Our relationship with our mother becomes a template for all intimate relationships. It shapes our core sense of self - how we understand and manage our emotions, and how we expect others to treat us.

While of course we grow and evolve through other experiences and relationships - with fathers, relatives and friends - the mother-daughter connection often carries a unique emotional weight. When this relationship is ‘good enough,’ it really shapes how soothed, safe, seen, and secure we feel.

Crucially, this doesn’t require a perfect mother. It requires a mum who’s responsive and attuned enough to help us feel emotionally held and known - even if imperfectly. Someone whose beliefs, anxieties and habits may infuriate us yet someone who creates enough space and flexibility in the relationship for understanding, growth and joy as we move through life. It’s this feeling of belonging and being ‘known’ by our mum that means we often, as adults, continue to seek out her presence and approval.

Which is why, when we become mums ourselves and our identities feel fragile and in flux, we may long to have our mother nearby - even if the relationship has been fraught. And why we miss the emotional sustenance of this relationship long after our mother has died.

Why becoming a mum can feel so overwhelming — especially if you were under- mothered

“People spend their entire lives trying to make the mother they have into the mother they wish they had. And they end up getting repeatedly injured in every interaction - feeling unseen, unheard, invisible, uncared for, or criticised.”

– Lori Gottlieb

For many women, becoming a mother is profoundly stirring. It can reactivate memories of our own early attachment experiences — including those that were painful or lacking. As psychoanalyst Selma Fraiberg famously described, the “ghosts in the nursery” may intrude: unconscious memories of how we ourselves were parented. These “ghosts” relate to our own relationships with our primary caregiver(s), which teach us about ourselves, others and the world around us.

If your own mothering experience was traumatic - perhaps you didn’t feel soothed, supported, or truly seen as a child - caring for a baby can awaken those same unmet needs. As psychoanalyst Joan Raphael-Leff notes, it can reawaken “early feelings of our own neediness or rage.” A baby’s natural demands for attention and closeness may feel overwhelming, even threatening, as if you’re being emotionally swallowed up.

Other times, the challenge is not rage, but profound loneliness. Separation from your baby - even just to settle them to sleep - may unconsciously mirror earlier experiences of aloneness. This tender, exhausting work of mothering can bring painful awareness of the care and nurture you didn’t receive. It’s not uncommon for women to say, “I never knew how much I missed until I started caring for my own baby.”

Add in broken sleep, hormonal changes, feeding difficulties, and physical recovery, and these old emotional wounds can feel even more raw.

Why as grown women we seek out our own mother figures

Following the physical and emotional loss of our mother, it’s vital we access our own mother figures. For those who feel ambivalent towards their mum, perhaps because they were/ are absent or failed us in some way, accessing mother figures who bring those maternal qualities into our lives becomes really important.

This might be the kind mum of a close friend, a wise aunt, a warm mentor, or a fellow mum who ‘gets it’. Someone who gives us that sense of being seen, soothed, and supported as we move through the ongoing transitions of womanhood - whether we’re parenting, entering peri/menopause, or caring for aging parents. They give us space to be vulnerable and remind us that our needs are not too much.

Our brains are wired to respond to this kind of nurture. Which is why the therapist-client relationship can play such a powerful reparative role. In a supportive therapeutic relationship, we can begin to internalise the felt sense of being cared for and emotionally contained, perhaps for the first time.

In my 1:1 work and online course supporting mothers, I encourage mums to cultivate their own nurturing figures. This can be particularly helpful for those who have experienced attachment trauma. Their ‘kind nurturer’ might be a real person, like a mentor or close friend, perhaps a beloved pet, a form of nature, or an imagined figure like a character from a film or book. What’s key is that their nurturing figure evokes qualities such as kindness, wisdom, strength, and compassion.

By ‘installing’ a felt sense of these nurturing figures in our emotional landscape, we begin to strengthen neural pathways for self-compassion and care. Over time, we develop the ability to mother ourselves.

This inner nurturing doesn’t replace the mother we longed for, but it allows us to offer ourselves the compassion and understanding we may have missed. And in doing so, we create the possibility of parenting our own children from a place of greater wholeness and clarity.

With love,

Caroline x

Here are some ways I can support you:

1. Join my community and sign up for my self-paced anger course for mothers.

   🎧Take me with you on buggy walks and listen on the go, attend a Live Q&A with me midway through, and watch live examples of rage with my co-therapist to map out what happens in hot moments - with proven ways to create a pause.

