ADHD Parenting Rage and Emotional Dysregulation
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No matter how much you love your children, any parent will admit that you have had a moment (or several!) of 'mom rage', and if this is you, I hope this conversation will help you release some of the shame you may feel. Not only do we focus on this, but we also discuss the compassion we need to show ourselves and discuss all the many moving parts of losing our sh*t as parents, including emotional dysregulation, overwhelm, resentment, society and perimenopause. I hope you find this conversation inclusive, helpful, healing, funny and relatable. And listen out for the very last few minutes, where we address some key practical tools to helping anyone out who feels this emotional dysregulation most days.
This week's guest is Minna Dubin, the author of MOM RAGE: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood (Seal Press).
Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, Oprah Daily, Salon, Parents, Romper, and elsewhere. As a leading feminist voice on 'Mom Rage', Minna has appeared on MSNBC, Good Morning America, The Tamron Hall Show, The BBC Woman’s Hour, and NPR. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, two kids, and no pets because enough is enough.
On this episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, Minna and Kate speak about:
- The mental load of being a parent
- Allowing yourself to feel your anger
- Processing anger in a positive way
- Parenting overwhelm
- Shame about our emotional dysregulation
- Conforming to social expectations
- Working hard to keep regulated
- The build-up of anger and resentment
- Creating a support system for yourself
- Letting go of martyrdom and allowing in self-compassion
- Asking for help with parental tasks
- Parenting neurodivergent children and the complexities
- Being an adult without talking about kids
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Look at some of Kate's ADHD workshops and free resources here.
Kate Moryoussef is a women’s ADHD Lifestyle & Wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.
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Transcript
Hi everyone.
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Kate Moore Youssef:Now let's get started with today's podcast.
Kate Moore Youssef:Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.
Kate Moore Youssef:After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.
Kate Moore Youssef:In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.
Kate Moore Youssef:Here's today's episode today, we're talking about something very close to my heart and probably to anyone who is a parent that's listening will really understand and resonate with this conversation.
Kate Moore Youssef:We're talking about mum rage and I've got an amazing author here today with me called Mina Dubin and she is the author of Mum the Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood.
Kate Moore Youssef:And her writing has been featured in lots of different types of press, including the New York Times, the Sunday Times Magazine, Oprah, Daly, Parents Romper and many the places.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she is a leading feminist voice on mumrage.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she's appeared on TV as well in America, Good Morning America, the BBC Women's Hour here in the uk and she lives in Barkley with her husband, two kids and no pets because enough is enough.
Kate Moore Youssef:I wish someone had given me that bit of advice I have to say when I decided to get a second dog, but that's a whole other story.
Kate Moore Youssef:Welcome to the podcast.
Mina Dubin:Thank you.
Mina Dubin:Thanks so much for having me.
Kate Moore Youssef:I have a feeling that this conversation is going to get me quite riled up because I resonate so much.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I literally saw this, the title of your book, and I straightaway messaged the link to my WhatsApp group of friends who basically is a mumrage WhatsApp group.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I just went, oh my God, there's been a book written about us.
Mina Dubin:About us.
Mina Dubin:I love that about us.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I mean, am I right in saying that the book was written after you wrote an essay in, was it the New York Times?
Mina Dubin: ssay in the New York Times in: Mina Dubin:And that essay went viral and I heard from mothers from all over the world basically saying, oh my God, I thought I was the only one.
Mina Dubin:I thought I was the worst mother in the world.
Mina Dubin:And.
Mina Dubin:And that essay really described very viscerally what mom rage felt like and what the experience was like.
Mina Dubin:And so, yeah, a lot of people connected to it.
Kate Moore Youssef:It feels like we're sort of in this relentless battle as women, especially when we are, they've got these huge amounts of expectations that are put on us from society, but also from internally of we need to be doing it all and we need to be at the top of our careers and be parenting in this way that we've got to.
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, I talk about this all the time, like there's so many expectations and something just breaks that camel's back, doesn't it?
Kate Moore Youssef:And very often it's a child, not Wanting to go to bed or not get in their car seat or they don't tidy their room.
Kate Moore Youssef:And you see, my kids now are older.
Kate Moore Youssef:My eldest is 18 and my youngest is 8.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I look back at where the rage showed up in different capacities.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I mean, I'm going to say this in the podcast because I feel like we're all friends here, but I had this point where the rage was so strong that after having four kids, my pelvic floor wasn't as strong.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I'd be like, screaming.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'd be like, oh, my God, my pelvic floor can't handle the scream of me telling my kid to tidy their bedroom up.
Kate Moore Youssef:1.
Kate Moore Youssef:Like, I must have asked them four or five times, and the bedroom still wasn't tidy.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it's like this visceral kind of rage.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's the only way I can describe that just comes over you.
Kate Moore Youssef:I feel like when we talk about it, we normalize it.
Kate Moore Youssef:Did you feel that when you wrote the essay, then the book that you'd kind of unlocked, like, almost like a shameful secret that we'd all been experiencing?
Mina Dubin:I felt like that was the case with the essay because there wasn't much of a mom rage conversation happening, at least that I was aware of before that essay was published.
Mina Dubin:And now, four years later, maybe five, it feels like there is a large mom rage conversation happening online anyway.
Mina Dubin:There's lots of Instagram accounts that are specific to mom rage.
Mina Dubin:And I feel like it is.
Mina Dubin:It is a little bit easier, at least in the social circles that I run in, to talk about it.
Mina Dubin:Like, I feel like, oh, mom rage.
Mina Dubin:Like, it's a term that people know.
Mina Dubin:And when I started it, it wasn't.
