You asked your four-year-old to put on their shoes. It was a simple request. You asked nicely the first time. Then you asked again. And again. Now it’s been fifteen minutes, you’re going to be late, and they’re spinning in circles singing about dinosaurs while one shoe sits across the room and the other has mysteriously disappeared.
And suddenly you’re screaming. Not just raising your voice—screaming with an intensity that comes from somewhere deep and primal, a rage that seems wildly out of proportion to the shoe situation. Your child’s face crumples. And almost immediately, the rage is gone, replaced by a sickening wave of guilt and shame.
What just happened? What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you handle something as simple as shoe-wearing without completely losing it?
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This is mom rage, and it’s one of the most common experiences in motherhood that almost no one talks about openly.
The Rage That Lives in the Silence
Scroll through social media and you’ll see mothers peacefully redirecting their toddlers, speaking in calm voices, modeling emotional regulation with serene patience. You won’t see the mother who screamed at her kids this morning, who punched a pillow after they went to bed, who sometimes fantasizes about driving away and not coming back.
But behind closed doors, so many mothers are experiencing intense anger—the kind that shocks them, that makes them feel like terrible people, that leaves them wondering if something is fundamentally wrong with them.
The shame keeps everyone quiet. We’re told that good mothers are patient, that maternal love should somehow buffer us against anger, that losing control means we’re failing. So mothers suffer in silence, each one convinced she’s uniquely broken, when the reality is that mom rage is remarkably common. Some surveys suggest that 70-90% of mothers experience significant anger or rage.
The problem isn’t that mothers are angry. The problem is that no one talks about it honestly, so when it happens, it feels like proof of personal failure instead of a signal that something needs attention.
What Does Mom Rage Actually Look Like?
Mom rage isn’t just everyday frustration or irritation, though it can start there. It’s anger that feels overwhelming and often disproportionate to whatever triggered it. It shows up differently for different people.
For some mothers, it’s sudden explosions—everything seems fine until one small thing tips you over the edge and suddenly you’re yelling or slamming doors or throwing things (away from your kids, but still). The intensity surprises even you.
For others, it’s more of a constant simmer—an undercurrent of irritation where everything your kids do feels annoying, every noise grates on your nerves, every request feels like one thing too many. You snap over small things. You feel resentful. You can’t access patience or warmth even when you want to.
Sometimes it’s physical before it’s emotional—your jaw clenches, your hands shake, heat rises through your chest, your heart pounds. Your body is screaming for release before your mind even catches up to the anger.
And then there’s the aftermath—the guilt that floods in immediately after. You look at your child’s confused or scared face and hate yourself. You replay what you said or did and feel horrified. You promise yourself you’ll do better tomorrow, but then tomorrow comes and it happens again.
What’s Actually Happening (It’s Not What You Think)
Here’s what’s important to understand: mom rage usually isn’t about the shoes, the spilled milk, the toys on the floor, or whatever specific thing triggered the explosion. Those are just the final straw. The rage itself has deeper roots.
Your nervous system is maxed out. When your body is stuck in survival mode—running on stress hormones, insufficient sleep, and constant vigilance—anger becomes the primary outlet. Your system interprets the relentless demands of motherhood as threats, and rage is a fight response. It’s your body saying, “This is too much. I can’t handle one more thing.”
The postpartum period is especially vulnerable for this. Sleep deprivation alone can dysregulate your nervous system to the point where emotional control becomes nearly impossible. Add hormonal changes, physical recovery from birth, and the massive adjustment of caring for a newborn, and your system is primed for rage.
Your needs have been going unmet for too long. Think about what you give every day as a mother. Your time, your body, your sleep, your food (how often do you eat cold leftovers or not at all?), your mental energy, your physical energy. You’re touched constantly but rarely in ways that feel nourishing. You give and give and give.
When basic needs—sleep, food, quiet, time alone, adult conversation, anything just for you—go unmet day after day, anger is your body’s way of protesting. The rage is saying, “What about me? When do I get to matter?”
The invisible work is crushing you. Beyond the physical tasks of motherhood, there’s the enormous mental load. You’re tracking doctor’s appointments, planning meals, remembering when your kid needs new shoes, managing schedules, anticipating everyone’s needs, teaching your children how to be humans. It’s exhausting cognitive work that often goes completely unrecognized.