   

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It’s worth adding that rising levels of teen depression and anxiety are a complex problem and can’t be summarised neatly here. The development of mental health difficulties is influenced by a complicated mix of environmental and genetic factors, including social inequalities such as trauma and adversity, sexual abuse, economic deprivation, and experiences of feeling othered (for example, related to race, class or sexuality).

I should also add that much of the research exploring the effects of digital use and adolescent mental health decline is not causal; most data are correlative. When associations are found in longitudinal studies [data collection over an extended period of time, rather than at a single time point], data indicates that social media use doesn’t predict or cause depression for girls or boys - rather that teens who already experience mental health difficulties use social media more often or in different ways from their non-depressed peers. So let’s pause not panic – join me in exploring the longer view for boys. Then let’s consider what might be helpful to equip our sons to survive – and thrive - in an ever-expanding digital world.

The slower decline of boys: structural factors impacting boys

In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt argues that the shift from free play, independent exploration, and face-to-face interaction to video gaming and social media has profoundly altered childhood development. Boys and girls have taken different paths through what Haidt calls the ‘great rewiring of childhood’ - but arrived at a similar place. One of increased despair, loneliness, and isolation. However, boys have been on a longer trajectory of disengagement – losing a sense of purpose in school, work and family life since the 1970s.

Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, highlights deep structural shifts making it harder for boys to succeed.

• An economy that no longer values physical strength largely thanks to deindustrialisation.

• An education system that favours sitting still and listening.

• The decline of positive male role models, including fathers - leaving many boys without strong mentors.

These challenges, Reeves argues, are not simply a result of individual psychological struggles but deep systemic changes – leading boys to disengage from school and work at higher rates.

Haidt says this isn’t the full story – he identifies psychological factors that have worsened the crisis.

• The rise of safetyism in the 1980s and 1990s disproportionately affected boys, discouraging rough-and-tumble and risky play, crucial for their development.

• With an economy that no longer rewards physical strength and increasingly protective parenting, boys had fewer opportunities for real work challenges. So they turned increasingly to the virtual realm to satisfy their need for agency building activities, such as adventure, competition, playing at war and mastering skills.

The Digital Escape: Gaming and Smartphones

The rise of multiplayer video games in the late 2000s and widespread smartphone use from the early 2010s further pulled boys away from face-to-face interactions. Haidt describes this as a “mass psychological change,” where many boys were “swallowed whole” by the digital world.

It’s worth acknowledging that gaming offers undeniable benefits—problem-solving skills, teamwork, and a sense of accomplishment. It also comes with risks. Approximately 7 per cent of boys become addicted to gaming, leading to declines in mental health, family conflict, and struggles in other aspects of life.

By the late 2000s, multiplayer video games became a dominant part of boys' lives, followed by widespread smartphone adoption in the 2010s. These technologies provided an alternative to real-world challenges, allowing boys to:

• Compete, explore, and engage in simulated battles.

• Experience a false sense of achievement through gaming rather than real-world accomplishments.

• Access unlimited hardcore pornography, satisfying powerful urges without building the social and relational skills needed for adulthood and real-world romantic relationships.

As boys retreated further into online spaces, their exposure to real-world challenges and risks diminished, leading to increased fragility, risk aversion, and social isolation.

The Mental Health Decline

While boys' mental health remained relatively stable through the 1990s and early 2000s, something changed in the 2010s. Once boys got smartphones, they—like girls—moved more of their social lives online. By 2015, a significant number reported having no close friends, feeling deeply lonely, and lacking direction. Rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among boys in the West began to rise, mirroring the declines seen in girls.

Boys who failed to transition into adulthood became increasingly at risk of becoming “NEET” (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), with some experiencing extreme social withdrawal, similar to Japan’s hikikomori phenomenon.

The Crisis in Fathering and the Search for Role Models

I heard Caitlin Moran, author of What About Men?, attribute the issues raised in Adolescence to a “crisis in parenting – particularly in fathering”. Moran cited the Lost Boys report by the Centre for Social Justice that highlights a troubling reality: young boys in the UK are now more likely to own a smartphone than to live with their father. This absence has created a void, allowing figures like Andrew Tate to rise in influence by offering simplistic, hyper-masculine messages to young, disaffected men searching for guidance and identity.