Mina Dubin:And it felt much more shameful by the time this book came out, which, you know, it just came out in September.
Mina Dubin:It's really recent.
Mina Dubin:I feel like at this point the conversation has been open.
Mina Dubin:But also, you know, each of us with our friends and in our social media worlds, we live in our own little bubbles.
Mina Dubin:So, like, to me, I feel like momrage has been out there and everyone knows what it is.
Mina Dubin:But, like, I'm sure that's not true.
Mina Dubin:I'm sure there are people who are seeing this book in the store and being like, oh, my goodness, what's that?
Mina Dubin:You know, I'm sure that's happening.
Mina Dubin:I just don't know about it.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, I think back and look at the way I was parented, and there was definite mum rage in the house then.
Kate Moore Youssef:Now we have a lot more explanations with Neurodivergence in our family and understanding the difference between that mum rage that maybe lots of us feel, but also the added layer of emotional dysregulation and impulsivity that comes with very much with ADHD and just feeling, we often say it just feels like 0 to 10 of just like this.
Kate Moore Youssef:Something just comes over us and it may be our kids, it may be something, you know, when we're driving or when someone says something to us and we really feel very viscerally that kind of that rage come over us.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I do wonder, I think this must have been here over generations.
Kate Moore Youssef:But there was different coping mechanisms probably gin, drugs, smoking, because we do hear that, don't we?
Kate Moore Youssef:And now it's frowned upon to sit at the kitchen table and smoke or to drink gin at, you know, 4:00.
Kate Moore Youssef:And you know, I know some people do, do do it on a Friday, but you know, it's very much kind of like we have to take a holistic approach and everything has to be organic and we need to breathe and go and do some yoga.
Mina Dubin:Yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:And.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it sometimes feels really hard to step into that when we are feeling really angry about what's been going on.
Mina Dubin:Totally.
Mina Dubin:And I don't, I think you're right.
Mina Dubin:I don't think that mom rage is new.
Mina Dubin:I think that the term is new, but I don't think that the experience is new.
Mina Dubin:And I think that we're still doing the same coping mechanisms that we always used.
Mina Dubin:Maybe it's not cigarettes, but I think drinking is a very common coping mechanism and you know, also a form of self harm potentially and a way to internalize the rage, like in a way to like punish ourselves also.
Mina Dubin:Yeah, I think that, I think that momrage is old, but the story of mom rage, like the idea of angry mothers is not a story that we have passed down because it's not a story that serves the larger culture, AKA the patriarchy.
Mina Dubin:Right.
Mina Dubin:Like if we tell, we don't want to tell the story of mothers being angry about their place in the world because that messes with the myth of the blessed blissed out mother.
Mina Dubin:Right.
Mina Dubin:Like that's the story that we tell about mothers and motherhood so that we'll all keep becoming mothers, so that we keep motherhood as like the pinnacle of womanhood.
Mina Dubin:If we mess with that story and start sharing that all these mothers are unhappy or furious, then it changes how we feel about motherhood.
Mina Dubin:And that's not in the interest of the culture at large and men and patriarchy.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, no, Absolutely.
Kate Moore Youssef:There's so much outdated gender expectations that we've got on ourselves that, you know, even 20 years ago, 30 years ago weren't there.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so we're now shouldering so much more with more expectations and still being told that we have to be these like perfect, calm, regulated mothers.
Mina Dubin:Right.
Mina Dubin:That's the other thing is that While, you know, 50 years ago mothers may have had mom rage, the expectations of mothers was very different.
Mina Dubin:And you know, all the work that women did to go to work and outside of the home and to work paid jobs, now we're working those full time paid jobs, but we're still doing as much labor and actually we're doing more domestic labor and childcare than we were doing then.
Mina Dubin:Plus we're working full time paid jobs.
Mina Dubin:So we're working like three jobs basically, because the mother job is multiple jobs.
Mina Dubin:If you actually add up all the.
Kate Moore Youssef:Hours, oh my God.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, it's never ending.
Kate Moore Youssef:And then on top of that, it's the thinking about the things.
Kate Moore Youssef:And we talk about this.
Kate Moore Youssef:I mean, I've had Eve Rodsky on the podcast who's written Fair Play and it very much talks about the labor at home and the disproportionate amount that women are having to do on top of everything else.
Kate Moore Youssef:And there's a definite element of sort of talking about mum rage in that book as well.
Kate Moore Youssef:And the thinking about all the things when we go to bed, like the birthday parties, the shopping, the sports socks, I'm just thinking about all the things I'm thinking about at the moment.
Kate Moore Youssef:The parents evening, the birthday presents, the Christmas presents, that all the different things that the kids just message me now everything's on message.
Kate Moore Youssef:And being adhd, you know, once the message has been given, sent to me, if I've not written it down, then it's gone.
Kate Moore Youssef:I've like forgotten that one of them has asked me to pick up something for school that next morning, the next morning happens and I've not done it.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it's chaos.
Kate Moore Youssef:And there's this sort of spiral of shame as well, because I should, you know, as a mum, we should remember all these things.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I hear this a lot with women who have been diagnosed later on in life that the shoulds of not fitting, not conforming into this sort of perfect maternal image of what they thought they should be portraying and maybe their own mother, who may have had neurodivergence themselves, worked so hard to fit into this kind of mold that their mental health may have suffered.
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, they may have been depression, anxiety, Addiction, all these different things.
Kate Moore Youssef:Because when we're conforming to be someone that we're not and all the pressures is, something topples, something gives.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think what you've done is very freeing for a lot of people because the shameful conversation is out there and so we don't need to hide and we can share and we can connect and we can communicate.
