Maternal Rage Can Be Productive: 5 Tips To Help You Make Sense Of Your Anger
In mindbodygreen's parenting column, Parenthetical, mbg parenting contributor, psychotherapist, and writer Lia Avellino explores the dynamic, enriching, yet often complicated journey into parenthood. In today's installment, Avellino talks about what to do with parental rage.
As a psychotherapist, I sit with individuals as they get to know their rage and try to make sense of it.
There are so many women I know who learn about the emotion of anger only when they become a parent. Sometimes it’s because they witness their children feel so comfortable and free to embody it: having a tantrum in the middle of the street, throwing a toy, or biting a friend. Other times it’s because the women feel rage in their bodies in ways they never have when they’re interacting with a child who won’t listen, who pushes up against boundaries, or who won’t sleep.
As a mother, I’ve felt rage in moments where my and my child’s needs conflict and I have to override a limit or come in contact with one of my own younger wounds as a result.
Maternal rage is real and valid
“Mom rage,” is a popular topic, as authors and filmmakers (Nightbitch, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and The Motherload just to name a few) are more willing to share their varied, painful, overwhelming experiences of inhabiting the “mother” identity. Pop culture trends sometimes gives us permission to be more vulnerable about parts of ourselves that we feel shame about in secrecy.
Here, I want to walk through 5 steps for getting to know your anger, becoming so intimate with it and conscious of it, that you don’t act it out on your kids. and perhaps even release it.
Understand what anger is without the preconceived notions
Anger lets us know that something is not fair. Perhaps it’s a limit that has been crossed (by someone else or yourself), a point of overwhelm has been reached, or a sense of loss is so great that you’re mad about it. Anger has good information for us and acts as a messenger that says "something is not right here.”
The anger itself is never the problem. It’s how we feel toward that anger and how we react to it that has the power to do harm or good.
People of certain social identities—such as women—may reject their anger because others rejected this emotion in them growing up, or they were policed for this anger. I have had patients that tell me that they are not “angry people,” when I ask about their anger, but list countless resentments and frustrations (both of which are shades of anger), while others turn all their anger inward (manifesting as a loud self-critic).
Get curious about your attitudes and beliefs about your anger.
- Do you reject it or question it?
- Do you believe it says something bad about you?
- Have you associated it with uncontained rage because that is something you experienced growing up?
Instead of judging it, find out what happens when you believe that it has something to tell you and that it has potential for you to do something useful with it.
Get curious about why you’re angry (hint: it may not be your child, although they triggered it)
When my child spilled glitter all over the kitchen floor, I told myself that this made me angry. But when I take a wider view, I notice there are lots of other reasons why I felt angry that day. Perhaps you are carrying too much of the household labor because your partner and community are not stepping up. Perhaps you have so many unmet needs from your own childhood that your child’s need for you brings up these uncomfortable feelings. Maybe you are underpaid and overworked. Or you're bearing the burden of a society that doesn’t invest in an infrastructure that supports parents.
Consider and validate all the very legitimate reasons why you might be mad, that have nothing to do with spilled glitter. Who can you talk about this with, who can you express it to that will welcome it in.
Express it, but don’t give it away
Someone recently said to me that you don’t want to use your anger to harm another—because then you are giving it away and it is no longer of use to you. Anger is very powerful and is a catalyst for change. Social justice movements are fueled by both hope and anger about what is not right. Personally, there are times when I have been so angry that it led me to take a leap or confront an oppressor;
Consider ways to embody your anger:
- Fast walking or rigorous spin class
- Making sounds that can be witnessed by another who will encourage you
- Text a friend the thing you wish you could say aloud but think you’ll regret
- Journal about some of the things you are carrying that you want to pass off
- Talk to a therapist about your anger toward your parents that you’ve refused to own and that is now getting activated by your children
I have visited the rage cages of NYC with my community, so that I can express my anger in a contained way. Are there practices that allow you to be in your anger without hurting yourself or someone else with it?
Act in it, not out of it
Any emotion we refuse to own, we act out in harmful ways. For example, when I refused to identify with my anger, I’d take it out on myself by demanding hard work, perfection,
and living intensely. Some people spend their rage away by buying things, some blame others for all their problems instead of owning their own pain.
Consider that it is in your and your children’s best interest to welcome your anger instead of acting it out, reframing it as a powerful and productive emotion, instead of a negative one.
Be willing to own you’re mad with your kids
When my children see me angry and ask me if I am mad, I say “yes I am.”
They may notice a look on my face—a clenched jaw or scrubbing the glitter spill furiously. I want them to align the embodiment of an emotion with an understanding of what it is. Many of us grew up in families where people expressed emotions but never talked about it. It is important to me that they know that at times, I get angry—just as I want them to know that I am sad, hurt, happy, ecstatic, tired, and so on.
I also say, “and it is not your fault, it’s my job to take care of my anger.” I check in with them about how they feel if they see me angry and ask them to tell me about their anger. I send them the message that anger is allowed, it just can’t be enacted on another.
Consider letting your children witness your contain anger and how you soothe it. Maybe they see you breathe through it, or ask for space as you step into the bathroom for a few minutes, or ask for support from your partner or a friend at that moment.
The takeaway
The feeling of anger is never the problem. It’s how we understand, relate to it, and express it that can support us and our kids in transformative ways. Trusting our anger is letting us know that something is not right, and that the feeling needs investigation. This allows it to be a trailhead for investigation into our histories and present lives—giving us a tool for making positive change.