Moran told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Boys aren’t given a set of tools to analyse these heroes that come along. Girls have this in that when a new female hero comes along we really kick her tyres.”

Moran, who interviewed many men about sexual relationships for her book, asked if they talked to their friends about sex - to which they replied: “No, that would be weird”. She continued: “But if you’re not talking to your friends about sex, when you come to talk to your son about sex you don’t have the vocabulary. Which is why only 11 per cent of boys say they’ve gone to their Dads for advice about sex.”

The Path Forward: Real-World Engagement and Stronger Communities

The shift away from real-world communities, including families, has led to a phenomenon that sociologist Durkheim called ‘anomie’—a breakdown of societal norms and values. Boys, like girls, increasingly report that their lives feel meaningless. The disappearance of shared moral structures and stable communities has left them confused, disconnected and adrift.

Fifteen years ago, discussions about women and girls were bleak. Today, there is an explosion of female role models—Beyoncé, Lizzo, the Lionesses, Taylor Swift, Simone Biles. As Moran says: “We need a similar explosion of better male role models for boys. Boys are where girls were 15 years ago.”

I agree with Steve Chalke, founder of secure school Oasis Restore, who believes the solution lies in strengthening relationships and community support rather than focusing solely on technological regulation. Investing in family support, youth programs, and an engaging, relevant education system that better prepares boys for real-world challenges is critical.

What I found hopeful in Adolescence was when the black male Detective feels the pull to reconnect with his estranged son - making active efforts to spend time with him.

As Chalke states: "It’s not just about technology—it’s about relationships." If boys are to thrive, they need meaningful real-world interactions, mentorship, and a renewed sense of purpose.

I’m going to write more about raising feminist boys and what helps from a parenting perspective - don’t forget to subscribe to my Substack to receive my posts straight to your inbox. Any questions? Let me know below. Let’s keep these conversations going.

Caroline x

Welcome to my Substack: Dr Boyd, the Shadow Side of Parenting - from a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-two specialising in maternal rage and anxiety. If you enjoyed this post, you can let me know that my writing is valuable by pledging a future (free!) subscription. You won’t be charged unless payments are enabled.

Ways I can support you:

1. For practical, therapeutic support to help you raise children with less anger and more connection, sign up to my self-paced anger course.

   I hold space for mothers attending each month’s Live Q&A session with me.

2. If you’re interested in 1:1 therapy, click here.

3. My book is packed with practical, proven tips and psychology ideas to take the heat out of mothering.

   Mindful New Mum: A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs & Lows of Motherhood - order your copy at Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.

— bell hooks

This blindsiding drama doesn’t attempt to offer easy solutions; instead, it forces us to confront our deepest fears, to sit with difficult feelings, and to truly confront the dangers threatening to take our children under. Through raw, unflinching storytelling, Adolescence fosters deep empathy for all the characters—parents, children, teachers, police officers, victim and perpetrator alike.

I found episode three, the explosive, single-take scene featuring Jamie and a child psychologist, almost suffocating in its intensity. I held my breath as Jamie, seething with pent-up rage, faces down the female psychologist, his diminutive 13-year-old frame belying an aggressive fury.

This moment encapsulates the dangerous interplay of patriarchal masculinity, social media influence, misogyny, youth radicalisation online, and emotional repression. Where boys, who are taught from an early age to use anger as a way not to feel sad or scared, risk using violence as an outlet for their emotional pain and fear.

We know male rage and misogyny is on the rise, fuelled in part by misogynistic influencer, Andrew Tate. In the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days. Yet little boys aren’t born sexist or hateful. Toxic masculinity plays a huge part – with boys and men taught early on to disconnect from vulnerable emotions such as fear and sadness. Traditional male stereotypes of the 'strong, silent provider' discourage vulnerability: ‘real’ men don’t cry or seek help. The consequences can be fatal — male suicide rates in the UK are three times higher than those of women. Meanwhile, the widespread exposure of young boys to online pornography further distorts their understanding of relationships and consent. Studies show 53 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds in the UK have encountered explicit material online, with exposure increasing with age.

We know young boys learn how to be a man through experiencing their fathers, uncles, granddads. In Adolescence, we learn more about Jamie’s Dad in the final episode – how far Eddie embodies the stifling expectations of patriarchal masculinity.

