Josephine Lynn "Jo" McGuire is Lizzie and Matt's mother. She cares deeply about Lizzie but is trying to figure out how to raise a teenager. As a result, she sometimes tends to "mess up" situations in Lizzie's life while trying to make them better. At the end of each episode, Jo and Lizzie come to an understanding and portray the unfaltering love of a mother-daughter relationship.
Childhood
Jo was born in Walla Walla, Washington on July 28.
As a child, Jo was a geeky girl who envied anybody that was popular. She treasured her record and CD collections (including Leif Garrett vinyl records). In the Season 1 episode "Between a Rock and a Bra Place," she said that when she was thirteen and her mother took her shopping, her mother would do everything she could to embarrass Jo. Jo promised herself that she would never act that like that with her own daughter. After Lizzie told her that she didn't act that way with her, Jo agreed and said that she was worse.
Love Relationships
Jo is married to Sam McGuire. It is indicated several times that they have been married for fifteen years. They first met during freshman week at High School, according to Sam in "Bye Bye Hillridge Junior High".
As a teenager, she had a crush on the lifeguard at the city pool. When she saw him recently, he "lost all his hair, was assistant manager at the local Dairy Freeze, and lived with his mother," according to Jo in "The Greatest Crush of All."
Her Traits
In "Picture Day", she and Sam force Lizzie to wear a unicorn sweater, despite the weather being warm in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to her, Sam, and Gammy (Sam's mother), everyone scolds Lizzie for wearing the unicorn sweater. Even Miranda hates seeing Lizzie wearing one on photo day, since it is "not just a picture; we're in middle school now." At the end, Jo notices that Lizzie held up the unicorn sweater while wearing a white blouse covered in green paint.
In "Pool Party" Jo points out that sometimes a best friend could be the worst enemy, but not before banning Lizzie from Danny Kessler's Pool Party. (Ironically, she was the worst emeny to all of Lizzie's schoolmates on "Picture Day", but she and her husband fail to say so.)
In "Between a Rock and a Bra Place" she is the type of mom to humiliate Lizzie and Miranda in a mall by mentioning their very first bras.
In "Gordo and the Magic Dwarves", she forces Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo to play a dwarf game, which Gordo gets an F.
As she and Sam are roped to the Sports EXPO in "The Longest Yard", and forces Lizzie to cancel her plans. Lizzie is mistreated by Lanny and Matt, and Matt and Lizzie are unfairly ungrounded for not taking care of the football that belonged to Sam.
In "Working Girl", Jo bans Lizzie from having her allowance raise as everyone in school really has. Lizzie is supposed to enjoy being a kid as she is not even independent. Lizzie had worked at the Digital Bean, and the staff liked her better as a guest instead of a busboy.
In "Party Over Here", despite not being the only parent, she bans Lizzie from going to an unsupervised party and grounds her, whilst telling her to enjoy her childhood. Lizzie hated her childhood.
In "She Said, He Said, She Said", Jo disliked Lizzie as she was an abusive parent. Sam liked Matt better (as of that fantasy sequence since in real life, it is proven otherwise.)