There are a lot of people that can be counted among the "Founding Fathers" of America. I will run through a handful for the sake of this response.

George Washington's father, Augustine Washington, died in 1743 and thus did not live to see his son become Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, preside over the Constitutional Convention, or serve two terms as President. His mother, Mary Ball Washington, was very much alive during the Revolution and died in 1789. She was described in Alice Curtis Desmond's book George Washington's Mother as being "a Tory at heart"^1 who loved her son but didn't really approve of the whole Revolution business. Of course, Desmond's account was written as a popular history, not a scholarly source; that aside, while more rigorous texts on her son's life have treated her less sympathetically (see Douglass Freeman's biography, for example) there are not many who would conflate her political conservatism with out-and-out loyalism.^2 After all, when the war ended she did not decamp for another land (as did Benjamin Franklin's estranged son William) but instead lived in Virginia until the end of her days. It probably did not help that the British army burnt the family home during the war, which was not a fun experience.^3

John Adams's father, who was also named John Adams, died in 1761 and thus did not live to see his son join the Continental Congress, attend the Constitutional Convention, or become America's second President. His mother, Susanna Boylston, remarried after the death of her first husband to one Lt. John Hall and lived a very long life, finally dying in 1797. "My Mothers Countenance and Conversation was a Source of Enjoyment to me, that is now dried up forever," her son wrote upon her death,^4 but he does not spend much time talking about her in any of his surviving correspondence, his diary, or his memoirs. In fact, very little is known about her save the fact that she lived, was married twice, and outlived both of her husbands. David McCullough surmised that she was illiterate, given the almost complete lack of correspondence from Susanna Boylston which survives to the present day.^5 On the other hand, John Adams indicated in his memoirs that "as my parents were both fond of reading...I was very early taught to read at home" [emphasis added].^6 We can guess that she had opinions, and that her son was fond of her, but the specifics may be lost to history.

Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter Jefferson, died in 1757 and thus did not live to see his son's political and diplomatic career in what you must notice has become something of a major trend. Remember that in colonial America it was not uncommon for older men to marry younger women, and that the usual demographic trends which inflate male mortality have not been suspended. Jefferson's mother, Jane Randolph, lived until 1776 but died suddenly of what Thomas Jefferson described as an unknown, possibly apoplectic illness shortly before the drafting of the Declaration.^7 It is not known what she thought about her son's revolutionary activities, and she did not survive long enough to see the end of them.

Benjamin Franklin's parents were both dead by the time of the Revolution. Franklin himself was also old enough to be a father to most of the other Founders, and a grandfather to the rest. Did I mention that he was very old? Because he was indeed quite old.

John Jay lucked out, as both of his parents were alive during the Revolution! His father, Peter Jay, was a staunch Whig, and thus was very much in agreement with his son. "God grant that all attempts of the ministerial troops may be frustrated, and be the means of a happy reconciliation," he wrote in early 1776,^8 and by all indications the two were politically aligned until the death of the elder Jay in 1782. John Jay's mother, Mary Van Cortlandt, taught her son how to read and presumably shared her husband's views; she died on April 17, 1777, and John hurried home for the funeral in the midst of the convention which drafted a new constitution for New York state.^9

James Madison also had both parents live for a very long time. James Madison Sr. lived a long and prosperous life until his death in 1801 left his son with large tracts of land and quite a few slaves. Nelly Conway, his mother, lived until 1829. Father and son served together on the Orange County Committee of Safety, being elected together on December 22, 1774, and the elder Madison was the committee chairman.^10 I'd think it's pretty safe to say that Madison's family was very proud of his activities during the Revolution.

That's all I care to list. The short answer? Of the main group, the general trend was of family harmony, but also of people who died because this was the 1700s and medicine was not yet very advanced. (There are many interesting stories along those lines, too, but that is another thread.)