**Spoiler alert - skip the next paragraph if you haven’t finished watching**

We witness Eddie’s quiet anguish as he reveals the generational trauma passed down to him from his own father, who beat him with a belt. We witness Eddie’s anger finally metabolising into tears of grief around losing his sensitive, artistic son. A little boy who loved drawing and ice cream and was ‘crap’ at football, and who felt pain at seeing his Dad’s shame watching him play. We witness Eddie’s wife, Manda, who cooks for her husband and does the ‘feelings’ work in the family, embodying the traditional role of the gentle, nurturing wife. We see her inviting them both to question themselves in their parenting of Jamie. Their horror that their sweet little boy could become capable of murder - of knifing to death his female classmate, Katie, in a violent fit of rage. I wept seeing Eddie’s regret in recognising he ‘could have done more’ for his son. The realisation that his son had been left to access the darkest depths of the internet alone and unattended in his bedroom. Eddie’s disbelief when he said: “But I thought he was safe in there in his room”.

The ordinariness of this family — and the realisation that a combination of dangerous influences along with bad luck – could make this about any one of us. This is what makes Adolescence so harrowing.

Adolescence is more than just a drama – it’s an urgent wake up call to tackle male rage, its central theme. So where to begin?

As a society, we all have a role to play. Requiring the collective efforts of policymakers, tech giants, parents, educators and healthcare professionals alike. Beyond the family, Adolescence exposes broader systemic failures - not least the government and big tech companies failing to take more active responsibility in protecting children from unfiltered, hypersexualized, and often violent content online.

As parents we must sit with our fears, using them as a catalyst for action in the absence of government and tech industry accountability.

As a psychologist I’m acutely aware of the damaging costs of patriarchal motherhood – and the need to support mothers in their legitimate anger and overwhelm. As a mother of an 11-year-old daughter, I want to teach her to recognise and voice her needs, to listen to her anger as an intelligent signal of injustice, insult and injury. Similarly, as mum to my 9-year-old son, I believe raising feminist boys is also an act of resistance. We can encourage our sons to share their vulnerability, to respect girls and women, and to cultivate deep, meaningful connections. I’m trying to raise my son to know that it’s ok to show fear, that crying isn’t a sign of weakness, and that his sensitivity brings many gifts (while acknowledging the challenges).

As parents this can look like validating big emotions like sadness and fear, without the crushing weight of toxic masculinity. Learning to tolerate our own discomfort in setting kind, firm limits around screen time and teaching safe use of the internet. We can model equality at home by sharing the emotional and domestic labour. Bringing a consciousness to this unpaid work by having difficult conversations with a partner/ co-parent. All easier said than done, granted. None of this stuff is straightforward.

Yet bringing awareness to the difficulties is a first step - I love how this drama calls us to rethink what we teach and expect of boys and men in this toxic, murky world. We must keep the focus on the women who suffer or are killed by male perpetrators AND support boys and men to navigate and challenge patriarchal masculinity. The benefits are profound: greater self-awareness and self-knowledge in boys and men, increased empathy (for themselves and others), more authenticity, and healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

This, of course, starts with us.

In order for us as parents to model emotional literacy skills authentically, we need to learn and practice these for ourselves.

If you watched Adolescence, and it made you think – this is good. Keep reflecting. Stay with those dark, painful feelings a little longer. Talk about how you feel with supportive others.

This healing work is work for us all.

Any questions or reflections? Please let me know below - I’d love to hear from you.

Caroline x

Welcome to my Substack: Dr Boyd, the Shadow Side of Parenting - from a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-two specialising in maternal rage and anxiety. If you enjoyed this post, you can let me know that my writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.

Checking in

I’m curious - let’s briefly pause here. What’s your initial reaction reading my summary above? I invite you to check in with yourself now - what emotions come up for you on reading about a mother calling her son the C-word? It feels quite shocking, doesn’t it? You may also feel a little disgust, perhaps horror, that a mother would a) use that word b) direct it towards her young son and c) call him that in public? I could hazard a guess that empathy and compassion towards Marnie are probably not the most dominant feelings arising for you right now.

I wonder - would it feel more palatable if Marnie had grabbed her son roughly instead? In England and Northern Ireland, smacking a child is still legal if it qualifies as “reasonable punishment” (if the smacking leaves bruises, cuts, marks or causes psychological harm, it can be considered child abuse). This current law arguably reflects just how poorly our society views children’s rights. Yet of course we all absorb these cultural messages communicated by legal practice to some degree. And it isn’t only these societal beliefs that are at play here. The damning response to Marnie captured in the 10s viral video sums up the crushing weight of cultural expectations on mothers. Expected as we are to be fountains of eternal grace and maternal patience - certainly not a raging, name-calling mum who loses her sh*t in public.

