Again, I don’t disagree insofar as there simply are way more female villains than there are male villains on this show. So, numerically speaking, there are simply going to be more mothers than fathers.
That’s true too of course. But it’s that every female villain (the major arc ones) gets the same story: some sort of rejection or ill treatment from a man (and as I pointed out, a man who gets to more or less walk away unscathed, the exception is Rumple and that’s largely because he’s core cast) and then redemption through motherhood. If it weren’t every major female villain**, then it might be nothing but it is pattern–either lazy writing or honestly thinking that motherhood is the key to a woman’s salvation.
** = I’m leaving Ursula and Cruella out of this mostly because they turned out to be side villains more than major ones. Mal is the real Queen of Darkness in this years arc.