Mina Dubin:You know, when you talk about neurodivergence and all the shoulds that you're experiencing, it makes me think like how hard everyone in the house is working.
Mina Dubin:I think about my own kid who is on the autism spectrum and has sensory processing disorder and how hard he has to work in order to conform in some ways to the social expectations of the world.
Mina Dubin:And then how hard I'm working to parent this child in a way that works for him and that also works for me.
Mina Dubin:I'm always trying to keep him regulated and keep me regulated.
Mina Dubin:We're all working very, very hard.
Mina Dubin:And so I think that the, all of the stress and the pressure just of regular motherhood can get exacerbated when neurodivergence comes on the scene because everyone is working that much harder.
Kate Moore Youssef:Oh my God.
Kate Moore Youssef:That is exactly.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:That is such an important point to make.
Kate Moore Youssef:Because when we perhaps have been parented in a way that hasn't felt like regulation, it's felt like complete emotional dysregulation and turmoil and dysfunction and chaos.
Kate Moore Youssef:And we are, we've made that decision, that choice to, to break some cycles and start afresh and do do things differently.
Kate Moore Youssef:It almost does feel like a full time job keeping ourselves regulated.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I speak for myself, but also so many of my clients and the women in my community that say every day feels really difficult to make sure they're doing all the things so they can parent their child in a way that they weren't parented and give their child what they didn't get.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that's, I guess, love, compassion, connection, trust, calm.
Kate Moore Youssef:And like you say, it's, that's, that's exhausting in itself.
Kate Moore Youssef:And like I try and explain this to my husband actually, where he doesn't really take a huge role in booking, you know, treatments or therapies or you know, even researching and making sure the food and the essential oils and the Epsom salts and the jaw guards and all these different things that I kind of like think of, how's that going to make life easier for them?
Kate Moore Youssef:He doesn't think about.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I get into bed and I have, I literally have nothing left to give.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm just so exhausted because we've been.
Kate Moore Youssef:But what happens is when we are working so hard for our family, but also if with our careers, we are then tipped over the edge very easily.
Kate Moore Youssef:I find maybe.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm going to speak for myself here.
Kate Moore Youssef:That one thing just has to nudge, nudge me and that dial goes over and I can lose my shit very easily.
Kate Moore Youssef:Are you hearing that a lot from people who have written to you saying that it's like an accumulation of just piles of things and then it's just one thing that tips us?
Mina Dubin:Yeah, I don't know that I'm hearing that particular story, but I know that that's what it is.
Mina Dubin:I mean, I write in the book, I write about MomRange as a cycle, that there are actually phases of the cycle so that when you explode over, you know, something that's basically inconsequential, like a child spilling a bowl of cereal, what you're actually exploding over is not the cereal.
Mina Dubin:You know, there have been a series of aggravations and, you know, a thousand times when you responded perfectly, when you responded with your perfect mother self, and you were like, just a second, honey.
Mina Dubin:I'll be there in a moment.
Mina Dubin:Oh, sure.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yep.
Mina Dubin:Don't pull on my dress.
Mina Dubin:Just a second.
Mina Dubin:Here, why don't you play with this?
Mina Dubin:I'll be right there.
Mina Dubin:You know, like all the times when you said it perfectly, and you may not even realize that your frustration is slowly building inside you, and then.
Mina Dubin:And then the next part is whacking.
Mina Dubin:I call it the emotional Whack a mole where we start to feel anger or frustration or annoyance, and we sort of whack it down.
Mina Dubin:Like that game Whack a Mole, where the mole comes up and you whack it down.
Mina Dubin:Because we're taught a.
Mina Dubin:Women are taught not to be angry and not to feel comfortable with our anger.
Mina Dubin:And so we're like, oh, there's anger.
Mina Dubin:Push it down, push it down.
Mina Dubin:Don't deal with it.
Mina Dubin:Don't process it.
Mina Dubin:But also, we don't have time to deal with it every time we get angry.
Mina Dubin:We don't have time to process our anger every 10 minutes.
Mina Dubin:And so by the time we explode and it feels like it is so sudden because it has just been slowly building inside of us.
Mina Dubin:And you've said a couple times already on this podcast, it takes over me.
Mina Dubin:And that's exactly what it feels like, that it.
Mina Dubin:That it's an.
Mina Dubin:That rage is an entity separate from you and you don't have control that it.
Mina Dubin:Like, it takes over, and then it leaves, like, as if it's this other being.
Mina Dubin:And that's really the difference between anger and rage, is that rage feels like it's not part of you and it's this other being, and you don't.
Mina Dubin:And you're not the one in control.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, I think that's really well explained.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think it's quite freeing for people to be able to see that, because you don't want to be an angry person all the time, but to know that that rage can come over you.
Kate Moore Youssef:And obviously, we don't want that to happen very often, but sometimes we need it.
Kate Moore Youssef:And like you say, women are told to be quiet and to, you know, not.
Kate Moore Youssef:Not to display this type of emotion.
Kate Moore Youssef:And then sometimes we need to.
Kate Moore Youssef:We need to go and scream in a forest.
Kate Moore Youssef:We need to go and, like, hit a pillow.
Kate Moore Youssef:We need to go and jump in a cold lake.
Kate Moore Youssef:We need to, I don't know, like, all these different things, go dancing and just kind of let our hair down.
Kate Moore Youssef:Because if we don't do these things, it does take over us and it stays within us.
Kate Moore Youssef:And the resentment and the martyrdom that we can feel, we've seen, unfortunately, there's, like, devastating consequences to that.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think when we name it, we see it, we notice it, there's awareness around it, we talk about it, we're then able to be like, okay, well, what.