Bringing context

In a storyline that jumps between past and present, we learn the events that shaped Marnie’s journey to motherhood —her carefree days in London, the struggles of IVF, mothering in isolation, and the societal pressure to embrace every moment of parenting as a privilege. Morris masterfully inhabits a range of characters, from Marnie’s unsupportive husband to fellow parents, online critics, and figures from her past. Along with capturing the raw emotion of Marnie’s experience, Morris highlights some of the real turmoil modern mums face in this life-changing transition.

As a psychologist who supports women I’m acutely aware of how becoming a mother blasts us wide open. As we grapple with major brain, body, identity, relationship changes, we parent often with little or no extended family support. We’ve evolved to raise children in groups, yet in today’s Western, individualistic cultures, many mums shoulder the burden alone. On top of this we’re being crushed by pressure to parent perfectly thanks to the myth of Supermum, who has us believe from an early age we must be ‘Supermum, Superwife, Super career woman, Super-everything’. Added pressure to ‘have it all’ in reality largely translates to ‘doing it all’. Not to mention pressure to be ‘Super gentle mum’ who must get it ‘right’ while breaking past patterns of trauma. Herein lies the perfect storm of modern motherhood.

Anger and overwhelm

It’s no wonder 1 in 5 women will experience mood difficulties in the perinatal period. We know reduced social support contributes to ‘postpartum depression’, experienced by more than 1 in 10 women, and around 1 in 10 fathers. Research shows that maternal rage , the emotion driving the play’s pivotal moment captured in a social media post that goes viral, is experienced by as many as 1 in 3 women postpartum. Making postpartum anger even more prevalent than PPD – yet anger remains the hidden emotion in motherhood. As a therapist I’ve spoken with hundreds of mothers who feel deep shame for even feeling angry. And what I notice in my work supporting parents is that while there’s more awareness around maternal anger, women are still being socialised to squash it.

This of course links to ‘good’ girl narratives we learnt growing up, later reinforced by what I call the policing effect of Supermum – telling us we must remain calm, coping and in control at all times. This damaging fairytale convinces us that experiencing any ‘negative’ feelings means we’re bad or failing – which is why I find the lack of space for women to express maternal ambivalence such an important and relevant theme in this play. Emotions like anger are simply forbidden.

Bringing understanding

Yet difficult feelings like anger, grief and regret are NORMAL responses to the abnormal, highly pressured cultural context we parent in today. I know all too well the importance of mothers having safe spaces to process and voice their legitimate anger - something we know, in turn, makes parents less likely to act anger out towards their child. The importance of validating mothers.

Their fury at feeling unsupported and unseen by society, by a partner; anger linked to feeling powerless, to the injustice of inequality at home, & to having violated needs for self-care. Fury at ourselves for not being the endlessly patient mum we imagined we’d be, for not coping ‘better’. Anger linked to hormonal changes in perimenopause and menopause. Anger as a feature of trauma, including childhood trauma and adversity, and experiences of feeling othered (for example, linked to race, gender and sexuality). Anger linked to fertility trauma, baby loss, birth trauma.

Let’s keep in mind anger is an intelligent emotion with an important function – it’s telling us to make a change. With support, we can learn how to use the real value of anger without experiencing so many of the costs.

Anger can also be a sign we need some extra support – which could mean voicing our needs to our partner, speaking to our GP, or accessing Pandas’ excellent support services.

Thank you again Anna Morris for shining a light on these taboo topics and emotions – bringing more understanding and compassion for mothers everywhere.

So let’s check in before I sign off. How are you feeling towards Marnie now? Knowing more about the many difficult contexts she faced leading up to that moment of fury on the plane, what emotions do you notice? A little more empathy?

I do hope so. Goodness knows mothers need more of it.

Welcome to my Substack: Dr Boyd, the Shadow Side of Parenting - from a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-two specialising in maternal rage and anxiety. If you enjoyed this post, you can let me know that my writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.

I am proud Ambassador to PANDAS-UK, the perinatal mental health charity supporting Son of a Bitch. Visit www.pandasfoundation.org.uk

Here are some ways you can work with me:

1. For practical, therapeutic support to help you raise children with less anger and more connection, sign up to my self-paced anger course.

