the parents seemed jealous
of the boy's love for the deer
all the writers back in the day always portrayed mothers as evil doers and the fathers were saints
That's a silly comment. Other than films about very wealthy matrons being fairly useless as loving mothers, I'd say that it splits pretty equally as to which parent might be characterized as hard and unloving.
Having seen at least 200 films produced in the period of 1930 thru 1960, I generally find mothers most oftentimes presented as reasonably good and loving. Is that period what you're referring to as "back in the day" (a saying I find rather overused)?