THE MOTHER TRAP

Everyone's talking about "mom rage," but what is it?

- MERVE EMRE

On September 13, 2019, Minna Dubin, a mother in Berkeley, California, published a brief, confessional essay in the Times’ parenting section titled “The Rage Mothers Don’t Talk About.” Under the subtitle—“Mothers are supposed to be patient martyrs, so our rage festers beneath our shame”— there was a photograph, taken from behind, of a woman and a boy of two or three. They sat side by side on a shaded stoop, their arms linked, and seemed to be examining something in a shrub beside them. The boy was shirtless and had a small brown mark in the middle of his back. The top of his head was level with the woman’s shoulder. Like many boys of his age, the bottom of his hair had grown longer and thicker than the rest of it, curling into a soft, wide triangle that sloped down his neck. At the moment the photograph was taken, he seemed to be readying himself to pull away—although it was impossible to know for sure.