   I’m overjoyed to be holding space for mothers attending each month’s Live Q&A session (I offer two a month at different times to suit different time zones).

2. If you’re interested in 1:1 therapy, click here.

3. And for more on coping with difficult emotions, my book is packed with practical, proven tips and psychology ideas to take the heat out of mothering.

   Mindful New Mum: A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs & Lows of Motherhood - order your copy at Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.

These high stress moments can erupt in response to different triggers. For example over-stimulation, being told No, having an activity interrupted, or a request to do something that stirs anxiety.

A child struggling with executive functioning, such as emotional regulation difficulties, may hit, bite, scratch or punch you with all their strength. They may become verbally aggressive shouting: “I hate you!”

Remember, during their early years children experience major brain changes. This neuroplasticity involves strengthening important connections. The pre-frontal cortex (their ‘thinking’ brain) continues to grow, with more big changes occurring during adolescence.

It’s no wonder we see big emotional meltdowns! We can think of these tricky behaviours as our child’s way of communicating big, scary feelings asking for protection and safety.

And what about US in hot moments?

Our child lashing out likely triggers BIG feelings, activating our internal alarm system.

We become hijacked by our ‘emotional’ brain (brain stem & amygdala), and our ‘thinking’ brain (prefrontal cortex) goes offline. When we flip our lid, we can no longer think straight and or even access moral reasoning.

If the ‘fight’ part of fight/ flight/ freeze is activated, your impulse might be to retaliate and verbally attack your child. Or become punitive (‘You behave – or else”).

If ‘flight’ is activated, you may suppress your feelings and withdraw – going silent and storming off.

If ‘freeze’ gets triggered, you may shut down, feeling numb or frozen. Or in the event of ‘appease’, perhaps placating your child and bowing to their demands.

You may flip-flop between these stress reactions – initially feeling all fired up and then dipping into feeling low and ashamed. In this shame spiral, our inner critic berates us for even feeling anger because we’ve learnt ‘good’ mothers shouldn’t feel angry.

Past experiences of trauma can add a further layer of intensity.

Hot moments with your child may activate old fears like ”I’m bad”, “broken” or “I’m failing”. In flipped lid mode, thoughts become more rigid – making you more likely to believe the inner critic telling you you’re the aggressor.

Your brain is screaming at your body ‘You’re in danger!’ This means you can’t see the bigger picture, access compassion or remember those gentle parenting scripts.

So what’s the most important thing?

Prioritise keeping you and your child safe.

- If they redirect physical energy to themselves (eg banging head on floor) place cushions around to prevent injury

- Separate siblings as needed

- Seek/ hold space – for you and for your child

- Self-regulate - splash your face with cold water to activate your soothing system

- Remind yourself gently: “This is hard and my reaction is understandable. I can love my child fiercely and feel anger towards them. I am a good, loving mum.”

When your thinking brain starts coming back online, you can co-regulate or use your voice/ gentle touch to be alongside them in their upset.

Repair with your child.

Strike when the iron is cold. Wait until the emotional temperature has cooled and reconnect and repair in a way that’s appropriate for the situation and their developmental stage.

These explosive emotional moments are challenging for all of us as parents. Perhaps especially intense if we identify as neurodivergent or highly sensitive ourselves.

Welcome to Dr Boyd, the Shadow Side of Parenting - from a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-two specialising in maternal rage and anxiety. If you enjoyed this post, you can tell Dr Boyd that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.

I understand your child commenting on their own or a friend’s body as ‘fat’ may well trigger a big emotional response in you - the ‘f’ word can feel really loaded thanks to messages we learnt about our own bodies growing up - and we can feel panicked. What if we say the ‘wrong’ thing? This fear can lead us to shutting the conversation down. I’ve had similar worries as a mum. But actually, it can be really useful for opening up a dialogue between you both. Perhaps allowing your child to share difficult thoughts and feelings such as self-doubt, shame and dissatisfaction about their body with you - their safe space.

Talking with my daughter, 10, and son, 8, I try to stay curious about what they say - emphasising that we all come in different shapes and sizes, celebrating our uniqueness. That all bodies are good bodies, regardless of size or ability.

