As someone who grew up in a semi-conservative Chinese family, I would rather have TongTong's mom. Just to be clear, I would not give up my family and I still love them, but it is just kinda like how Xiao Lu is with her mom just not to the extreme point. I can't talk about anything too personal with my mom and have to always hide many things. Whenever I am happy to the point of constantly having a big smile, I have calm myself down and make sure my face is neutral before facing my mom. It pretty much feels like you're caged in all the while having family and cultural expectations and pressure always looming over or beating down on you.
Whenever I am hanging out with my non-Asian friends, I kinda get a bit jealous that they can have such an open relationship with their mom, pretty much TongTong's mom, where they can tell each other anything and everything while having fun. It is something I wish I can do with my family, but at least I am fortunate enough that their family also treats me as if I'm their own kid.
So yea, I don't know what kind of crack that guy was on, Xiao Lu's mom is not the more responsible or better mom here. And TongTong's mom didn't know about p*do guy, and when she did because TongTong has an open relationship and they trust each other, TongTong's mom beat the literal crap out of him and did many measures to make sure it won't happen again.