When you’re carrying all of this while your partner asks, “What can I do to help?” (as if they’re your assistant rather than an equal parent), when no one seems to notice how much you’re juggling, resentment builds. The rage is saying, “I’m carrying too much and no one even sees it.”
You’ve lost yourself. Becoming a mother often means losing parts of who you were—maybe your career, definitely your body as you knew it, your social life, your hobbies, your time, your sense of identity beyond “mom.” There’s grief in that loss, but mothers rarely get space to acknowledge it.
The rage can be an expression of that grief, a protest against the erasure. It’s saying, “I’m still here. I’m still a person. I still matter.”
Old wounds are being activated. For some mothers, rage connects to deeper things—trauma from your own childhood, patterns you learned growing up, a difficult birth experience, or previous trauma that motherhood has reactivated. If you grew up in an environment where anger was the main emotion expressed, or where your needs didn’t matter, motherhood can trigger those old patterns.
Hormones are real. While hormones aren’t the only factor, they absolutely matter. Postpartum depression and anxiety don’t always look sad or worried—they can show up as irritability and rage. Hormonal fluctuations throughout your cycle, thyroid issues, or other medical factors can intensify anger. This doesn’t make the anger less real or less valid, but it does mean that sometimes medical support is part of the solution.
The Postpartum Rage No One Warned You About
Postpartum deserves special attention because this is often when mothers first encounter the intensity of their own rage and feel completely blindsided by it.
During pregnancy, people ask how you’re feeling. After birth, attention shifts almost entirely to the baby. Your emotional experience becomes invisible precisely when you’re going through the most profound changes. The cultural expectation that new mothers should be glowing and grateful creates a painful disconnect from the reality of exhaustion, pain, frustration, and rage.
The rage might come when your baby won’t stop crying and nothing you do helps. When your partner sleeps through the night feeding for the third night in a row. When someone gives you unsolicited advice about how you’re doing it wrong. When your body doesn’t feel like yours anymore. When you realize you haven’t eaten a meal sitting down in weeks.
New mothers are touched-out, depleted, healing, and navigating an identity earthquake—all while being told to “cherish every moment.” That invalidation fuels rage.
What to Do in the Moment When You Feel Angry as a Mom
Understanding why rage happens is helpful, but you also need tools for those moments when anger is rising and you can feel yourself losing control.
Notice the warning signs early. Rage rarely goes from zero to explosion instantly. There are usually early signals—tension in your body, shallow breathing, irritability, racing thoughts. Learning to recognize these gives you a window to intervene before the explosion.
Create physical space. When you notice rage building, remove yourself if possible. Tell your children, “Mommy needs a minute to calm down.” Go to another room, step outside, lock yourself in the bathroom if you need to. This isn’t abandoning anyone—it’s preventing harm and modeling self-regulation.
Move your body. Rage is energy that needs somewhere to go. Discharge it physically instead of directing it at your kids. Stomp your feet hard. Shake your arms vigorously. Do jumping jacks. Punch a pillow. Go outside and run or walk fast. Movement helps complete the stress cycle.
Make noise safely. Sometimes you need to scream. Scream into a pillow, in your car, in the shower. The release can be powerful without frightening your children.
Try cold water. Splash cold water on your face, hold ice cubes, take a cold shower if you can. The temperature shock interrupts the rage response and activates your calming system.
Name what’s happening. Say out loud, even if just to yourself: “I’m feeling rage right now. I’m overwhelmed. I need help.” Naming emotions reduces their intensity and helps you remember the feeling will pass.
Come back and repair. This is crucial. After a rage episode, repair with your kids. Say something like: “Mommy got very angry and yelled. That wasn’t okay. My anger is not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Mommy is learning to handle big feelings better.” This teaches kids that mistakes happen, that feelings are manageable, and that relationships can be repaired.
What Helps Long-Term (Hint: Counseling for Moms Really Helps!)
Beyond in-the-moment strategies, addressing mom rage means looking at the underlying causes:
Your basic needs aren’t optional. Sleep (as much as possible), regular meals, time alone, movement—these aren’t luxuries. They’re necessities for regulating your nervous system. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and pretending you can just makes everything harder.
Ask for what you need. Practice saying the words: “I need help.” “I need a break.” “I need you to handle bedtime.” “I need 30 minutes alone.” Many partners genuinely don’t realize the extent of what you’re carrying until you name it explicitly.