To counter endless promotion of idealised body images online, we can also equip our kids with knowledge about how enhanced and airbrushed these fake pictures are. How far they differ from real bodies! And how fickle these cultural trends are. A trip to an art gallery with my daughter turned into an unexpected opportunity to chat with her about girls’ and women’s bodies. We were visiting London’s National Portrait Gallery (not my fave, or hers as it turned out, though she loved the later post-impressionist stuff, especially Van Gogh).

Anyway – while we were looking at the Renaissance paintings, she noticed something important: how female body ideals change over time. With the super-skinny ideal still reigning supreme, this felt an empowering conversation - a refreshing challenge to the dominant narrative. These Italian paintings of curvy, full-figured women were visual proof that the thin body ideal hasn’t always been in vogue – falling in and out of fashion over the last few centuries. “Society shouldn’t tell us what we ‘should’ look like!” my daughter told me defiantly. “We should be able to just look in the mirror and love what we see”.

As parents, we can model acceptance of our own body by celebrating its uniqueness - not shying away from walking around naked at home, judging it negatively, or criticising the way others look. We can set firm boundaries with family members, closing down diet talk. We can teach our kids about the dangers of diets and refrain from demonising certain foods – food is more complex than these simple binaries of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods suggest. We can support them to listen to their body, their hunger cues, and to eat mindfully and to pause when they think they’re getting full. In all of this, I feel guided by my own personal values like body awareness and attunement, individuality, non-judgment, respect and compassion.

None of this stuff is straightforward – but it’s worth thinking about which values guide you in navigating these issues. How do you support your kids to love and accept their body?

Caroline x

Ref: Common Sense Media (2015). Children, Teens, Media, and Body Image, A Common Sense Media Research Brief

Dr Caroline Boyd is a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-two. To sign up to my new self-paced maternal anger course, sign up here.

I believe recognising this distinction is important in understanding just WHY mothers are anxious, angry and burning out. So how do these terms differ?

The word ‘motherHOOD’ refers to the patriarchal institution of motherhood - male defined and controlled, and deeply oppressive to women. Whereas ‘motherING’ is female defined - referring to women’s experiences of mothering that can be empowering.

I find this distinction so liberating. Why? Because it frees us from the patriarchal rules, regulations and expectations that dictate who is a ‘good’ mother. It releases us from the heavy judgment and self-blame that serves to oppress us and grind us down when we’re deemed (by ourselves or others) to deviate from this ideal fantasy mother.

I know I hate many aspects of motherHOOD - and all the power inequalities that come with it (hello, hanging out the endless laundry and mental load..). Yet in motherING I find freedom to break the rules and forgiveness when I feel I’ve messed up. In stepping away from pressure to parent perfectly and heavy judgment, I feel more relaxed to enjoy and feel rewarded by stuff I do with my kids. MotherING is about connecting with our values - what’s truly important to us - and our authenticity.

As Andrea O’Reilly, author of Matricentric feminism (on which more to come), writes: “It has long been recognised among scholars of motherhood that Rich’s distinction between mothering and motherhood was what enabled feminists to recognise that motherhood is not naturally, necessarily, or inevitably oppressive. Rather, mother-ing, freed from mother-hood, could be experienced as a site of empowerment and a location of social change if, to use Rich’s words, women became “outlaws from the institution of motherhood.”

Before we consider what empowered mothering can look like - and how to step into our power as ‘mother outlaws’ - let’s first reflect on the real costs of patriarchal motherhood for mums. I’ll start by naming three:

1. According to Supermum (the ideal ‘good’ mother), we must be forever calm and patient, loving every minute and ultimately fulfilled in our role.

This fairytale creates the idea there’s only one way to feel – joyful and loving - so when we (inevitably) experience emotions like anger, anxiety or boredom, we drown in guilt and shame.

So what happens?  We suppress our true feelings. We struggle on alone - intensifying anger, self-blame, anxiety and burn out.

2. Under patriarchal motherhood, all mothers are believed to be ”naturally” maternal – as if we ”instinctively” know how to mother.

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   This idea charges mothers with responsibility to take on all unpaid care work.  Including not only the bulk of childcare but also the mental load and domestic work.

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   The costs? Our physical and mental health suffers.

   For those with a partner, internalised gendered norms create tension and power struggles - preventing a sense of the ‘We’ and parenting as a team.

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3. Under patriarchal motherhood, the ideal ‘good’ mother puts her children’s lives before her own.  She’s selfless and all-giving - pouring significant time, energy and resources into her children.

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   This belief that being a mother forms the basis of our identity denies us our selfhood. 

