“I Couldn’t Believe I Wasn’t Alone”: Minna Dubin Talks MOM RAGE
When Minna Dubin published her essay “The Rage Mothers Don’t Talk About” in the New York Times in 2020, I shared it on Facebook, thankful for this stranger who had opened up about her experience as an imperfect mom, which helped me make space to acknowledge my own experiences. Quickly, moms in my suburban town, across the country from where Minna lives in the Bay Area, began commenting “me too!”
At the time, I was separated from my husband of nearly 20 years. Minna’s line “As if rage has never shared a border with love” melted me. In the silence after our marriage, I’ve only started to explore the rage that I have known, from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood.
At the end of a virtual medical visit recently, the provider said something like: “We see a lot of women like you.” Women like me… Women who have autoimmune issues? Women who had a geriatric pregnancy? An abortion between the two kids? Women who are thinking…. if I have an hour before my workday, do I finish this long overdue project, schedule one of the outstanding appointments for my kids, sew the seam of the pajama pants, start my holiday shopping, exercise, meditate or… rake the leaves? Will there be a call in ten minutes, because one son forgot a musical instrument? Women who know this feeling all sort of balled up in the top of the chest, while they are striving to stay kind?
Women like me. Like us. I know I am not alone—and neither are you—because even if I can only read a book in three-minute increments and require almost a full year to finish, I have now read Minna Dubin’s Mom Rage. A guide for those beginning the journey into parenthood, and a compassionate witness for those of us already here, Mom Rage weaves pieces of personal narrative and interviews with mothers from around the world into chapters rich in science-based observation. Alongside a look at the nervous system on motherhood, Minna connects major dots between our challenges and the dysfunction ingrained in the (lack of) care we receive in the societal structures in which we are raising our families. From unveiling the multiple ways we are essentially fooled into believing motherhood will be (or should feel like) the best job on earth, to outlining the potential for more support in our systems, Mom Rage is a strong case for change and conversation.
The book invites the reader too, to join her, in self compassion, reflection, and hope. I was grateful for Minna’s openness in chatting with me for MUTHA via email over the past months—so many months that this post itself feels like a baby. What follows is a bit of our conversation, omitting all of my “I’m sorry for the delay–mom life” messages… – Jacqui Morton
JACQUI MORTON: Your publishing this book is an extreme gift to those of us in the trenches, a life vest perhaps, so thank you for sharing your voice and experience, and for the way you have incorporated the stories of others from all backgrounds.
“Mom Rage” is a term many undoubtedly relate to but would have a hard time articulating. You aptly write: “Talking about mom rage yanks it down from the scary place it looms in our minds, and enables us to engage with the tenderness inside it. Speaking mom rage out loud is a way of staking a claim for oneself.” This sentence is strikingly beautiful—as is the observation that the rage we carry is full of tenderness. When did you come to identify your experience with the term Mom Rage?
MINNA DUBIN: Thank you for the life vest comment. My biggest wish for Mom Rage is that it serves as a safe and restorative place for moms who are drowning. My first kid was three when I first wrote about my bursting anger. That short piece, “A Parenting Street Scene,” was published here in MUTHA in 2016. The expanded version of that scene closes chapter one in Mom Rage. In my desperation back in 2016, I Googled “mother rage” (I’m not sure where or how I got that phrase in my head) and discovered Anne Lamott’s essay in Salon with the same title. If Anne—someone I deeply respected as a mom writer—was using and owning that phrase, then I felt I could too.
Anne’s essay took the air out of my anger. In that moment, all the fear, self-hatred, humiliation, self-doubt, and guilt I felt about my rage dissipated. Her words made me laugh, and helped me see for the first time that mother rage is a universal experience. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t the worst. That moment of deep relief was transformative. I wanted to offer it to other moms, and to keep offering it to myself. So I wrote Mom Rage.
JM: I can relate to that moment of reading Anne’s essay—I am sure her honesty and humor have been a source of comfort for many moms. One of the things I love so much about Mom Rage is that it can be read and digested chapter by chapter. I think it works so wonderfully, the way you combine personal narrative with the interviews you conducted, global research, scientific information, wisdom of foremothers and teachers, as well as critical analysis of the ways our systems and policies could better support parents! When did you know how to structure this book?
MD: When I decided to write this book in 2020, here’s what I knew: If one woman says she has been harmed, no one believes her. I needed other mothers’ stories from all over the country and the world to back mine up so that mom rage wouldn’t be dismissed as one lady’s anger problem. I believe personal narrative is a valid form of information (memoir and storytelling are what make my writing heart sing), but I was aware that this would be the first comprehensive book on the subject of “mom rage.”
I felt pressure to “legitimize” my argument that the fury mothers feel is the result of systemic oppression. That’s why I combined story (memoir and reporting) with what are designated as “factual measures” by white supremacy culture (statistics, scientific studies, etc.). Together, I think they make a convincing argument that mom rage is an international emotional crisis stemming from the societal neglect of mothers.
