If it were up to Mad Men to tell it, we’d all be toxic Betty Drapers, smoking cigarettes, shooting our neighbors’ birds. If it were up to Big Little Lies, most of us would loathe each other—ideally, there’d be no murder.
But I’m rarely angry at other moms—I’m angry with them.
“A lot of our venting has to do with our partners and how much we’re doing,” Shauna, 35, a working mom of four in Seattle tells me. “And it’s not about wanting to compete with our husbands over who does more, but more of just needing help and wanting them to be proactive and trying to help versus us having to nag and ask for help at a point where we’re already so burnt out.”
“My best friend [and I] just find a lot of relief in just airing it out, instead of harboring it inside and lashing out at whoever is around because we’re irritated about it,” she continues.
Shauna estimates there are four women in her friend group with whom she feels comfortable raging. (“I know with some friends, if I went off like that, they’d be like, ‘Why are you guys married? Maybe you should go to counseling?’”) The goal isn’t to find a solution to a particular issue but to simply revel in the unmitigated pleasure of free-flowing ire. A 2017 study found that venting can be positive for one’s mental health, promotes bonding, and allows for catharsis. So sure, some people do need a new husband. But everyone—including men—should have a healthy outlet.
“It gives me a sense of validation,” Shauna says. “I remember that it’s okay to be angry about some of these things and it’s okay to feel frustrated.”
Of course, some people are in a better position to hear your venting than others. Your child, for example? Not the best person to accommodate your fury. But a rage friend? She’s indispensable. Carly Snyder, M.D., a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist practicing in New York City, notes that anger “is a normal reaction to events,” and one that’s better off expressed than bottled up. “We can’t rationalize with kids. So being a mom—until your child is 18, frankly, can be rather frustrating.” That frustration, she adds, “has to go somewhere.”
The friends we can express that rage with are the smash room, personified—a contained, sacred space to vent that’s at a safe remove from our children, partners, and breaking news alerts.
“Every person should have their own space, and one of the reasons for a growing anger is because a lot of moms lose that with motherhood,” Snyder says. (In a 2018 survey of 2,000 mothers, researchers calculated that moms have on average only 32 minutes a day to themselves.)
And while finding time and space for oneself is important, the isolation of motherhood can and often does leave us desperate for a community where we can have unfettered, judgment-free conversations with people who get what we’re going through. “Regaining that [shared space] imperative,” Snyder says, “regaining that personal space, in part, allows for a regaining of a sense of self and a regaining of your identity, and that’s important.”