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   The costs?  Connecting with other important identities becomes fraught with guilt.  Those who do paid work (out of choice or necessity) can feel judged – by themselves or others.  Marginalised identities (say related to race, class, sexuality or disability) aren’t honoured - stifling the rich, multi-layered voices of mothers.

The prison of patriarchal motherhood traps us with its impossible expectations, rules and regulations.  It individualises our experiences as mothers - setting us in competition with each other.

So what if we, ourselves, could decide how we mother?

According to our values, beliefs, visions and aspirations – in which our caregiving work is respected and validated?

Mothering in line with our authentic self and multiple intersecting identities?

Mothering in response to the unique child in front of us?

What then could empowered mothering look like?

And most importantly, how do we get there?

I’ll leave you with these reflective questions for now. I’d love to hear what you think of these ideas - let me know in the comments below.

Pic credit: Alex Virr and Loulou Androlia

A note on help seeking. If you’re struggling with big emotions like anxiety or anger, please take a look at this blog post here. And a reminder that I’m running my anger evening workshop next Thursday May 23rd - come and join us for specialist support. A safe space to voice and process your anger with proven, therapeutic ways to release anger without doing harm.

In talking about today’s parenting philosophies like Gentle Parenting, we need to zoom out a bit – looking at where GP came from. So, in short!

GP emerged in the 1930s as a reaction to behaviourism and more authoritarian parenting, which many of us experienced as kids. The norm was disciplining children through punishment, where adults held the power. Children were to be seen & not heard.

However, key child development research (as from psychologist Jean Piaget) saw the tides turn. Child-centric ideas took hold, with John Bowlby’s work on attachment theory post WWII shining a light on negative consequences of suboptimal mothering for the child. Bowlby’s work (too vast to be captured neatly here!) emphasised a ‘healthy’ way to parent through providing a secure base.

Critics of Bowlby said this charged mothers with a moral responsibility, with the onus of providing this attachment falling heavily on the mum, regardless of circumstances and abilities. But Bowlby also stressed that looking after a baby is “no job for a single person” - caregivers need significant support. Very sadly for mothers, these latter points were discarded by the Attachment Parenting movement, developed by US paediatrician Bill Sears in the 1980s.

What Attachment Parenting took from Bowlby’s work is that child-rearing ‘correctly’ means maintaining near constant proximity to the baby, 24/7. Well-intentioned, sure, yet placing hugely unrealistic expectations on parents - or in reality, the mother. AP exemplifies the dangers of misinterpreting and misapplying ideas of ‘attachment’ – ideas that really shape our ideas of the ‘good’ mother.

Is it any wonder that the wide-ranging influence of AP made even the most relaxed mum worry that if she doesn’t respond immediately & adequately to her child she may cause them irrevocable damage? The AP trend formed the roots of today’s ‘intensive mothering’ ideology, from which Gentle Parenting has risen, amassing popularity through social media and ‘mum-influencers’.

Reinforced by older myths of ‘Supermum’, this ideology assumes mothering comes ‘naturally’ to all women. That we must be perfectly calm, patient and loving every minute. That the mother is the primary caregiver. That caregiving is all consuming: we must be skilled emotional managers for our children.

Clearly, these are impossible expectations – leading to poor maternal mental health, exhaustion and burn out. Of course, the additional pressure on mums today to be ‘Supermum, Superwife, Super career woman, Super-everything’ – all while extended family and structural support has fallen away – means that all parents are suffering. Yet I’d suggest rates of anxiety and burn out are heightened for those identifying as Gentle Parents, such is the anxiety around striving to mother under these crushing idealised expectations.

And lest we forget our mothering is also shaped by our own childhood and experiences of trauma and adversity, with many of us growing up experiencing authoritarian parenting styles.  Arguably we’ve now swung too far the other way where those who felt powerless growing up, now feel increasingly anxious & unsure about asserting their power as parents through setting limits. Again, this shows how misinterpretations of Gentle Parenting, a philosophy that lacks empirical evidence and a clear definition, sees it morphing into permissive parenting.

Granted, the intentions of GP from the likes of Janet Lansbury/ Magda Gerba did include compassionate limit setting but the rise of social media, abundance of conflicting advice online, along with increased awareness about child development, has further fuelled fears for Gentle Parents. How many Gentle Parents are aspiring not only to be gentle – which of course is important for our child – but also perfect (which is not)?

Pic credit: Unsplash