It?s a weekday morning and I?m making breakfast. My eight-year-old daughter sits down to eat, but my five-year-old son is MIA. Suddenly, a gruesome wail echoes through the house. I dash to my son?s room to find him star-fished on the floor in his underwear, clothes strewn everywhere.
?What?s happening"? I ask. ?Are you hurt"?
?My pants feel weird!? he shrieks.
I can?t help but groan. This is day three that his pants don?t ?feel right.? I calmly suggest different pairs, but none will do?too tight, too loose, have pockets, or otherwise somehow offensive. After kicking off a fourth pair, he throws himself back to the floor.
That?s when my hands start to shake. My heart starts to pound and my face grows hot. I hurl all the pants on his bed, shout that he?s going to school in his goddamn underwear, and storm out. It was not my finest moment.
I?m not actually an angry person?friends have even referred to me as Zen. And yet, since becoming a mother, particularly once my second child hit his toddler years, I?ve experienced more moments of outright rage than I care to admit. I?ve had to flee to my bedroom, shut the door and scream or cry or both. Sometimes, I feel generally pissed off at everyone and everything, and even the smallest infraction will incite rage.
This is not the mom I want to be.
What is rage and is it different than anger"
?Rage is when the anger becomes uncontrollable,? says Jen Reddish, a registered master therapeutic counsellor in Calgary whose foc...