^1 Desmond, Alice Curtis. George Washington's Mother (1961), p. 169.
^2 Ferraro, William M. "Dutiful or Loving Son?: Reflecting on George Washington’s Relationship with His Mother, Mary Ball Washington"
^3 Smith, Glenn C. Review of George Washington's Mother by Alice Curtis Desmond appearing in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 70, No. 2 (April 1962), pp. 201-202.
^4 Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 4 1797.
^5 McCullough, David. John Adams (2001), p. 30.
^6 Autobiography of John Adams (part 1), p. 2.
^7 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to his uncle William Randolph, June 1776.
^8 Pellew, George. American Statesmen: John Jay (1890), p. 6.
^9 Pellew, 88.
^10 Ketcham, Ralph. James Madison: A Biography (1990), 63.

We know that George Washington's mother, Mary Ball Washington was a vexatious woman who was almost pathologically self-centered, and only saw George as her financial lifeline. She would use any tool at her disposal to get him to cough up more and more money. While he was fighting the Revolution, she even petitioned the Virginia legislature for a pension, knowing that it would humiliate him publicly and force him to address the issue. He had to write to the House of Delegates to cancel her request, since he had put his younger brother in charge of handling her endless financial issues.

There have always been rumors that she remained a British Loyalist throughout the war, but there seems to be nothing substantial to verify this. Her sons were all on the side of the Colonials, but she was certainly independent of their ideals in many things, so there is no evidence of her loyalties either way. If anything, her loyalties seem to lay with herself only.

Another rumor is that she didn't even offer positive validation when he became America's first president. He went to her home, where she was succumbing to cancer. When he said he would be back to see her soon, she was reported to have said:

“You will see me no more. I shall not be long in this world. But you, George, go fulfill the highest destinies which heaven has assigned you.”

Some read this as the positive acknowledgement that her son had always sought, while others interpret it sarcastically as a final guilt trip. Considering that there is no other evidence of her hardness toward her son abating at all, it is likely that it was a last attempt to get him to put her before his duty to his country.

For his part, George remained loyal to his mother throughout his life, and did his best to satisfy her endless demands for money, time, and attention, although his exasperation for her antics often showed through in letters. Certainly, it can be concluded that Mary Ball Washington was never in the running for mother of the year.

The Founders are a nebulous group. Here I'm going to define them as anyone who signed one of the four founding documents (the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution). This excludes 'second generation' Founders like Hamilton, Burr, Jackson, and many others, who were faithful revolutionaries but did not come to power until after the Revolution.

The average age of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was 44 at a time where the average life expectancy was 35 years. This was skewed by infant mortality, but the Founding Fathers largely died in their sixties. Presuming their parents had a roughly similar life expectancy, this means that the average founding Father's parents would have been very old or dead by the time of the Revolution. Add in the way that inheritance worked and the importance of land, and it was relatively unlikely for sons with living fathers to be Founding Fathers. After all, if dear old dad still owns the family plantation then it's his choice to support the Revolution or no. If you defy him and run off to fight you aren't going to get as much credit as someone who's the head of a prominent, respected family. So very few of the Founding Fathers had living fathers and most didn't even have living mothers.

This is, in general, born out by the anecdotes. For example, Roger Sherman was the only Founding Father to have signed all four founding documents. His father died in 1743 and his mother in early 1776. George Washington's father was also dead, though his mother lived through the Revolution. The same was true of John Adams. Jeffersons father was dead before the Revolution and his mother died in 1776. And so on.

What did John Adams' mother think of the Revolution? We don't really know. None of her writings have survived and she wasn't close to her son. John Adams only rarely mentions her. George Washington's mother, Martha Washington, appears to have been supportive of her son. There are stories (largely unverified) that she was of a Loyalist temperament, but all actual records show she supported her son fiercely. There is a certain familial tinge to this support, such that it might be she supported her son because he was her son, not because of ideological reasons.

The youngest person to sign any of these documents was Edward Rutledge, who was 24 when he signed the Continental Association and 26 when he signed the Declaration of Independence. He served alongside his more prominent older brother, who was the head of his family. Their father had died before the Revolution (and I'm not aware if their mother was still alive).

In short, the Founding Fathers mostly didn't have living fathers. Of the 149 people who signed any of the Founding Documents, about 7% are confirmed as having living fathers (though for some people my information simply doesn't mention their parents, mostly minor Founders). The percentage with mothers is higher but their opinions are less likely to have come down to us.

Sources are mainly The Social Origins of American Leaders: The Demographic Foundations and The American National Biography.

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