Mom needs a moment! How to pause parental rage

Parenthood is exhausting. When a kid asks for snack for the millionth time while you're running on little sleep and trying to make dinner, it's easy to snap. Licensed marriage and family therapist Cassidy Freitas says the key is to find refuge in what she calls "the margins." In this episode, Freitas shares tools from her book Mom Needs A Moment: How to Stop Your Reaction Before It Starts and Become a Calmer, Happier, More Connected Parent. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit/?hl=en Sign up for our newsletter here. https://www.npr.org/newsletter/life-kit Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening and convenient playlists of popular help topics like personal finance, getting healthy, and more. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:24Marielle Segarra?

  I saw this meme the other day. It was basically a video, a song that a guy wrote about how he thought he knew what tired was and then he had kids. Does that resonate?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. In fact, I am so tired, I don't have a good response to that. We had another really hard night last night. Ted woke up, he was screaming, "I love you, Mom." Like, he just wanted cuddles, but he wanted them at 1:00 in the morning, and 2:00 in the morning, and 3:00 in the morning. Like, it's a lot. Being a parent is just a lot, always, all the time. It just attacks all of your senses and all of your resources.

• 1:07Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah. I mean, I hear this from every parent I know. You're not alone.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Very true. You know, the Surgeon General actually declared parental stress an epidemic in 2024.

• 1:18Marielle Segarra?

  Makes sense.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Parents are spending more time working and more time taking care of their kids than they used to in decades past, which means there's very little time left for ourselves to, you know, to recover when you have those long nights with very, very little sleep. I want to introduce you to Cassidy Freitas. She's a psychologist I talk to.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  In moments when I feel triggered and dysregulated by my child's meltdown, by the millionth snack request, what I'm desperate for, actually, is just, just, wait, just give me some space, just give me a moment.

• 1:55Marielle Segarra?

  You're listening to Life Kit. I'm Mary El Segarra, and I'm talking with Life Kit reporter Andy Tagle. She interviewed Cassidy about her new book, Mom Needs a Moment: How to Stop Your Reaction Before It Starts and Become a Calmer, Happier, More Connected Parent, which sounds very much needed. I have to ask you, though, is this advice just for moms? Like, I know a lot of dads who are overwhelmed, too.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, good question. Definitely not. To be clear, Cassidy and I talked a lot about our own experiences as moms, you know, dealing with things like anger, or, I'll be honest, you know, straight-up maternal rage, and overwhelm, and anxiety in those day-to-day parenting moments. But she says every parent, every caregiver, even parents-to-be, can benefit from taking a moment, or finding magic in the margins, as she likes to say.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  If I am a rested mom that's resourced and regulated and has more capacity, and knowing that that's just as important for my kids, I'm going to protect that.

• 2:57Marielle Segarra?

  Well, on this episode of Life Kit, Andy talks to Cassidy about how to deal with those moments of overwhelm as a parent, how to give yourself permission to rest, recover, and feel what you feel, and also how to model the same for your kids.

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• 4:08Speaker 06

  Hi there, I'm Brittany Luce. And not to brag, but I host a really fabulous podcast. It's called It's Been a Minute. I love making it, and I think you'll love listening to it. Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of listeners have been tuning in, and I gotta say, if you haven't yet, you're missing out. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast from NPR today.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  So you're feeling worked up, got a short fuse at work, feeling triggered at home by those dirty dishes in the sink, or by your kid just doing that one thing she does. Cassidy has a great exercise for you. Pretend you have a magical calendar. It doesn't just track appointments or events. It accounts for everything that occupies your time.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Not just the appointments and activities, but the mental tallying of, what does my child need for camp today? Like, who is picking up who? And if I was to ask you, where in any of that is there actually just a margin of empty space where your brain gets to do what it's desperate for, which is integrate all of the experiences and things that have come at you? And a lot of parents will say, uh, yeah, not a lot, not a lot of margin there, especially in our modern-day lives, where we are trying to fill up everything and optimize everything.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  When I was doing this exercise in my head, I realized that, like, when there is a margin, like, when there is a little bit of space, my brain will give me, like, three minutes, max, before I'm like, what are you doing? Why are you just sitting there? You don't just sit there, we have things to do.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  I think that this is something that so many moms, parents can relate to. And I don't think that that voice just started in adulthood. I think that these voices that pop up, at some point, there was a reason that that part of you felt like it needed to optimize or define productivity in this way. And this voice is strong. It takes the wheel, and it makes decisions, and it pushes us to be reactive in certain ways. And it's robbing us of our presence, of our rest, of our capacity.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  And so maybe we can get to know this part of us a little bit more. Then when that voice pops up, saying, hey, this isn't productive, you might be able to respond to that part of yourself with a, ugh. It makes so much sense that that would pop up right now. And, actually, this is productive, because my brain needs space to process, needs space to recalibrate, to resource, to regulate. My nervous system needs not everything to be so urgent all the time. And when my kid is melting down, because that's what kids do, I might be able to show up in a more aligned way, and I also had the space to figure out, ugh, how do I want to respond here? Because you know what's so funny with that magical calendar?