Kate Moore Youssef:What can we do now?
Kate Moore Youssef:Like, I want to have this conversation with you now, but I don't want to leave people thinking, well, I'm just going to be ragey.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that's just the way it is.
Kate Moore Youssef:I want to be able to say, okay, what can we do that feels within our capacity that we're still able to get angry?
Kate Moore Youssef:Like, not say, oh, you're not allowed to get angry.
Kate Moore Youssef:But have you found, since you've kind of talked about it, noticed it, like, what's.
Kate Moore Youssef:What's been the most helpful thing for you?
Mina Dubin:The most helpful thing for me has been a reframe around rage, to not think of it as an enemy.
Mina Dubin:I think that we are so afraid of our rage because it's scary, you know, to feel that kind of anger and to feel out of control.
Mina Dubin:And so when we do have the rage, once it's done, we feel a ton of shame, and we basically push it as far away from our consciousness as possible.
Mina Dubin:We don't want to think about it.
Mina Dubin:We don't want to deal with it.
Mina Dubin:And so the most important thing for me actually, has been to think about my rage as a friend instead of an enemy and to get really curious about it.
Mina Dubin:Because our rage has super important information for us about the places in our life or in ourselves that need attention and healing or change.
Mina Dubin:Right?
Mina Dubin:So it might be that you need more support, you need to have someone else watching your children, you need to not be in charge of clothing for your children, whatever it is.
Mina Dubin:Like, maybe like that particular task is just like that's the one that's toppling the mountain of sanity.
Mina Dubin:And so that's the task that you're like, I need you to be in charge of this task and all the thinking around it to your partner or whatever it is.
Mina Dubin:But really the most important thing has been to research my rage, like to get really curious about it and to start taking notes on it.
Mina Dubin:When am I raging?
Mina Dubin:Where am I raging?
Mina Dubin:What was said right before I lost it, what was done?
Mina Dubin:What's been happening that week?
Mina Dubin:When's the last time I slept well?
Mina Dubin:When's the last time I had sex?
Mina Dubin:When's the last time I saw my friends?
Mina Dubin:You know, exercise, like getting super smart about it, I think is for me has been the most important thing.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I'm just interrupting today's episode to let you know about a brand new live workshop that I've got coming up on the 24th of May at 1pm and this workshop is all about reducing your ADHD overwhelm in family life and discovering and welcoming in more calm and regulation.
Kate Moore Youssef:Now, I want to let you know that I don't have all the answers, but it's something that I deal with on a daily basis and I've discovered over the years.
Kate Moore Youssef:I've understanding my own ADHD and coupled with all my coaching and talking to my experts on the podcast as well as all my hundreds of coaching clients, that there is a way of living without feeling in this sort of default state of feeling like you're drowning, that you're stressed all the time.
Kate Moore Youssef:And juggling family life alongside an ADHD brain can feel overwhelming at best and debilitating at worse.
Kate Moore Youssef:And life is happening at the moment at breakneck speed.
Kate Moore Youssef:We are all struggling to feel balanced like we're keeping.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so I wanted to share with you six steps that I know have worked for me and six steps I often talk about to many of my private coaching clients.
Kate Moore Youssef:I wanted to share this in a group live workshop.
Kate Moore Youssef:So if this is something that you are dealing with right now and you would love some more support, some new ideas, different perspectives, I would love it if you could join me.
Kate Moore Youssef:All the details are on the Today's Show Notes, but also on my website, which is ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk if you head to the Show Notes or my website, you'll find all the information and it's in one hour.
Kate Moore Youssef:You'll learn some new ways of coping and feeling more resilient and looking at life differently and feeling like you don't have to be at the mercy of everything that's piling up on top of you and that you do have control and choice over what you choose to bring into your family life.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I really look forward to seeing you there.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's the 24th of May, 1:00 and it's.
Kate Moore Youssef:All the details are on my website.
Kate Moore Youssef:Now back to today's episode.
Kate Moore Youssef:As women, we've got hormones as well and as we're getting older and I don't know if I'm stereotyping here, but I wonder if having, you know, like, we're getting older as we're having kids.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so what I'm noticing, there's a, there's a trend of perimenopause kind of kicking in.
Kate Moore Youssef:When our kids are young and maybe 20, 30 years ago.
Kate Moore Youssef:There was a distance, we had a bit of time, we had a bit of space because we were having kids in our late 20s, you know, mid-20s.
Kate Moore Youssef:Perimenopause kind of kicks in, you know, early 40s, mid-40s.
Kate Moore Youssef:But if there's a lot of women having kids, late 30s, early 40s, what's happening?
Kate Moore Youssef:It's a hormonal young child nightmare and we're not getting sleep when we need sleep most.
Kate Moore Youssef:Our hormones are kind of taking over again.
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, for us in this neurodivergent community, very often the ADHD or autism rears its head around this time because of hormones.
Kate Moore Youssef:And hormones are sort of depleting our estrogen levels, which is kind of depleting our dopamine levels, which is then having an interface with, you know, our cycles and our hormones and making us more prone to mood dysregulation and all sorts of things.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so we need to give ourselves so much self compassion as well, because we, we have, and we, we have a cycle that kind of facilitates a lot of dysregulation anyway.
Kate Moore Youssef:And then on top of that, we have all the things that we've just been talking about.
Kate Moore Youssef:Would you, would you say that, that, you know, obviously you were researching the book and were you noticing these kind of societal patterns creeping up for you?
Mina Dubin:You know, I don't have a connection yet between Menopausal rage, which I've actually heard of.
