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Take your anger somewhere safe
Primal anger
Watching a child ask through tears whether something is wrong with her stirs a primal, mama-bear anger, and an urge to call the parents of the kids doing the hurting. Those phone calls usually do not go well.
Getting it out
Strong emotions show up in the body, so physical release helps: pounding a bag or lifting heavy weights. The feelings also need to be purged from the system, like an exorcism, by saying them out loud to a trusted confidant, a therapist, a partner, or the parent's own parent.
Choosing who hears it
Other parents are the wrong audience, even ones whose kids are not involved, since it turns into gossip about children's drama. Much of a weekly walk with a friend is venting that goes nowhere, and it works because once it is said, it is gone. It resembles taking out the garbage: send it to a sibling in another state or a friend who won't spread it around, somewhere it can be disposed of.
Why does a hurt child stir such fury?
Mammal mothers show a documented form of maternal aggression. In rats, lactating females attack intruders near their pups far more readily than other females do. Rodent studies have linked it to hormones such as oxytocin and to circuits in the amygdala and hypothalamus.
Why is gossip so common?
Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar argues that language evolved partly to keep track of relationships in large groups. Dunbar and colleagues reported in 1997 that about two thirds of conversation time in the settings they observed went to social topics, such as who was doing what with whom. The share was similar in talk among men and women.
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