Mom rage is real but should be talked about and managed. Image: Andrea Piacquadio
Parenting is hard, and rage isn’t anything to be ashamed about. It’s all in how you deal with it and there is help.
Mom rage is real but should be talked about and managed. Image: Andrea Piacquadio
Ask any mom (or dad) – the struggle is real. And rage is also real. Even though many would not admit it and feel ashamed.
According to psychotherapist Anna Mathur, more women are seeking help for anger issues, and there are easy ways to help you cope when you just had enough.
Staying calm when littles ones desperately want to hold on to their independence can be tiresome and tricky, even for “trained professionals” like Mathur.
In her brand new book, The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, Mathur shares some helpful insights into dealing with the chaos of parenting and anger.
In an all too familiar scenario for parents, she tried to stay calm as she dealt with a screaming baby and a toddler refusing to be wrestled into his buggy. Using her professional training, she took deep breaths, telling herself she could handle this distressing, if fairly typical, parenting scenario.
“That’s when the rage hit,’ the married mother-of-three admits. ‘I had been deep breathing to calm down but suddenly, I couldn’t take it. Instead, I grabbed a plastic toy digger and hurled it against the floor. It didn’t shatter, so I did it again. I needed to break something,” she said in a Daily Mail article.
The toy didn’t break and Mathur (37) didn’t feel any better.
‘I was hit with a torrent of shame. Shame that I’d let go, shame that my toddler was now screaming in what I imagine was fear, having seen me deliberately smash his toy. That moment sobered and scared me like no other. I knelt on the floor and gave my children a hug. I apologised and explained it wasn’t their fault,” she adds.
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“Rage can be confusing for our children, upsetting and destabilising,’ Anna adds. ‘But these moments of rage can also act as important learning experiences. Apologising is important — it completes the circle of communication and restores a sense of safety.’ Anna believes that there is a rising tide of women indulging in similar displays of anger that have been christened ‘mum rage’,” Mathur told Daily Mail.
“Rage doesn’t fit with the gentle, patient ideal of motherhood that we hold in our minds, which is why expressing anger can feel like such a shameful taboo. Yet anger is a human response to circumstances, and in motherhood there are many stressful moments to navigate.”
Exhaustion, postnatal depression, busy schedules and divorce can sometimes only ad to the pressure of parenthood.
Through her own parenthood struggles and sessions with patients, Mathur get to see motherhood challenges that are often hidden and not openly spoken about.
“Many feel they need to prove they’re thriving, but the truth is it’s often far more of a struggle than we let on. Like a pressure cooker, if you don’t have a healthy way to release those feelings, you risk your emotions shooting out in an uncontrolled way.’
Mathur shares a few anger coping techniques as reported by DailyMail.
In her book, The Little Book Of Calm For New Mums, Mathur offers readers a three-step technique for handling anger: first, feel compassion for yourself, rather than labelling yourself as a bad person. Next, talk through your feelings with someone you trust, diffusing the emotion. Finally, identify what you’re feeling and what you might need. If your anger is a symptom of feeling overwhelmed, how can you change that problem?
Mathur is also very active on social media and regularly shares insights.