Mina Dubin:I remember hearing it on a podcast and thinking, oh, my God, it's never gonna end.
Kate Moore Youssef:Apparently post menopause, everyone's really chilled.
Kate Moore Youssef:Apparently, that's it.
Mina Dubin:30 to 50, you're screwed.
Mina Dubin:So I don't know because I talked to moms who were probably 30 to 51, and they were all experiencing rage.
Mina Dubin:So I'm not sure where menopause fits in.
Mina Dubin:I know for myself, my hormones feel like they're a key part of it and I can be extremely hormonal and when I'm in, like the PMS part of my cycle, I need to just like go hide.
Mina Dubin:But I'm sure it's connected, right?
Mina Dubin:Hormones are just so powerful.
Mina Dubin:And I think that what you said about self compassion is also just a humongous, humongous piece because there is so much expected of mothers and there's just so little grace given, I think, to mothers that, like, if we can't give ourselves compassion, who is going to?
Mina Dubin:And the more critical we are of ourselves, like having a perfectionist streak ends up often coming out as being very critical and rageful towards the people that we love because we hold those high expectations without giving them the compassion that we also refuse to give ourselves.
Mina Dubin:And so working on a self compassion, like working on trying to give yourself that is also a key to trying to lessen your mom rage.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, exactly.
Kate Moore Youssef:So if we sort of lessen the expectations we put on ourselves, we lessen the expectations on others.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so when our mum can't pick up one of our kids from school that day because they've got, you know, something like golf or bridge or whatever, you know, they do, actually.
Kate Moore Youssef:I look now and I think I'm so glad that she's got hobbies and I'm so glad that she's busy and she's active and she's social.
Kate Moore Youssef:Whereas maybe a few years ago there would have been resentment there of, well, how dare she?
Kate Moore Youssef:She's a mum.
Kate Moore Youssef:She should be ready to drop everything for me at all times.
Kate Moore Youssef:And actually I would want my kids to want me to be sociable and busy and healthy and active in my 70s as well, and, you know, give me that kind of compassion that she's gone through motherhood, she's done the hard thing.
Kate Moore Youssef:And yes, she's got grandchildren, but apparently that's the whole fun of grandchildren.
Kate Moore Youssef:You hand them back and unless you're like, super, super active in, you know, in the child's life.
Kate Moore Youssef:But it is very much like using ourselves as this mirror and really looking inwards.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think what you said before, you know, looking at our boundaries and our people pleasing and our perfectionism and really seeing all of that.
Kate Moore Youssef:And what can we let go of, what can we release?
Kate Moore Youssef:What shackles have been sort of holding us to?
Kate Moore Youssef:This place where I look back at myself a few years ago and if people were coming over to my house and the surfaces weren't all clean and the cushions weren't in the right place and the flowers weren't out on the table, I would be like mortified.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I was thinking, actually, what does that portray to other people that makes them feel, oh my God, you can't, you know, and now if I have people over in the kitchen's a mess and you know, there's muddy football boots everywhere, I kind of just lean into that because I would rather sit on my couch resting for half an hour longer than.
Kate Moore Youssef:And as opposed to being exhausted and resentful that I'm having guests over.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I've definitely had a mindset shift in all of this and it's helped lessen the mum rage.
Kate Moore Youssef:Whether or not it's because I'm getting more sleep because my kids are older, my kids are more self sufficient, they are more independent in one capacity.
Kate Moore Youssef:But then also emotionally, as they're teenagers, they.
Kate Moore Youssef:There's another kind of whole, you know, dynamic going on as well, like fear, worry conversations, big conversations where when the kids are younger, they're more physical and it's more exhausting physically.
Kate Moore Youssef:But those needs, those emotional needs aren't as strong.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I don't really know where I'm going with that, apart from, I think the cycles of being a mum, you know, ebb and flow and sometimes it feels easier and sometimes it feels much harder.
Mina Dubin:Yeah, totally.
Mina Dubin:And I would say about like the messy house, like for me, when I'm looking for mom friends, I'm looking for mom friends with messy houses and more kids than me.
Mina Dubin:I'm looking for mom friends who are much more chaotic, you know, like those are, those are the real people.
Mina Dubin:Like I'm not looking for people whose houses are perfect.
Mina Dubin:Like, those are the ones that I don't want to tell that I don't want to send my mom raid shame text to because I don't trust them.
Mina Dubin:Like it's the mom with the messy house who I trust.
Mina Dubin:You know, I love that.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that's connection, isn't it?
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, we share our vulnerabilities and that's the power of how we connect as human.
Kate Moore Youssef:And like you say we don't want to feel any more guilt than we're feeling or any more shame than we're feeling because in that moment that the mum rage comes out, you know, it's not like, yeah, go me, like go me.
Kate Moore Youssef:Look, I'm such a great mum.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's like, oh my God, what have I done?
Kate Moore Youssef:My kid's terrified, I've slammed a door, I've smashed a plate, whatever's gone on, you know, something's happened that we, we don't want to inflict in our kids and we don't like it ourselves.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so it's, you know, I look back and different things and for me the biggest way out of it is the regulation before is like the five steps before of making sure that I've had exercise, I've been outside, I've not over committed, my boundaries have been intact, I've asked for help and you know, now as so my husband, you know, we've been parenting for over 18 years together and I would say the last six or seven years of us parenting has been the best.
Kate Moore Youssef:Even though we've got more kids, we've got four kids.
Kate Moore Youssef:But it's been the easiest because he's decided to step into a much more proactive role as being a parent and he does a lot more shouldering of the menial chores and the, those things that would keep me up at night that he would see me being really stressed about.