• 7:09Speaker 03

  There is one space where our phones don't oftentimes enter, and we don't have a lot of input coming in from the world around us, and it's the shower, right? And I don't think a shower is enough, like, come on. How many times have you been in the shower, and all of a sudden, you have an idea? Like, the most creative ideas pop up when we're in the shower.

• 7:29Marielle Segarra?

  Shower thoughts.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Exactly. And there is a reason. It's a protected margin of space. My brain gets a chance to just be and wander. But if you go and you're standing in line to get your coffee, and you're, what's the first thing we're doing? We're pulling out our phones, we're checking our emails, we're scrolling. And it is so, it feels awkward, actually, to just be.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  So, takeaway one: build in margins before stressful moments by letting your brain rest on purpose. There are probably a lot of good reasons why you feel like you have to go, go, go all the time. But Cassidy says, parents are so overworked, over-scheduled these days, you need to preserve small margins of time to rest in order to be able to integrate new information and break negative cycles.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  And by margins, I mean, gosh, margins in your calendar, yes, for rest, but also, like, building the muscle between your trigger and your response, just a margin of space there to, oof, to pause, to recalibrate, to access how we want to respond, right? To, that's an important thing as well. Margins for mistakes, margins for ourselves, margins for our partner relationships. There's a lot of different ways in which we want to be protecting margins.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Can we talk a little bit about what it looks like to have space in the moment? The times when I most need space are the times when it is least available to me. You know, solo parenting, maybe, you know, it's probably the morning. We're probably on a time crunch. I'm probably exhausted. If I just had a little more time, a little more caffeine, just, you know what I mean? And it's just not there. Help, what, what, help me, please.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh. In those moments, I love to take a beat. And my kids know that when I take a beat and I take a breath, I'm putting my hand actually like right on my chest because that's always where that like urgency, that tightness, that like dysregulation rage kind of lives in me is like right here in my chest. And I have my hand on my chest. My kids know now that's a cue to them that, oh, okay, mom caught herself. I will, I will take a breath and I will do an extended exhale. And I do a little shushing on the exhale because there's a science around what humming or shushing on an exhale does. I'll model it for a second. So a little

• 9:59Speaker 03

  my shoulders immediately drop and I feel that almost like this feeling of like warm, lovely oil, just like rolling down my body. And it's just like, feels like this like warmth that like brings my shoulders down. And here's the thing, I might still feel like, oof, there's still some tension there after the moment. I have to take the space. I need the margin of space without more input coming in to, to reflect on this. Okay. This morning I was a raging mom. There's data in that. Anger at its core is there to be like, hey, something in this feels like it's a violation of our, our boundaries, our rights.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Also, anger can show up as a protector emotion when underneath we might feel overwhelmed, unheard. And so oftentimes in these emotions that are providing us data, we can reflect on what am I needing here? And how do we reclaim presence and experiences of joy and awe and wonder? And something really magical that happens in our bodies, in our relationships and in our day to day lives, where we can actually be in the moment.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  I feel really lucky to be a parent in an era of parenting in which I feel like it's okay to be both a parent and a person, you know? And it's okay to want to have a life outside of my kid. I feel really, really grateful for that. And also that mom guilt is just so loud. It's so loud.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  It really is.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  I saw this really great video that I just have to share with you. And it was about mom math, like mental mom math that we make up for ourselves. So this, this content creator who I love, who was talking to a friend saying, I'm sorry, I can't meet you for happy hour. I've already used my allotted me time this week because I worked late one night. So I didn't put my daughter to bed, you know, just all these arbitrary rules that we set for ourselves, these metrics that don't actually exist. Can you relate?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely can I relate, as I'm sure anyone who's listening. Guilt is an emotion that we are wired for. It is not bad. There are no bad parts of us that could feel bad in our body, right? Like the physical sensations it can bring, the way in which it delivers the message. But again, emotions are data messengers. Guilt's job is to come in and say, oh, we did something here that's not in alignment with our values, right? And to this example that you provided, oh, we value being present and connected to our children. And so we have come up with some sort of rulebook for some arbitrary number of like

