I would argue he’s always had an interest in writing about mothers and daughters, it’s just that sometimes it hits and sometimes it really misses and there do seem to be sexist biases involved. I think as well his problem is that he doesn’t want to stop doing something that was successful, he’s reluctant to tell completely new stories.
Rose and Jackie were really groundbreaking for the show at the time because their story delved into what it’s like for the people who are left behind by the Doctor’s companions. Jackie being a single mum who had raised Rose entirely on her own after her husband died, Rose never knowing her father, them being focal points in each other's lives, the concept that a companion's loved ones might hate the Doctor – this felt fresh and interesting and I think it was largely handled well. Love and Monsters was an awful episode, but I love the Jackie-centric moments in it that show how lonely she is and how much she worries about Rose. I think the fact that it is hard to imagine who Rose would be without Jackie as her mother is a testament to how well the mother-daughter themes meshed with Rose's overall character journey.
Then you got something similar but slightly remixed with Francine Jones, Martha's mum, where instead of being a single mother she was a divorcee with a larger family. The first crack showed here: RTD couldn't stop himself from doing the same thing as he did with Jackie, having Martha's mum slap the Doctor across the face. Martha's dad? Apparently the guy had no strong feelings on the matter, even after he got tortured by the Master for a year.
I don't know if it's entirely fair to point at Sylvia and Donna as another example of only the mother-daughter bond being examined, because the actor who played Donna's father didn't return because he had passed. Donna had her strong bond with Wilf, too. It's worth noting though that although Jackie, Francine, and Sylvia are all markedly different people, they have similar tendencies and habits as mothers. They all nag their daughter, don't always understand their daughter's true potential, are unfairly critical at times (Jackie less and Sylvia much more so), don't approve of the Doctor or their daughter's attachment to him but come around in the end, and operate as a sort of maternal ball-and-chain. They mostly sit in the background of scenes saying disapproving one-liners and being overprotective unless the plot demands otherwise. Sylvia, the only mother who originally didn't slap the Doctor, slaps him in the 60th.
I say all that in Critical mode, as other things about these characters and their relationships with each other make me love them enough to forgive these imperfections, but if we're talking about how RTD handles mothers and motherhood, that should be part of the discussion. And looking back over it, the overwhelming question seems to be, is the focus on mothers and daughters and motherhood because these are female-centric stories, or because RTD cannot separate womanhood from motherhood?
I think the answer is: both. A man does not necessarily have to be in the picture and I think it's cool that Ruby was raised by her foster mother and foster grandmother. I remember being so nervous for Ruby when she met her bio mum and so relieved, moved, and happy that she wanted to bond with Ruby. I kind of love that the big mystery thing that Sutekh was curious about was an ordinary human woman. I have mixed feelings about Donna being saved by becoming a mother, but I land on the fact 1) she chose to become a mother and this was a cool byproduct of that she didn't know about, 2) it makes sense that creating a new lifeform saved her when that's exactly what caused the problem in the first place, 3) wanting kids didn't feel out of character for Donna, 4) Babies Ever After wasn't the only focus of her happy ending, bigger emphasis was put on getting her memories back and having her whole family together including the Doctor.
However. 1) The episode totally failed to convince me that Belinda truly, genuinely chose to become a mother and that her love for Poppy wasn't entirely generated by the Wishworld. 2) Since when did wanting children or being a mother have anything to do with Belinda's story? The only motivation we were ever given for her is "wants to go home". 3) When did Belinda ever show any sign of wanting children or wanting to be a mother? 4) It's bad enough that her "wants to go home" motivation never went any deeper than the basic, literally "yeah I just want to go home", it was actually incoherent that the end to that story was "I am a mother :)".
In Wish World Conrad says:
CONRAD [on screen]: Doctor Who had lots and lots of human friends. They loved him and travelled with him, but sometimes they'd leave him so they could go and fall in love and marry and have babies.
When I first watched Wish World I highlighted this line to my partner as such a great detail, "haha this idiot thinks that the Doctor's companions always leave him to do Inevitable Woman Business because he's so sexist he can't comprehend that most of the time that has nothing to do with it". Today, I had an unpleasant sinking feeling in my gut as I realised that either this line isn't meant to be as intentionally stupid as I thought, and that RTD is so wedded to Babies Ever After being the best happy ending possible that he either forgot all instances where that didn't happen, or assumed that it happened offscreen – OR he is such a hypocrite that he criticised his only villain for exactly the sin he committed in the next episode.
A lot of these things are fine or good on their own, but as OP says above, added up it makes a picture. At best you can call it female-centric, but I would argue that it has hit a point where it's become reductive. At worst it's just returned to "of course all women want to be mothers" and "of course all women will insta-bond with their babies even if their babies were AI generated into existence" and "mothers are more important than fathers" and "women are the ones to childrear" and "motherhood is a mystical magical ineffable untouchable thing which is always good, always involves unconditional love, and can never be twisted, weaponised, or show its ugly side".
Even somewhere in the middle, it's just weird, as OP says. In real life, mothers are not the only and most important parent. In real life, women contain multitudes and sometimes those multitudes include never ever wanting children or being a bad mother. In real life there are other genres of mother than "nags, makes snide comments, is overprotective, doesn't get along well with men in their daughter's life". Yes, this is a sci-fi show, but human nature shouldn't be underrepresented or unrecognisable.
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