Kate Moore Youssef:And he is on some of the WhatsApp groups now and he does the pickups and he knows when the kids bus schedule is and all these different things.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yes, I would say the share now is a bit fairer.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's maybe 60, 40 on me, which is not how it used to be.
Mina Dubin:Yeah, no.
Mina Dubin:I think one of the amazing things about having written this book is that I suddenly had a very intense deadline.
Mina Dubin:I had one year that I was supposed to write this book in and it was during the pandemic and I really, there was no way I was going to do it without stepping back from some of the mom duties that I was doing.
Mina Dubin:He really had to take over and you know, I've stepped back in to some degree.
Mina Dubin:But that changed has had lasting effects.
Mina Dubin:He just sent out the emails and got, you know, for both of our kids birthdays, you know, he's like, and he's doing all the communication around that like he, you know, he's very, he's much more involved.
Mina Dubin:He just agreed to be the chaperone for my kids trip like at school, you know, he's he's way more involved.
Mina Dubin:I'm not sure that I would say that I'm the primary parent anymore.
Mina Dubin:I think it's either even or possibly he might be and that it makes a big difference.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:I mean, even again, I would say after the pandemic, the shift of husbands or fathers at the school gates has shifted.
Kate Moore Youssef:I think.
Kate Moore Youssef:I think there's been.
Kate Moore Youssef:I think that pandemic period that was so intense for so many families, maybe there's been a recognition that things needed to change.
Mina Dubin:Yeah.
Mina Dubin:Well, one of the things that I found sort of exciting and remarkable about the pandemic is that all of these fathers, many of whom were bigwigs at their jobs, CEOs or whatever, all of a sudden were at home on their zoom screens and they couldn't hide the kids.
Mina Dubin:Instead of being CEOs, suddenly they became fathers before everyone's eyes.
Mina Dubin:The kids would run in and scream and he'd be like, you know what I mean?
Mina Dubin:Like, it was chaos.
Mina Dubin:And we all just became parents, the men too.
Mina Dubin:And I think that there was like, I don't know how if it will last, but like it felt like there was a shift there that was.
Mina Dubin:That I thought was amazing.
Mina Dubin:Yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:It humanized so many people and humanized parents as well.
Kate Moore Youssef:And like you say, wherever we were in that situation, kind of work wise, career wise, or even just being at home speaking to teachers and all of that, it gave us an opportunity, almost like an even playing field.
Kate Moore Youssef:And hopefully from the even playing field, I mean, maybe I'm being a bit too idealistic there, but, you know, the outdated expectations that were super, super outdated are just a little bit more outdated now.
Kate Moore Youssef:But why shouldn't you, why should the care not be split between, you know, parents?
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, And I actually want to open this up, this conversation and make it as inclusive as possible to, you know, people who are listening, who are single parents and, you know, maybe parenting of the same sex or really understanding how when we can find as much support and help as possible, however we parent, will really help reduce our ages as mothers.
Kate Moore Youssef:And what made me kind of chuckle a little bit internally is when I read in one of your articles that there was this sort of secret desire for divorce because they looked at their friends who were divorced and they were co parenting or they had time off, they had a weekend off and space to breathe and they, they kind of felt they were better parents because they literally had no kids in the house.
Kate Moore Youssef:And how awful to be in a situation.
Kate Moore Youssef:Maybe if you're in a happy marriage, to kind of look enviously at someone that's gone through hell through a divorce and looked at them and thought, oh, but at least you get the weekend off.
Kate Moore Youssef:At least you get a Thursday night off.
Mina Dubin:Yeah.
Mina Dubin:That excerpt that you read is actually from the book.
Mina Dubin:And yeah, it was sort of a fantasy, like I was saying that, like, mothering is so constant, the work of it is.
Mina Dubin:So, like, even when you're not doing mothering work, like, you talked about the mental load, those tabs running in your brain, like you never stop working.
Mina Dubin:And so there's.
Mina Dubin:I talk about this fantasy that I, and like many of the moms I talk to, have about what 50, 50 shared custody would look like in terms of just be the.
Mina Dubin:In terms of being able to get a break.
Mina Dubin:And this is, myself included, for moms who don't actually want to get a divorce and moms who are totally in love with their spouses.
Mina Dubin:Right.
Mina Dubin:But this fantasy, which many mothers responded, many divorced mothers responded, this is not a real fantasy.
Mina Dubin:It doesn't actually feel like this and it doesn't look like this.
Mina Dubin:But the point of that was that is how hard motherhood feels.
Mina Dubin:That that's the fantasy, that that's the only way we can imagine getting a break.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah.
Kate Moore Youssef:I spoke about something I did a few years ago on the podcast where I think it was very close to just when life was getting back to normal after the pandemic.
Kate Moore Youssef:And there was this sort of collective exhaustion from mothers.
Kate Moore Youssef:It was very, sort of very real, intangible.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I remember these conversations of, you know, they were in school, they were out school, and we were cooking every single meal, homeschooling, working, and got to the end of this kind of two years, and we were all almost broken.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I decided that I was going to take myself off to a hotel and have this night in this hotel.
Kate Moore Youssef:And.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I wish I'd enjoyed it more because the whole time I was in this hotel and I kind of.
Kate Moore Youssef:I've just felt so uncomfortable, like I'm in a hotel on my own.
Kate Moore Youssef:What am I going to do?
Kate Moore Youssef:I'll order room service.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'll watch a film or look at my watch or it's bath time or I wonder what the kids are doing.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it felt so hard to disconnect.
Kate Moore Youssef:It is hard to switch off as well, isn't it?
