Good Moms Don ’ t Get Angry
Alli Worthington
The pressure of day-to-day frustrations builds and builds and builds . It ’ s because of a neverending stream of a million little things . It ’ s temper tantrums , sick kids , runaway dogs , broken toys , and lost lovies . It ’ s burned dinners , missed meetings , school projects , and last-minute teacher conferences . As moms , we aren ’ t supposed to get frustrated , because good moms don ’ t get angry , right ? We just stuff it down , over and over again , until inevitably we snap over the mundane – over lost keys or traveling husbands or spilled milk .
Not only have we believed the myth that good moms don ’ t get angry , but many of us have been taught that anger , in general , is an unhealthy or “ bad ” emotion . We ’ ve adopted the “ mad is bad ” mindset for many reasons .
The truth is that good moms do get angry .
Of course , we sometimes respond to our anger in unhealthy ways . But feeling angry is not bad in and of itself . It is rarely our anger that is the problem , but more often our response to it .
Anger is an emotion that requires a bit of self-reflection to understand . It ’ s not just , “ I ’ m mad ,” and that ’ s it . There ’ s always more to it . Emotions are information that tell us something . And our anger is information that tells us something is wrong .
Once we calm down a bit after our anger flares , we can do the needed self-reflection to understand what was really happening when
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