides. You can love Georgia’s character—I know I do—while still admitting her shortcomings. You can acknowledge Ginny’s mistakes without painting her as the ungrateful teenager many viewers make her out to be. I truly think the internet has been far too harsh on Ginny. Whenever a new season drops, I see people calling her “ungrateful,” “selfish,” or “entitled.”
Georgia is an incredible character—funny, smart, and fiercely protective of her kids. Her love for them is truly undeniable, but good intentions can’t always erase harm. Georgia’s survival instincts make her captivating and admirable, but they also lead her to constantly cross her children’s boundaries, especially Ginny’s.
From the very beginning, Georgia has a habit of making decisions for her kids, not with them. In season two, she reads Ginny’s private journal and confronts her daughter about her self-harm—which yes— that is a gut-wrenching thing for any mother to find. She was scared and wanted to protect her child. But reading her daughter’s private thoughts that clearly weren’t meant to be shared with her wasn’t the way to go about it. It took away Ginny’s agency to be able to open up about it on her own terms.
Then there’s the bigger issue. Georgia’s mentality of handling everything herself. It stems from her own trauma—she’s had to look out for herself for so long, relying on others is scary. But her belief that everything she does is the best decision for her kids ends up emotionally suffocating them. After learning she killed her husband Kenny, much of the audience, including myself, definitely understood why she did it. Her drive to protect her daughter from being abused was strong, and she makes it clear she needs to protect her child the way she wasn’t protected.
But it doesn’t change how confusing and terrifying it must have been for Ginny to process that. Even if her intentions were pure, finding out your mom is capable of killing someone is a lot for any teenager to process. In many ways, I think it made Ginny feel even more isolated, like the idea of normalcy will always be out of grasp for her.
Georgia’s response when Ginny attempts to set boundaries doesn’t really help either. In season three, after Georgia is put on house arrest, Ginny leaves the house and her mother follows after her. When Ginny expresses that she just needs space from the chaos, Georgia snaps, “You think I never wanted to run away from you?”. Shocked at her mother’s subtle implication that being born was a burden, she tells her mom that wasn’t her fault to which Georgia states, “It was little your fault”. This captured how Georgia tends to adultify her daughter, saying impulsive things without thinking about how it’s going to affect her mental health. Ginny’s not “selfish” for needing distance to figure out who she is in the midst of her mother’s chaos.
This leads into the conversation of how Georgia has a tendency to dismiss her children’s mental health. Take Austin, for example. He’s seen his mother do plenty of questionable things, the most horrifying one, witnessing Georgia suffocate Cynthia’s husband. When the topic of him needing to be in therapy comes up, she often dismisses it. Or she states that she doesn’t want him in therapy until after the murder trial is over in case he accidentally tells his therapist something he “shouldn’t”. Georgia loves her children deeply, but she hasn’t always given them the space to feel things without guilt.
That’s the part of the conversation that tends to get lost online. People admire Georgia’s “girlboss” energy, the way she survives, and how she’s always 10 steps ahead. I admire it too. But that admiration sometimes blinds her fans on the emotional toll she’s weighed on her kids. They’re shaped by growing up in an environment where love and danger can be confused for one another.
Then there’s Ginny’s social struggle. Growing up, she has never had a stable environment, and she’s expressed how she often feels neither of her parents can fully understand her struggles being biracial and living in a mostly white area. Even amongst her own friends, she’s treated differently. One scene that always stuck with me was in season one, after Abby convinces Ginny to steal with her, Ginny’s the only one to get caught, and she’s the only one to face consequences. And Abby lets her. She even tells Georgia she had “no idea that Ginny was stealing” as if it wasn’t her idea. When a hairstylist doesn’t know how to work with Ginny’s hair and ends up messing it up, Abby laughs at her struggle.
They’re small moments that don’t really get touched on later, but it says so much about how Ginny doesn’t really have any safe outlets. So yes, while Ginny’s had her moments where she’s “rude” towards Abby, I can’t help but think of these moments. While I definitely acknowledge Ginny’s shortcomings towards her friends and mom, I can’t help but defend that she’s not “selfish”. Maybe she’s just tired of absorbing everyone else’s mistakes while her own gets blown out of proportion.
Defending Ginny isn’t about hating Georgia. I genuinely love Georgia’s character and admire her complexity. But loving her shouldn’t mean silencing Ginny’s pain. Georgia’s trauma gives an explanation to many of her actions, but it also doesn’t cancel out Ginny’s trauma. Ginny’s frustration doesn’t make her ungrateful.
At the end of the day, Ginny’s story isn’t about rebellion. It’s about surviving in her own way. She’s a teenager trying to understand her mom, herself, and her place in a world that misunderstands her. Maybe if we stopped expecting teenage girls to be perfectly composed while trying to navigate impossible situations, we’d see Ginny for what she really is: a teenage girl learning to carry things she didn’t ask for in the first place.