Kate Moore Youssef:Because even if we say we're going to go and have a lie down on the bed for an hour, we can hear the chaos.
Kate Moore Youssef:We can hear what's going on.
Kate Moore Youssef:We're looking at our watch.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that kind of almost like that control freak kind of comes into us and going, well, it's dinner time and I can't hear that dinner's on, you know, being made or he needs to be taken to football practice, but I can't hear that the car's out the drive and it's, it's hard for us to relax.
Kate Moore Youssef:So it's.
Kate Moore Youssef:Would you say that we're so finely programmed to not relax that maybe this, this is just part and parcel of being a mum and just.
Kate Moore Youssef:I don't know how to change the internal programming?
Mina Dubin:Yeah, I mean, I think that we're programmed that way because the society programs us that way.
Mina Dubin:Because if mothers are doing all of that work, then men don't have to.
Mina Dubin:And you know, I mean, even in same sex relationships, what I found is that there is still tends to be a gender dynamic of one partner being more of the breadwinner and primary money earner and one partner being more of the primary caregiver.
Mina Dubin:And I think that one of the big connections to mom rage of what you were just talking about when you talk about matrescence, is that when we actually have that night away, we have been momming so hard for so long that when we have a moment to go back to being a self, beside that's, that's something other than mom.
Mina Dubin:We don't even know who that self is.
Mina Dubin:And for me, I will say that a lot of my mom rage has come from feeling constricted and just being mom and desperately, desperately needing to return or find a new sense of identity that's not just within the walls of my home.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah.
Mina Dubin:And so I think that's actually a really big point.
Mina Dubin:Like a really big piece of it is to have this really full self that's not about the family.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, 100%.
Kate Moore Youssef:I've really noticed that a lot.
Kate Moore Youssef:That my most fulfilled friends and the people who are kind of like, I look at them as like balanced people, they have a really fulfilled career, they feel purposeful and it's not just from their children.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's not just running around and cooking and being, you know, why you.
Kate Moore Youssef:A mother, a dog's body.
Kate Moore Youssef:They are, maybe they've got a stressful career, but it really kind of like feels purposeful.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so when they're in the house, it doesn't.
Kate Moore Youssef:They don't just feel like that.
Kate Moore Youssef:That's all they do like this, this busy being a mum the whole time.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I know for me, I look back now, this interesting, this conversation, I can look back now and see.
Kate Moore Youssef:Actually, my mum rage really dissipated when I stepped more into working more and fulfilling myself in my career, where I had four or five years of being off, you know, like young kids, chaos, busy.
Kate Moore Youssef:I.
Kate Moore Youssef:I probably needed to be in the house, on the ground, doing everything I was doing.
Kate Moore Youssef:But from like a spiritual and fulfillment perspective, I had nothing.
Kate Moore Youssef:I was depleted.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so I would say, even if you don't want to work or you can't work, or find something that lifts you up, find something lights you up that isn't just your kids and your family, because that can make a big difference, right?
Mina Dubin:Because that, like getting lit up in that way, whatever it's from, if it's from work or a hobby or, you know, running or whatever it is that like, lights you up, that's like another way of saying filling up your cup, right?
Mina Dubin:So that when you walk into that house, you have this light, you're ready to give in a way, whereas if you don't have that, you just come in and you're like, more of this.
Mina Dubin:You need that so that you actually have a vibrant self to give some of.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, exactly.
Kate Moore Youssef:So you walk in the house, you've filled your own cup, you've got a different dimension.
Kate Moore Youssef:You've been around people, you've not talked about your kids.
Kate Moore Youssef:I mean, my biggest bugbear is when you finally go out with friends and all they do is talk about their kids and I'm like, no, I've just literally left a bunch of kids, like, clawing at me and asking me for things.
Kate Moore Youssef:I just want to sit down at the table.
Kate Moore Youssef:Not talk about schools, exams, teachers, kids.
Kate Moore Youssef:Like, I get it.
Kate Moore Youssef:I know that a lot of people do need to vent and I do know it's really important to talk about things like that.
Kate Moore Youssef:But sometimes we just need to be us, we just need to sit around the, you know, restaurant table or the we're on a walk or we're at yoga, whatever we're doing, and just be us and just talk about things that interest us.
Kate Moore Youssef:But some, I think some women do find it hard to identify with that part of themselves that isn't a mum.
Kate Moore Youssef:If that has been such a big part of your life.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I'm not judging, I'm just maybe saying that it's all about kind of self awareness.
Kate Moore Youssef:This, this conversation of exactly what you said earlier, of when does the rage show up, you know, what haven't I had recently, what haven't I done recently?
Kate Moore Youssef:Who's crossed my boundaries and where have I said yes, when I wanted to say no.
Kate Moore Youssef:What have I given when I just wanted to, you know, hold back and just do a bit more of a self inventory and kind of go, oh, okay, now I understand.
Kate Moore Youssef:I wasn't angry exactly like you said why my kids spilled the cereal.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's because I haven't had any time to myself all week and I've been giving to everyone and no one has cared for me.
Mina Dubin:And that's right.
Mina Dubin:Yeah, yeah.
Mina Dubin:And I think that for me it has been extremely useful and wonderful to have friends who are not moms or friends who are moms of kids who are much older than me, than my kids, so that we're in different places.
Mina Dubin:Because I do find that moms who have kids around my kids are 6 and 10, you know, who have kids around my kids age or a little younger that like, they're also not as likely to like, want to go out at night or, you know, have a whole night where we're not talking about our kids.
Mina Dubin:And so it can.
