‘Mom rage’ is a thing. Here’s why it happens, and what to do about it.

Mothers of young children aren’t supposed to be angry.

In our cultural mythology, these mothers are all cooing and care, emergency string cheese and Band-Aids in their purses. I began motherhood as this patient, nurturing mom, but by the end of my son’s first year, I was also radiating with anger — slamming doors, screaming at my husband outside of Target.

I worried something was wrong with me. I had the most beautiful, dumpling baby. His expressive eyes and smiling gummy mouth were a daily source of delight. My husband is a dinner-cooking, get-down-on-the-floor type of dad. On paper, I had no right to my newfound ire. Yet there I was, wanting to throw the carton of blueberries in my hand at the wall. I imagined the streaky purple stains it would make — visual proof of my anguish.

Where was all this rage coming from?

Since the media tends to depict angry mothers as villains (or even murderers), and my own mom rarely yelled at me in the West Philly home where I grew up, I had no context for my rage. I was sure it was a personal failing until I wrote about my feelings for the New York Times a few years ago. That essay — and the response I got from moms all over the world — set me on a path of social inquiry and self-discovery.

My interviews with mothers from across the U.S. and around the world tell a story that I hope will put “mom rage” on the map — not as an individual problem, but as a hidden emotional crisis affecting mothers spanning socioeconomics, sexuality, race, and religious affiliation.

It turns out mom rage is a maternal mental health crisis that stems from a lack of good mother care. The U.S. is one of only a handful of nations that doesn’t offer paid family leave. Even surviving birth can be iffy in the U.S., which has the highest maternal mortality rate of all industrialized nations. Despite recent gains, women still only earn an average of 82 cents to the man’s dollar (much less for Black and Latina women when compared with white men), but when we have children, women suffer a “motherhood penalty” — a decrease in earnings of 4% per child — while fathers enjoy a “fatherhood bonus” increase in income that I’ve seen research put as high as 21%.

Women and mothers also do the majority of the eldercare in our country, almost always without compensation. And we have no universal day care or preschool. We did have it for a brief time during World War II — at least for moms working in wartime jobs — which shows that we could have it if the people in power deemed it a worthwhile expenditure.

But they don’t.

In our society, what should be public services — preschool, summer camp, and in-home aides for sick or disabled family members — are treated as private luxuries. Mothers without money to hire someone else to do the labor — usually underpaid women of color — end up doing that care work themselves. Why would the government pay to take care of children and the elderly when it’s already coerced mothers through cultural pressure and cornered them through financial desperation into doing the unpaid labor themselves? Our country’s care infrastructure essentially amounts to “money or mommy.”

Then consider the story at home. Regardless of whether or not mothers are the breadwinners in the family, we still do nearly twice the domestic labor and childcare as fathers. Not to mention the relentless invisible work and emotional labor of motherhood.

» READ MORE: The pandemic is a once-in-a-generation test for Philly moms. Most say they’re struggling.

All of this — the lack of resources for maternal health, for childcare, for moms (whether or not they work outside the home), and the extra caregiving burdens that we carry — is enough to make any woman angry. But we better not complain, because motherhood is “the best job a woman can have.” So we stay silent. Until we explode.

There are millions of angry moms out there. I’ve heard from a lot of them. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve become an unofficial spokesperson for mom rage. I suspect it has something to do with my upbringing in Philadelphia. The city didn’t make me an angry person, but it did provide me with sharp eyes for seeing injustice and a strong sense of self that allows me to stand up and howl when oppression reigns.

Sometimes I wonder how I’ve become an unofficial spokesperson for mom rage.

It’s been four years since I wrote that first essay, back when I was sure my anger was a personal failure. Since then, like many mothers during the pandemic, I’ve come to understand that the social circumstances of modern motherhood are a key component of my rage.

I still struggle sometimes when I get triggered, overwhelmed, or stressed out. I use every tool I’ve got — deep breaths, texts with mom friends, exercise, giving myself a loving “timeout,” and weekly therapy. Most importantly, I am able to offer myself more compassion these days.

There is no simple, snap-your-fingers solution for the fury mothers feel. But if policymakers began prioritizing the implementation of care infrastructure that doesn’t rely on money or mommy, it’d be a strong start.

Minna Dubin’s book, “Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood,” was released Sept. 19. She will be giving a reading on Sept. 30 at the Barnes & Noble on 17th and Chestnut.