MOTHERING AND CAREGIVING.

Maternal Anger. 

Mothering and caregiving in its tenderness, reveals both the best within us and our shadow sides.

It reveals to us our capacity for love, compassion and surrender, and contrastingly exposes our rage and anger.

The experience of maternal rage has increasingly gained acknowledgement over the past several years, which as serves both an illuminating role for validating the depth of the caregiving role, however, its increasing awareness contains the potential to pathologise an innate human feeling. All emotions, whether we deem them positive or negative, have potent biological roles in guiding our behaviours. In his pioneering work Physician Gabor Mate speaks of how anger, when destilled down to its ‘white form’, he articulates two types of anger - a red hot anger which is destructive and a white calmer anger- enables.

The profound complex physiological changes experienced within a caregivers body are only in their infancy of being understood in the cognisant mind. Women and mothers have been historically absent as populations within medical studies. Research can shape how one understands and therefore relates to their own body.

Thus deeply rooted physiological purpose of maternal anger maybe one that is not yet well understood. Currently maternal rage is the platform which calls our attention to how our societies are not constructed around supporting families and mothering, how gender imbalances still prevail underneath the surface, how our expectations of caregivers and of women is possibly too high and how our language has evolved to discuss the externalness of our lives and how difficult it is to speak openly of the matters that are so felt whilst traversing the terrains of caregiving. And yet our ‘white’ anger maybe something constructive, a way to protect our young, nurture healthy and respectful relationships, a reseviour for promoting equality and strength. An experience rather than to pathologise, it’s one to understand.

20.Oct.2025.

By H Coutts.

References and Further Reading.

Billotte Verhoff C, Hosek AM, Cherry J. "A Fire in my Belly:" Conceptualizing U.S. Women's Experiences of "Mom Rage". Sex Roles. 2023;88(11-12):495-513. doi: 10.1007/s11199-023-01376-8. Epub 2023 May 5. PMID: 37283731; PMCID: PMC10159823. Referenced Online https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10159823/#CR13

Maté, G., 2003. When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, Scribe Editions.

Image Kim Verdebo.