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What ‘mum rage’ is and ways in which you can manage it
3 years ago
If youâve never been an âangryâ person, maternal rage can come as a bit of a shock.
It can be explosive, intense and often seems to come out of the blue (itâs not, usually) and might be directed at your partner, your kids or no one in particular, merely at the stark realities of being a mother.
Although its rarely talked about, feeling angry is a completely common, normal emotion for mums, but often itâs wrapped up in guilt and shame.
The female factor
Dads, of course, might feel anger too â but Cristalle Hayes, a psychotherapist and mother-of-two, thinks there are extra layers around the emotion for mums.
âI wonder if women have a more complex relationship with anger, or donât feel like they should be angry, because women and mothers are âmeantâ to be nurturing and kind and that doesnât quite fit,â says Hayes.
Itâs why she decided to focus on womenâs experiences for her new book, Angry Mother Assertive Mother. âThereâs a real stigma around mums being angry and losing their cool,â she explains. âI think itâs sort of seen as youâve lost control, and youâre being ungrateful, you should be enjoying this. And I think a lot of mums beat themselves up over it.â
And âmum guiltâ is drummed into us early. Hayes, who has two boys â Jacob, four, and Zac, two â says: âI was really shocked at the minute [my first son] was born, how little regard health professionals had for me as a person. Of course, it has to be all about the baby, but Iâd noticed how suddenly I didnât exist beyond being a mother.â
Afterwards, she says: âI felt like if I wanted to do something outside of being a mum, I was being really selfish.â
So the issue has many layers, not least that historical expectations of how women âshouldâ behave still permeate today. But Hayes wants mothers to feel as if theyâre âallowed to be angryâ â the important thing is to cope with it and use it in a constructive way, before anger becomes toxic, she says.
Common triggers
Maternal rage can strike at any time, at any stage of motherhood. Hayes spoke to a lot of women as research for her book and, in heterosexual relationships, one of the biggest triggers than came up was rage towards partners.
âIt became very clear [for lots of people] how much the mumâs life had changed and been impacted, and how much less the fatherâs life is impacted,â she says. âThey would feel a lot of resentment when they see their partner having a nap, or something really simple like clip their toenails â and they just seethed with rage.â
Another common trigger is âfeeling like their kid is not listening to them and not responding to their parentingâ, like refusing to eat dinner or go to bed on time. âOr they do something mildly irritating and you erupt with a really strong reaction. It might not even be about your kids, but theyâre there,â Hayes adds.
âIt can make mums feel really powerless and not in control of the situation. And that can turn into anger quite quickly â and you sort of blame the person in front of you â your child.â This can then leave them feeling âlike a bad parent and a bad person â and itâs really easy to spiral into shameâ.
But often, maternal rage is simply about being a mum, and all the complexities and practicalities that come with that. Hayes says it can be a reaction to âhow much your life changes, your identity changes, how people treat you changesâ â and that goes way beyond the postpartum period. In fact, once youâre out of that all-consuming, survival-mode newborn phase, reality can really hit.
The pandemic, understandably, may have exacerbated things too. Hayes had her second baby eight weeks before the first lockdown. âLike a lot of mums I spoke to, we were experiencing a lot more anger than we normally would and we didnât have a place to go and process it, like therapy or the gym. I was feeling a lot of rage,â she shares.
What to do about it
Hayes says she recognised that her anger was âborderlining on becoming quite toxicâ â but also that a big reason for it was because she was feeling unsupported. âI felt unable to say, âHey, this is what I needâ.â And thatâs a big part of the problem, often mothers are coming from a place of âlackâ â lack of sleep, lack of time, lack of self-care, sometimes lack of help or support.
If the rage you feel is towards your partner, Hayes advises trying not to feel like you have to do everything yourself. âSit and have a chat with your partner and make sure it feels equal and fair â but not in a blaming, âyouâre really lazyâ [way]. Try and keep it gentle and fair,â she says. âI donât think couples get that kind of support or [have] understanding of whatâs going to happen before having children â and [afterwards] itâs harder to have that conversation, but itâs really important.â
Moments where you feel yourself becoming angry at your child can be particularly distressing. âIf itâs getting very intense and youâve got into a power struggle with your child, and youâre just getting angrier and they are getting more and more activated as well, then completely change the activity, switch it up, put a pause on it,â Hayes says. âA lot of mums I spoke to, if they got angry around homework or meal times, would literally just stop what they were doing and put some music on and have a dance or run around the garden.â
Alternatively, if thereâs someone else to take over in the house, take yourself out of the room, out of the situation, take a few deep breaths, have a glass of water, and reset. But for single mums with no one to hand over to, or when a partner is out, those situations can be incredibly hard.
If any rage you feel isnât directed at anyone in particular â just at your situation as a mother â Hayes found simply talking about it with other mums helpful. âAnd having some level of acceptance. I think itâs very easy to get into this feeling of âeverything feels really difficultâ, like a drag, an uphill battle,â she says. âTry and remind yourself of the value youâre bringing to this new role and this new identity, but acknowledge the losses youâre having as well.â
Donât underestimate the power of self-care too. âIt sounds like such a clichĂ© but itâs really saved me,â admits Hayes â after all, mothers so often feel last on their own priority list. âMake sure you implement as much self-care into your day, into your week, as you can. Because youâre reminding yourself that you matter, your needs matter and your values matter. Your identity away from being a mum matters and youâre resetting,â says Hayes.
âThen when you have that reset, and you go back to being a parent, you parent better and then you feel better about your role as a parent.â
Cristalle Hayes is an existential and trauma-based psychotherapist. Her first book Angry Mother Assertive Mother: From maternal anger to radical repair (ÂŁ11.99, Rethink) is available on Amazon now.
By Lauren Taylor, PA