Beyond knowing the book should have a mix of these elements, I didn’t have much of a structural plan, which I think is evident in the ways the book defies being formulaic. Some chapters are mostly my story. Others mostly other moms’ stories. And some are mainly social critique. My editors at Seal Press helped make this book much less boring by encouraging me to trust myself as an authority and rely less on expert quotes. I hate that this is the truth: that I had to be told my voice is good enough on its own. Maybe I just needed a reminder. We all need reminders sometimes.
JM: I’m so glad you received this message. In fact your book, while speaking to all moms, has a direct message for mom writers… I wonder if you knew this.
MD: Though I didn’t do it on purpose, it makes sense that the book might particularly speak to writers and artist mothers. It’s so easy to let our artistic careers take a backseat when we become mothers. Earning money and taking care of our children become paramount. And care work can be seductively tangible: changing a diaper, folding the laundry. You get immediate visible results and a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment that you are very lucky if your artistic work ever provides. I knew before becoming a mother how much I loved writing and that I wanted it to be part of my career, but I was mostly focused on facilitating writing workshops for teens and less focused on my own creative work.
Once I was a mother, it became clear to me (after a couple years) that writing was my way back to a self that was more than changing diapers and folding laundry. The more I wrote, the closer I got to a self I recognized. When I began writing two years after having my first child (I talk about this in the book), I started with a public art project called #MomLists, which was these 5×7 cards, on which I hand-wrote lists about motherhood. I manually pushed tiny holes across the top and used bookbinding thread to sew a pretty piece of decorative paper on top, then attached a ribbon so each piece hung. At that time in my life I needed that visual, physical, tangible proof of my time spent working. That need for some sort of physical and visual proof of my labor has mostly dissipated. I feel like I wrote myself all the way back to my writer self.
Though, I’ll admit, having this book as a finished product I can hold in my hands, like those #MomLists, well, it still feels very satisfying.
JM: In the chapter, “Invite Your Rage to Tea,” you are so generously open in writing about your experience. Your ability to lay this vulnerability on the page is a thread throughout the book, a willingness to be so honest about your feelings of rage that creates space for so many others to be honest about their feelings and experiences. They are difficult things we often don’t talk about.
You write that you were deeply impacted by a therapist’s statement about the way you treat yourself being connected to your rage and you later describe how she helped you connect this with your perfectionism. I was inspired to read of your journey into witnessing your rage and her hurt places. Was it challenging to be so open and honest in writing this book? That feels more like what I am asking is how have you allowed yourself to do this?
MD: The decision of whether or not to write the book in the first place was the big vulnerability challenge for me. I worried: Is this really the topic I want my name attached to? How will this book impact my family, my children’s story about me, about themselves, about us? But once I made the decision (after a lot of thinking and discussing with people I trust, especially my husband), I never second-guessed it or felt hesitant in how revealing I was in my writing. I think vulnerability is beautiful and is a tool we can use to step towards each other, and create kinship, which is exactly what all of us isolated, angry mothers need!
As a white, able-bodied, American-born, middle-class, ciswoman married to a man, my privilege allows me to be vulnerable without much fear of cultural penalization. The mothers I interviewed were so vulnerable with me, showing me their fury and their shame. Every time one of us speaks mom rage out loud, we embolden each other to be more honest. My vulnerability in Mom Rage felt like part of a group effort towards empowerment and change.
JM: As a white, able-bodied, American-born, middle-class, ciswoman who is divorced from marriage to a man, thank you, Minna for the book, and for chatting with me about it.
In the bit about inviting your rage to tea, you include a “woo warning.” I loved this, and I have to admit, some of the things that have been most helpful for me have been things I would have once completely discarded, unable to take them (or myself engaging in them) seriously. Addressing my inner child, for example. Was it the personification of the Rage that felt at first too woo, even warranting a woo warning?
MD: Yes, it was personifying my rage that felt particularly “woo.” Moreso because it’s in the context of the rest of the book, which isn’t woo at all. So part of my wanting to include a woo warning is because I worried that this sudden leap into anthropomorphizing an emotional state might feel jarring to readers. It is me trying to rub the reader’s back and say, “I know this is different. I know this might be out of character for the book, but don’t worry! It’s also out of character for me. I promise I’m not going to start talking about chakras and the Enneagram and my rising sign. I’m asking you to just go with it, because it took me where I needed to go, and maybe it’ll be of use to you.”
Find Mom Rage at any indie bookstore (or wherever you happen to shop, but you know, that’s our recommendation to go local first). It makes a great mother’s day gift.
About the Author
Jacqui Morton’s writing has appeared in places such as the Guardian, The Rumpus, and Salon. A chapbook of her poems, Turning Cozy Dark, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press as a semi finalist in the New Women’s Voices competition. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, she works as a communications consultant for non-profit organizations. Please visit her at jacquimorton.org.
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