Mina Dubin:I think it's helpful, you know, to have like a multi generational friendships and, you know, you don't just have to have mom friends.
Mina Dubin:It's great to have mom friends because then you can talk about that.
Mina Dubin:But.
Mina Dubin:But you know, if I'm just thinking like for mothers who are listening who have mom friends and that's all they talk about, you know, to have friends who aren't moms.
Mina Dubin:It's so important.
Kate Moore Youssef:That's separation and it is vital.
Kate Moore Youssef:I guess what my final question would be is, what's your plan now in this, in this space, do you feel like you've kind of done what you need to do here or has it opened a can of worms for other areas in this, in this sort of societal acknowledgement?
Mina Dubin:I feel like, I actually feel like I've done what I need to do here.
Mina Dubin:I think there are a lot of people working right now in the mom rage space.
Mina Dubin:I think there are researchers, scientific researchers actually now doing research, which is.
Mina Dubin:And there were like maybe one or two doing it beforehand.
Mina Dubin:But their work is so important because like, if I didn't have that, I couldn't have had any scientific basis for any of the work that I did in this book.
Mina Dubin:And so their research is extremely important.
Mina Dubin:There are a lot of psychologists and mental health experts who are working in the mom rage space.
Mina Dubin:And I feel like, you know, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a scientific researcher, I'm a writer.
Mina Dubin:And so the thing that I'm really good at and that I feel Like I can offer the world is my words.
Mina Dubin:And so I feel like I've done the thing that I do, which is I wrote a book about it and it's researched and reported, but also it's a memoir as well.
Mina Dubin:Like it's my story in there.
Mina Dubin:In addition to all the other mothers I interviewed and how I saw.
Mina Dubin:My job with this book was to offer mothers compassion and relief and to give them a sense of being seen.
Mina Dubin:So I feel like I've done that with the book and I'm, you know, I'm happy to keep talking about it.
Mina Dubin:I want to sell the book.
Mina Dubin:I want to, you know, keep giving mother's relief.
Mina Dubin:If people ask me to speak, I'm doing speaking events and stuff like that.
Mina Dubin:But I'm moving on to the next book because that's my thing because that's what I do, you know, that's like my space.
Mina Dubin:But I would be surprised if Mom Ridge doesn't make an appearance in the next book.
Kate Moore Youssef:Am I allowed to ask what the next book is?
Mina Dubin:Yeah, I actually think it's fiction.
Mina Dubin:I think I'm gonna, I really want to play like this book felt, you know, I've actually gotten a lot of comments that the book is funny, which is, you know, makes me happy I think, because I tend to be more light hearted just as who I am.
Mina Dubin:But I think that I really want to play a little more than this book allowed me to play.
Mina Dubin:So I'm gonna do fiction and it's going to be about a relationship and it's going to be about a couple who opens up their marriage and becomes non monogamous.
Mina Dubin:So I think we're just, I think it's going to be sexy and kind of fun and hopefully page turning.
Kate Moore Youssef:So fantastic.
Kate Moore Youssef:Well, you know, thank you for opening up this conversation for so many other women and normalize it and you know, be able to have these conversations on WhatsApp groups and over coffee and dog walks and be able to kind of say, I did this thing last night and I'm not proud of it, but I was so tired and I was so drained and exhausted and I just kind of lost it.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that other person is going to turn around and go, well, don't worry because I did that last week.
Mina Dubin:Yeah, that's, that's the dream.
Mina Dubin:That's the dream, right?
Mina Dubin:Because if you, if you can, if you can will yourself to press send on that text, that shame text to a friend, then you are saying I am worthy of care, I am worthy of compassion.
Mina Dubin:Right?
Mina Dubin:Because you're like it's so vulnerable.
Mina Dubin:And vulnerability is how we create intimacy, you know, and connection.
Mina Dubin:Absolutely.
Mina Dubin:I hope you're right.
Mina Dubin:I hope it does that.
Kate Moore Youssef:I hope so.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think that if anyone's listening here and actually does feel like they're in a darker space than this and they do feel that this, this rage is maybe daily or too often or too regular.
Kate Moore Youssef:There's so many different ways.
Kate Moore Youssef:There's CBT therapy, there's mindfulness, there's ways of like a breathing, of regulating, lots of regulation tools.
Kate Moore Youssef:I've got lots of regulation tools on my website because I understand this is.
Kate Moore Youssef:This can be something that we can sort of laugh about, talk about, but actually it can almost feel all consuming as well.
Kate Moore Youssef:And we feel like we're drowning.
Kate Moore Youssef:And if we don't have a partner who there to support us or family members nearby or we feel isolated in a community, it can feel really, really challenging.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I do know that with a different combination of therapy, medication, holistic tools, just going on a run, simply just going on like a run can really help release a lot of tension and anger and rage.
Kate Moore Youssef:So don't feel alone if you are listening to this and you know, you feel like you need some extra help because I know that it's all there.
Kate Moore Youssef:So.
Kate Moore Youssef:Mina, I just wanted to thank you so much.
Kate Moore Youssef:I really enjoyed this conversation just being able to talk about it.
Kate Moore Youssef:I feel a bit like I have.
Mina Dubin:To say thank you for having me.
Mina Dubin:And I agree.
Mina Dubin:I feel like every time we talk about it, like it just, it feels good to talk about it.
Mina Dubin:It's something we don't talk about and I'm grateful that you had me on so that we could have the space to do that.
Kate Moore Youssef:I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
Kate Moore Youssef:If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Kate Moore Youssef:And please do check out my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.
Kate Moore Youssef:Take care and see you for the next episode.
Mina Dubin:I.
