Mom Rage Y ou’ve slept maybe five hours the past few nights. You’re finishing emails while your child taps on your shoul- der over and over again. The kids won’t stop fighting over the TV remote. You’ll make it to practice drop-off on time only if your child stops refusing to get in the car. Dinner isn’t made, and neither is the school project your child mentioned an hour before bedtime. The house hasn’t been tidied in days—weeks, if you’re honest. You literally can’t take another thing right now. Then you see red. This experience is what’s known as mom rage. Mom rage is a nervous system overload response to chronic stress, invisible labor, hormonal shifts, overstimulation, sleep depri- vation, identity loss, emotional suppression, and broader systemic and neurological BY MADELINE PISTORIUS
factors, including patriarchy and neurodi- versity. It is not synonymous with abusive behavior, but rather a state of dysregulation. “When we undergo typical parenting frustration, it can be temporary, easy to recover from, and we still feel relatively grounded,” describes therapist and author Martina Nova, MCPRCC, MCP. “But when we feel mom rage, it’s explosive or dispropor- tionate, physically intense, and hard to stop once it’s activated—usually followed by guilt, shame, or emotional crashing.” WHEN EVERYTHING BOILS OVER The buildup is often subtle at first. It can look like resentment over small tasks, feeling emotionally detached from your partner or children, snapping more easily than usual, or carrying a constant sense that you can
never fully rest. Over time, those moments stack until the nervous system reaches a breaking point. When you’ve hit that breaking point, taking a few deep breaths isn’t enough. Nova recommends putting your child somewhere safe and briefly stepping away yourself— not because there’s necessarily danger, but because your nervous system is flooded. “Step into another room, splash cold water on your face, and hold ice cubes in your hands,” she explains. “Cooling sensations are some of the best ways to regulate our nervous systems. In these moments, we need to regulate the body before we regulate the mind.” Nova also recommends reducing sensory overload through somatic regulation tech- niques, like using sensory tools, dimming
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