Reply to The Rage Mothers Don’t Talk About

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Reply to "The Rage Mothers Don’t Talk About"

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[quote=Anonymous] I find it interesting both in the original article and in this thread how dads are not even mentioned. There’s one line in the article that says something about how dads don’t rage, and I just thought “dad’s don’t rage they simply are allowed to walk away.“ I found it offensive that the dad  in that article  was portrayed as calling it in and asking how things went and then criticizing.

In my opinion, much of the anger I have stems from the fact that I have been left to do all of the parenting, and certainly all of the difficult parenting, by myself. My part of parenting is the discipline, the chores, all the house administration, coordination with school, making friend groups for kids, carpools, etc. What little my children’s father contributes  is solely related to “fun“. I get no break. I get no reinforcement. I get very little of the joyful aspects of parenting.

Being left as a solo parent in the family structure is bad enough, but I am also left unsupported in the larger society. My career suffers because I am a mom. My long-term finances suffer. The cultural constraints on what I am allowed to do are heavy.

My health suffers as well - years of interrupted sleep, years of having to put myself last in terms of exercise and medical care, years of stress born without support.

Yes, I am mad; is that really a surprise?. I no longer direct it at my kids, who I recognize are simply the closest trigger at hand and not the cause of my rage.  I divorced my husband and try to have minimal contact and parallel parent rather than co-parenting with him.  That helped a lot - it forced him to pay for some things equally (In both time and money) and it forced him to have greater interaction with the kids.  (Although it’s sad to say that I have full custody and the 12 hours once a week that I have “off“, represents an improvement over the amount of personal time I had in the marriage.)  Although I still bear by far the greater burden of parenting, it is mitigated by an extended network of friends and family. I have greater control over my day to day life and am far happier and less angry with my kids.

I’m also re-directing my rage away from my kids and toward society -  I’m largely not voting or supporting men anymore, unless they have demonstrated, through repeated actions not words, that they have my back.  I will  only vote for candidates  that actively promote policies like universal child care, caregiver retirement credits,  paid parental leave, Anti-sex harassment and anti-sexual assault policies, Mandatory maternity health coverage, access to for reproductive care, etc.  Why on earth should I have been subject to The economic, policy and social forces that steered me towards being a stay at home mom and being the primary parent? That has to change. I suspect when it does, they’ll be far less mom rage.

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