• 12:46Speaker 03

  what we are allotted or allowed. And what I would say is, one, thanks guilt for reminding me that I value those things. And I'm going to get back in the driver's seat though. And I'm going to make a decision rooted in my values instead of having guilt drive my decision. And is it possible that this decision to go out with my girlfriend for happy hour is actually aligned with my values and something that I, one, would want to model to my kids that they can do one day when they're parents? Two, am I going to be a better mom, more present, connected if I provide these opportunities for myself and protect them, right, as well? And a great way of thinking about it is if a friend of yours that you really love came

• 13:29Speaker 03

  to you and shared whatever the thing they're feeling guilty about is, right? How would you respond to them? And why is that so hard to do for myself?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  You know?

• 13:41Speaker 03

  I love doing that to my friends. I love, I love using that example for my friends. It's so much harder to do to myself. Yeah. It really is. And you know, we're talking here about, you know, going out to dinner, a happy hour. And let's be so real that like, when I talk about margins, I'm literally talking about margins. Like, I love a good like staycation, like hotel stay to yourself, if you can make that happen, or, you know, a girl's night, or whatever the case might be. But also margins can look like in my calendar, I will protect 15 or 30 minutes where I'm not allowing anything else to show up there. So I'm not going to schedule a client. I'm not going to schedule a meeting or a call. Maybe it's the 30 minutes before my kids come home or before I need to go pick them

• 14:26Speaker 03

  up. Maybe it's I'm driving home and I pull over and for 15 minutes, I just let myself sit in the car or like roll down the window. Or for my lunch break, instead of going on emails or scrolling, I'm going to go outside. And like, what do the kids say these days? Touch grass. Like actually like go, like look at the trees, listen to what you're hearing around you. Give your brain a break.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Absolutely. That sounds yummy, lovely, necessary, needed.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Let's schedule it. I want you to schedule it. Okay. After this, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna get on your calendar and we're gonna schedule some margins for you.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  I have calendar appointments for literally everything else.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Seriously, like reminders, right? Like have my son changes in his lines. Great, great. I'm also going to schedule in mom's, mom's moment.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Takeaway two, emotions are data. In high stress moments, especially with kids, try to remember it's okay to take a pause, even if it's just a single breath before acting on that feeling. Future you will probably thank you. After the break, we'll talk about making margins for mistakes.

• 15:40Speaker 04

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• 16:35Speaker 02

  Let's talk about after the fact, when you, you know, when you tried your best and you, and you lost it, you know? I was patient, I was patient, I was patient, I was patient the first 19 times, that 20th time.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Hey, that was, that was me this morning, trying to get my son to get, to wake up and get dressed. You know, I think it was like the sixth time that I went in and I was like, dude, you're still, right? And I snapped. And this will happen because we are not perfect human beings. And I really, truly believe that our children do not need us to be perfect.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  I had that question for you, you know, like, are we allowed to be angry at our kids?

• 17:11Speaker 03

  Yes, of course, because you're human and anger is a real human emotion. Our kids, we need to show them what it is to be imperfect, that they're going to have big feelings too, they're going to lose it too. And how to come back and repair. Repair is the most powerful tool in our parenting belt. And we need margins to not just figure out that we're going to come back and say sorry, but figure out, gosh, where did that, why am I triggered? What is it, where is this coming from? And what's so cool is that the more that I've done that and I figure out where some of this comes from, I share stories with my kids, especially like as they've gotten older, I have some of the things that like are my stuff that I'm working through and giving them stories about it.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Kids love that. They want to see you as a human being. They want to know you. And so the more that we can share those moments when we lose it or we come back, they have that context too, you know? Like, oh, this is something that mom's talked to me about before and she's human and so am I, it turns out, you know? And we get to model that for them too.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Because kids need margins too, you say?