Make the invisible work visible. The mental load needs to be acknowledged and shared. Have honest conversations about all the cognitive and emotional labor you’re doing. Consider apps or systems that make task management transparent so you’re not the only one tracking everything.
Find your people. Isolation makes everything harder. Connecting with other mothers who can validate your experience, who admit they struggle with rage too, who can help you laugh at the absurdity—it matters. When you feel less alone, the rage often decreases.
Consider professional support. If your rage feels unmanageable, if it’s affecting your relationships in significant ways, if you’re experiencing other symptoms like persistent sadness or anxiety, reaching out to a postpartum counselor or therapist can be transformative.
Working with a counselor for women who understands mom rage and specializes in postpartum mental health offers both validation and practical tools. Mindful counseling that addresses the emotional and physical aspects of rage can help you understand your triggers, develop regulation skills, and process the underlying causes. For mothers in Denver and throughout Colorado, finding a postpartum therapist who gets it can make all the difference.
Rule out medical factors. Talk to your doctor about screening for postpartum depression, anxiety, thyroid problems, or other medical issues that can contribute to rage. Sometimes medication, combined with therapy and other support, is the right choice.
Releasing the Shame of Anger
Maybe the most important thing to understand about mom rage is this: you’re not a bad mother for feeling it. Anger is a valid emotion. Rage is information. It’s telling you something important about what’s not working, what you need, or what’s unhealed.
Perfect mothers don’t exist. Good mothers aren’t endlessly patient robots who never lose their temper. Good mothers are human beings who sometimes yell, who sometimes feel resentment toward the children they love, who sometimes lose control. Good mothers also recognize when they need support, repair relationships when they make mistakes, and keep trying.
The problem isn’t your anger. The problem is the conditions creating it—the lack of support, the unmet needs, the impossible standards, the isolation, the invisible labor.
You’re doing hard things with insufficient resources. Your rage makes sense. And you deserve help navigating it.
Moving Forward and Addressing Hidden Depression and Anxiety
Addressing mom rage isn’t about never feeling angry again. That’s not realistic or even desirable. It’s about:
- Understanding what your anger is communicating
- Developing tools to express it without harm
- Making changes to address the underlying causes
- Repairing relationships when you do lose control
- Releasing the shame that keeps you isolated
- Getting support when you need it
Motherhood contains multitudes—joy and rage, fulfillment and resentment, deep love and deep frustration, often in the same hour. You’re allowed to feel all of it. You’re allowed to struggle. You’re allowed to need help.
If you’re struggling with mom rage, working with a postpartum therapist or counselor for women who understands these challenges can provide the validation and tools you need. You don’t have to figure this out alone, and you don’t have to keep pretending everything is fine when it’s not.
Your anger matters. Your needs matter. You matter—not just as a mother, but as a whole person deserving of care, support, and compassion.
About Rise & Flow Counseling | Michelle Paget, MA, LPC, PMH-C
Rise & Flow Counseling, based in Denver, Colorado, provides specialized therapy for mothers struggling with the complex emotions of motherhood, including mom rage, postpartum anxiety, depression, and overwhelm. Michelle Paget, MA, LPC, PMH-C (Licensed Professional Counselor and Perinatal Mental Health Certified), creates a safe, non-judgmental space where mothers can be honest about their experiences—including the parts that feel shameful or scary.
Michelle understands that mom rage isn’t a character flaw—it’s a signal that something needs attention. Through mindful counseling approaches that integrate nervous system work, somatic techniques, and cognitive strategies, mothers learn to understand their anger, regulate their emotions, and create sustainable change. At Rise & Flow Counseling, mothers find validation for their struggles and practical tools for navigating the intense emotions of motherhood.
Are you experiencing mom rage and feeling overwhelmed by guilt or shame? You’re not alone, and you’re not a bad mother. Rise & Flow Counseling offers compassionate, specialized support for mothers in Denver and throughout Colorado. Michelle Paget provides both in-person and online counseling for women navigating the challenges of motherhood. In therapy, you’ll find a space to be fully honest about your experiences without judgment, develop practical regulation tools, and work toward feeling more balanced and present. Contact Rise & Flow Counseling today to schedule a free consultation.
You deserve support, and help is available.
Address: 800 Grant St Suite 340, Denver, CO 80203
Phone: (917) 409-7042
Book Online: https://michellepagettherapy.com/contact
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