Over the course of almost eleven years, Modern Family kept delivering on the emotion spectrum. The last season is currently airing, and we can’t help but recall with fondness all the times we ugly cried and laughed out loud with the Dunphys, the Pritchetts, and the Tucker-Pritchetts. After so many years tuning in to share their problems, joys, and over-the-top adventures, it’s impossible not to feel like we’ll be missing part of our own family.
There are many things that set apart the three funniest families on television. Each of them is inherently different from the others, which makes for a diverse cocktail of laughter. And this time around, we’re taking a look at immaturity. Some characters have it in spade, others we doubt were even children at some point in their lives. Let’s rank every main character on Modern Family by immaturity!
Luke
It’s hard to believe that Nolan Gould, the actor playing Luke Dunphy, is actually a genius. That only makes his acting skills even more impressive! Saying Luke is the most immature character of the bunch is a no brainer. This isn’t to say the youngest Dunphy is a complete child - he’s simply still coming to terms with what it means to be an adult.
Over the years, Luke displayed several signs of immaturity, from his dangerous inventions to his reactions to other people’s emotions, and sometimes even his own. But we’ll say this - he’s come very far!
Haley
The eldest child of Claire and Phil has only recently stepped up into the world of adulthood once she got pregnant with the twins. But even before the twins were born, and several years before that, Haley has always displayed plenty of immaturity.
Whether it is being kicked out of college a few weeks in, not really caring about anyone else but her, and taking her sweet time deciding what she was going to do with her life, Haley wasn’t exactly the poster child for maturity. But just like her brother, Hayley stepped up when she had to.
Phil
It’s not hard to understand where Luke and Hayley got their childish genes. Phil has admitted himself that he has a never-ending childlike sense of wonder, and we witnessed it in pretty much every single episode of the series.
The fact that Phil is one of the most immature people on the show obviously doesn’t mean he’s bad or useless. We love Phil, and the show wouldn’t be the same without him. He is an amazing father and husband, and overall human being. He just has a hard time saying goodbye to childhood - and that’s okay because it’s part of who he is.
Cam
Cam’s immaturity is most often displayed through his relationships with other people. He’s notorious for making a scene when things don’t go his way, or when he wants to get his way, often with a theatrical flair that only Cam can pull off.
He’s also prone to pouting and overall behaving like a kid when he doesn’t get what he wants, but he eventually comes around. Plus, Cam wouldn’t be Cam without all of these things.
Mitchell
Even though Mitchell very much enjoys putting on his serious lawyer act and pretend he doesn’t have a single piece of childhood left in him, he can still be pretty immature in his reactions.
Mitchell doesn’t put on a show like Cam does when he wants something or doesn’t get what he wants, but he does take on a more passive-aggressive strategy that keeps him from having to confront people. He’s been learning how to become more confrontational throughout the show, but he’s still far from getting there.
Lily
Who would’ve thought the kid would actually be more mature than the parents? Well, in Modern Family, this seems to be a more common theme than one would think. And the first example is none other than Lily, Cam and Mitchell’s daughter.
Even when Lily was just a child, we could already tell she was very mature for her age. And as she grew up and slowly became a tween, it was pretty much standard to see her solve issues between her parents or put her foot down when things were escalating within the family.
Gloria
Many people seem to forget that Gloria was an immigrant single-mother who raised her son alone, going through jobs that included driving a cab. Even though these things are seldom mentioned on the show, they speak volumes about her character.
Yes, just like any other member of the family, she’s had her moments of immaturity. But nothing that compares to the characters we’ve mentioned thus far!
Claire
Jay’s eldest daughter is, in the words of Phil, a “dynamite lady”. It’s Claire’s seriousness and somewhat controlling nature that makes for such a perfect balance within the Dunphy family.
Claire raised three kids, became the CEO of a company, and is an overall amazing example for her children. She doesn’t have a clean slate when it comes to immature moments, but who in this family does?
Jay
Jay’s immaturity shines brighter in the light of emotions. In the beginning, he had difficulty accepting Mitchell’s homosexuality, not to mention his continuous mistreatment of Phil because he could never accept him as a worthy husband for Claire.
But as the patriarch of the family, over the course of the show, Jay more than anyone ended up being the one solving the issues brought up by the rest of the family’s immaturity. In this case, life experience does matter, and Jay is probably the character who evolved the most over the past decade.
Manny
Was Manny ever a child? For some reason, we have a hard time believing it. Ever since we first laid eyes upon him, Manny was clearly an old soul, with an emotional maturity off the charts, and refined tastes that didn’t really fit a kid.
His personality never changed, and Manny has always been more mature than any other adult around. Being raised under complicated circumstances forced Manny to grow up very early on, and we’re glad he never changed, but still allowed himself to kick back and relax sometimes.
Alex
This one goes pretty much without saying. Alex is obviously the most intelligent one out of the bunch, but that intelligence extends beyond science and books. The middle child of the Dunphys has been the saving grace of the family more than once (who can forget when she came back from camp only for everyone to realize they would all be dead without her?).
Alex has carried the burden of her intelligence with grace, for the most part, even asking her parents to provide her with a therapist when the pressure was getting to her. Wise beyond her years, indeed.
Next: Modern Family: Every Main Character, Ranked By Intelligence