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, they do.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  My son is three and he, I don't remember teaching him this, but he'll ask us for space. I need some space, please.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. But you know what? You know what, girl? You probably modeled it.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  He heard that somewhere. And with all of this information we have that we're also feeling overwhelmed by, we're understanding more about the emotional landscape of a child and how to support a child in emotional literacy, emotional intelligence. I love this for us, for our species.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Me too. He'll take his little breath. He'll take his little breath. I'm feeling frustrated.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  I need some space right now.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  He has a name for the feeling. That's huge.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Takeaway three, you and your kid aren't always going to get it right. That's okay. Make space to make up. Repair is the most important tool in your toolbox. As Cassidy says, context is a bridge to compassion. So don't be afraid to let your kids know what's really going on under the hood. What was scaring you? What was stressing you out earlier that led to that unnecessary reaction over spilled broccoli? Or the toys left on the floor? And finally, takeaway four, create space for community. Everyone needs one.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  We were never meant to do this alone. And if you're partnered or you have other adults in your life that are supporting you in raising your children, there's a lot of, of information now out there around this idea of the invisible mental load that oftentimes falls disproportionately on moms. You know, knowing what's coming up on the schedule, the calendar, the appointments, knowing like all the paperwork, knowing who their friends are and building relationships with those parents, planning the playdates. It's the anticipating, the planning, the preparing, right? The noticing, all of that.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  And how do we integrate other support people and dads into the fold of this? And what I had to unpack first was a lot of times, both for myself and for my clients, there's also this sort of difficulty in like letting someone in and letting some tasks go, the fear that the ball's going to be dropped, you know, and that it's just going to fall back on us. And how do we bring in somebody to not just come in and, and help a little, but really take this load and carry it from beginning to end without you needing to come in and like rescue or continue to monitor?

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Cassidy, I feel like margins can be a hard sell, you know? I love this idea, but how can we have those conversations with, say, the grandparent who is foreign to getting that kind of time? Or the aunt who's like, you know, I just used to grit my teeth through it and I was raising my kids, that kind of thing.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, not every person in our life is going to show up in the way that we're really wanting them to. I will say that if it's a relationship that feels emotionally safe, the best opener to really having someone hear what you're needing is through vulnerability. So if this is a person that you feel like, okay, it feels like, ugh, uncomfortable, but emotionally safe enough for me to say, hey, I'm feeling really overwhelmed. My mind is spinning. I'm having a hard time sleeping. I'm snapping at the kids. I'm feeling like just a dysregulated mom a lot. I'm struggling. If, if you open up with that vulnerability, because the person feels safe to do that

• 21:57Speaker 03

  with, followed with, and what I'm discovering that I'm really needing is I'm needing more margins in my life. I'm needing some support in these maybe specific ways, right? Anyone listening who's a support person, like a grandparent or the aunt or the friend, oh my gosh, wouldn't it feel so good for someone to come to you with these needs? Like, I would be honored. And if they're not honored, maybe they're not your person. And maybe there's someone waiting in the wings, you know, like to come in and support you.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Cassidy, thank you.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me and protecting this space for us to have this conversation. This has been so great.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  All right, let's recap. Takeaway one, let your brain rest on purpose. Build in margins that allow you to take breaks from everything, like actually everything. Your work, your phone, your kids, your stress. Just let yourself be and let your nervous system reset. You need it. You deserve it. Takeaway two, emotions are data. You don't have to act on the information they give you in high stress moments. Take a breath, leave the room if you can, and let that thinking brain come back online. Takeaway three, you're going to get angry now and then. You don't have to pretend like you don't, just fix it afterwards. Repair is the most important tool in your toolbox. Takeaway four, parenting is a team sport.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Find people that will support your margins.

• 23:23Marielle Segarra?

  That was Life Kit reporter Andy Tagle talking with Cassidy Freitas. If you love Life Kit and you want even more, follow us on Instagram at NPR Life Kit. There you'll find video snippets from our interviews and comics featuring our favorite advice. You can find those by following at NPR Life Kit. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Our digital editor is Malika Gharib and our visuals editor is CJ Riechelmann. Megan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Lauren Gonzalez is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Claire Marie Schneider, Margaret Serino and Kayla Lattimore. Engineering support comes from Quacey Lee. Fact checking by Tyler Jones. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.

• 24:11Speaker 07

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