Maybe It's Not "Mom Rage." Maybe it's a Trauma Response

Michelle never thought of herself as an angry person. She was raised to believe that good girls don’t get mad. So, when she felt anger rising, she did what she had been trained to do—stuff it down. She ignored the tightness in her chest, the heat creeping up her neck. She told herself she was overreacting. And she waited for it to pass.

But here’s the thing about anger: It doesn’t just disappear. It waits.

Michelle prided herself on being patient, calm, and accommodating. Until one day, after a long, exhausting afternoon, her four-year-old refused to put on his shoes. She asked nicely. Then she asked less nicely. Then she pleaded. And then—when he grinned and ran in the opposite direction—something inside her snapped.

"Mom rage can feel overwhelming and shameful, but it doesn’t mean you're a bad parent. If no one taught you how to regulate big emotions, it’s not your fault—but you can learn. Healing starts with awareness, self-compassion, and the right tools to break the cycle."

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She didn’t just yell. She raged.

And in that moment, she felt utterly powerless.

The guilt came quickly, flooding in right after the explosion. What kind of mother loses it like this? Why couldn’t I just be calm?

Sound familiar?

Maybe It’s Not "Mom Rage"—Maybe It’s Unprocessed Trauma

If Michelle’s story resonates, you’re not alone. Many post-traumatic parents—those who grew up in homes where emotions weren’t understood, validated, or regulated—struggle with anger in ways they don’t expect.

They don’t think of themselves as angry people. But anger isn’t something we are—it’s something we feel. And if we weren’t taught how to process it, it makes perfect sense that it comes out sideways.

Why Do Post-Traumatic Parents Struggle With Anger?

Anger is a protective emotion. It alerts us when something isn’t right, when a boundary has been crossed, when we feel disrespected or unheard. In a well-regulated nervous system, anger is a signal, not a threat.

But if you grew up in an environment where anger was ignored, punished, or turned into something frightening, you may have learned to cope in unhealthy ways.

Here’s what that can look like:

The Michelle Pattern—Suppress and Displace: Anger isn’t safe, so I push it down. But suppressed anger doesn’t disappear—it finds an outlet. If you weren’t allowed to express anger toward your parents or caregivers, you may have learned to direct it at someone who couldn’t retaliate. And in parenting, that can mean our children.

The Susan Pattern—White-Knuckle Control Until It Snaps: Just hold on. Don’t let it show. If I can keep it together, I’ll be fine. Susan was never taught what to do with anger, so she holds on by the tips of her nails and toes. She tells herself to be patient. She tells herself her child is just being a child. But eventually, that child will say just the wrong thing at just the wrong moment, and she will explode—because that’s what happens when we ignore emotions. They don’t go away. They wait.

The Rachel Pattern—People-Pleasing Until Burnout Leads to Rage: If I just keep everyone happy, there won’t be conflict. Rachel says yes. She accommodates. She stretches herself thinner and thinner, because she’s terrified of the discomfort of conflict. But resentment builds. And builds. And builds. Until one day, she snaps. And then she hates herself for it.

The Link Between Trauma and "Mom Rage"

Research confirms that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) make parenting feel more stressful.

A study published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health found that mothers with childhood trauma experience higher levels of parenting stress and emotional dysregulation. Another study in the Journal of Child and Family Studies found that parents with ACEs are more likely to struggle with impulse control and emotional regulation in parenting.

Unresolved trauma keeps the nervous system in a state of hypervigilance, making it much harder to stay calm and regulated when faced with stress.

This means that if parenting feels harder for you than it seems to be for other people, it’s not because you’re a bad parent. It’s because your nervous system is wired differently due to past experiences.

Anger Essential Reads

Don't Let Anger Take the Reins

Anger Management and Transformation

It's not: "What's wrong with me? How can I be such a bad person that I explode?" But rather: "Where did I learn how to handle anger this way?" or "I was never taught to handle anger at all, and now I don't know how. That makes sense."

Why Attachment Feels Stressful for Post-Traumatic Parents

We're supposed to be the attachment figure, right? The calm, stable provider of the four S's of attachment, making our kids feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. Getting angry at them feels like a contradiction, and it is—but post-traumatic parents may have to work much harder to be an attachment figure, because of how attachment works.

Attachment is supposed to be a self-replicating system. Our internal working model of relationships is formed in childhood and is meant to guide our own parenting.

That’s great if we had parents who modeled healthy emotional regulation and co-regulation. But if we didn’t? That’s where things get complicated.

Many post-traumatic parents find themselves in a painful paradox: "I know what not to do—I don’t want to explode, be reactive, or give the silent treatment like my mother did. But I don’t actually know what to do instead."

When this happens, parenting feels exponentially harder. Even if your own parents were doing the best they could, the “best they could” may not have landed well on your nervous system.

Maybe your mother gave you the silent treatment instead of screaming at you. And yes, that was “better” than outright rage. But it still taught you that anger equals disconnection.

Now, when we try to parent differently—to be conscious, gentle, and emotionally present—we’re fighting against a system that was never built for this type of parenting in the first place. That’s why gentle parenting feels so hard for trauma survivors. It’s not that we don’t want to do it. It’s that no one ever showed us how. (For more about learning to gentle parent after trauma, click here.)

What to Do Instead

If "mom rage" feels out of control, the answer isn’t self-blame—it’s self-compassion and rewiring.

• Recognize anger as a signal, not a failure. Your emotions aren’t the problem—your response to them might be. When anger shows up, ask yourself: What is this trying to tell me?
• Break the suppression cycle. Instead of pushing anger down, acknowledge it in small ways. I feel really frustrated right now is a powerful first step. As Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson say: Name it to tame it.
• Interrupt the escalation. If you feel yourself nearing a breaking point, step away for a moment. Breathe. Move your body. Say out loud, “I need a second.” Small breaks prevent big explosions.
• Identify your inherited patterns. Are you more of a Michelle? A Susan? A Rachel? Noticing your default response to stress gives you the power to choose a new one.
• Learn co-regulation skills. If you weren’t taught co-regulation, the good news is: You can learn. Strategies like box breathing, grounding exercises, and nervous system resets can help you stay present when emotions run high.

Final Thought: You’re Not Broken—You’re Learning

If you grew up in a home where anger was dangerous, ignored, or punished, it makes perfect sense that you struggle with it now. But just because your past shaped your responses doesn’t mean you’re stuck.

Maybe you don’t have "mom rage." Maybe you have a nervous system that was never taught how to regulate anger in a safe way.

And maybe, just maybe, learning how to do that now—with your children—can be the most healing thing you ever do.