My mother likes to dance at Zumba class—

Sparks of sex disguised under sweat safely emanating amongst her lady peers

My mother likes to balance in dainty heels and wear pretty clips in her hair—

They claw at her head like an animal.

My mother likes to nurture plants and conjure home made meals —

And in the same breath, draws death with her scream her wooden spoon in hand.

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We dive into her hauntingly intimate sound piece “Unravel” — a sonic diary of giving birth and finding identity again through laughter, chaos, and creation. Together we unpack the mother wound, reclaim domesticity as an act of rebellion, and imagine a world where empathy and caretaking are sources of power — not weakness.

It’s raw, funny, stormy, and full of heart — a conversation about turning pain into art, fear into curiosity, and motherhood into movement.

🎧 Listen now and join us in the storm.

So ahead of our second show, I wanted to give a big gushy grateful post full of pics from the show. Enjoy!!

All photos by the talented Jeff Kell

I can’t wait to share more magic with you on Nov. 15th, at Natasha Tsozik Fine Art Studio, where we explore caring for our village. ✨

Full photo gallery

She tried to approach the topic gently, but even the mic clipped to her shirt caught a jarring sound that seemed to echo the weight of her words. These drills, she explained—even when disguised as “a lion who has escaped from the zoo”—can be traumatic for young children and ultimately counterproductive.

And while the chances are extremely low that Onyx will ever face such an atrocity, it was a blunt reminder that children across America live with this reality every day. His teacher called it “a need to face a certain culture.” That culture is one of profound unwellness—an epidemic that leaves our most innocent at risk.

It is not enough to measure only my son’s risk. If one of us is hurting, we are all hurting. To look away is to sever ourselves from one another. But then the question rises: how do we carry pain that feels both unbearably close and impossibly far? How do we resist the numbness, when the stories of children and families—in our neighborhoods, in Gaza, in Ukraine, across the globe—are buried in the margins of our news feeds?

The only answer I have found is to return, again and again, to care for the village I can touch. For me this has meant moving closer to my son’s school and his friends. It has meant choosing local businesses instead of Amazon. Hardest of all, it has meant learning to ask for help. For years that vulnerability felt unbearable. But I’ve come to see that when I refuse to ask for support, I also block others from asking me.

This is the village: a web of care, stretched between what is near and what is far. To weave it requires tenderness, honesty, and the courage to voice our needs. If we can practice that here—in our homes, schools, and neighborhoods—perhaps the ripples reach outward, toward those suffering elsewhere too.

That is the spirit behind Pissed Off Moms’ upcoming show, Our Village, Near & Far. The exhibition gathers artists who are asking these same questions: how do we nurture our immediate circles while remaining connected to communities across the world? How do we hold grief without being consumed by it, and instead turn toward hope? It is an invitation to imagine what becomes possible when we refuse to sever ourselves, and instead choose to expand the circle of care.

Join us for local art, food, and massages as we transform the VC firm Baukunst into an immersive sanctuary for nurturing souls!

• November 7th, 5pm at Baukunst (433 Cortland Ave.)

If you are an artist and would like to submit work to the show, open call form is here!

My heart sank. I knew what this was about: Onyx has had bouts of aggressive behavior and trouble expressing his emotions in regulated ways. At home, I braced myself to read through the message. It was worse than I imagined. My kid sounded like a monster.

But when I look at my son, I see the whole being. His journey into articulating his world. His beautiful obsessions. The way he sleeps so peacefully. The way he crawls into my bed and brings me a stuffie to sleep with. The way he shares his snack with me. This wonderful boy who once told me he “wants to keep me safe when he’s a grown man.” To which I responded, “That’s so wonderful, Onyx. Till then, that’s not a job you need to do—I’ve got it.” This is the same child who scratches his teachers and yells defiance at gentle requests.

Onyx has been through a lot in his short life—his parents separating and learning to adjust to two homes at the age of two. This was my decision. I broke my marriage. I broke every relationship in my life that felt unhealthy. And then I broke all the calcified parts of myself until I was new again. A mother learning to walk with unsteady legs, filled with self-love and compassion, moving forward through pain and awkwardness. My son had to witness all of it—my trial and error.

All signs of his behavior point back to the separation. I sit with this realization and immediately feel the urge to wash it all away: the joy, the inspiration, the pleasure of being newly alive. To replace it with shame. I step into the shower, and the tears come streaming. I let them. I name the feelings. When I turn off the tap and face the mirror, I see Shame staring back at me. I wrap my towel around this body—scarred by a C-section, reclaimed in femininity and sexuality—and remind Shame it has no right to rob me of joy.

I can still hold joy in my heart for the good things happening in my life. I can hold joy in all the beautiful moments I share with my son. And I can hold that alongside the truth that he needs additional guidance—like play therapy—to help him navigate complicated emotions. Shame only feeds the part of my ego that wants to punish myself, a pattern I inherited from my mother and one I’ve seen in so many women: turning our children’s struggles into a reflection of our own unworthiness. When mothers take personal affront to their child’s behavior, as if it’s an extension of themselves, they pass that shame along for their children to carry.

That doesn’t create change—it only buries it in darkness.

Instead, I choose to meet Onyx where he is. Not as proof of my failings, but as a boy still learning how to carry big feelings in a world that rarely makes space for them. My job is not to drown us in guilt, but to keep building that space—through therapy, through patience, through love, through art. This is the revolution of motherhood that I hope Pissed Off Moms gets to support: refusing to hand our children the weight of our shame, and celebrate our channels of joy alongside struggle.

As the minutes pass and the omelet I made cools on the table, I feel my patience fray. My plan is playful: airlift him out of bed and straight into his clothes, like a helicopter game! It worked last week. But today I’m met with furious tears. He burrows into a fetal knot under the blanket, holding his ground. I coax him. I sell him on eggs and the promise of school fun in my sweetest voice. Nothing works.

Soon I’m in Pissed Off Mom mode. I wrangle him into my arms. I feel like a giant hauling prey to its cave — except it’s my bawling son, refusing clothes. He wriggles free, sprints to the couch, hides under the throw. “I need space!” he shouts. And I realize: so do I. His nervous system is fried. Mine too. “Okay,” I tell him. “Let’s take a couple minutes, then get ready for school.” He nods through tears.

What alarms me is how quickly things turn — from tender to adrenaline-fueled in minutes. With a young child, everything feels like a collision of wills. As adults, we barely manage agency over ourselves, even when we have the experience to know what’s good for us. And yet, here I am, expected to demand it from a small human still learning why certain things matter. Guidance slides into control; care turns to force. This is the blurry middle ground — the messy, gloopy space where chaos reigns.

As someone who is a survivor of physical abuse, this runs especially sensitive for me. The stakes feel higher as I navigate this tension where guidance ends and control begins.

And maybe that’s the truth of parenting. It isn’t sanitized. It isn’t always tender. We forget that birth itself is violent — force pushing life into the world. Raising a child carries echoes of that too: a constant clash of autonomy and control, the brutal and beautiful work of preparing a human to experience life.

After a pause, I return to him and kneel by his side. He tells me he loves me, and I say it back — adding, “I don’t like fighting with you. That was hard.” He wants to hug me but says he’s cold from his shirtless chest. I tell him the hug will warm us both. I remember what I wished I’d heard from my own parents, and I apologize for being forceful. He lets me dress him, then I hand him an oat bar to munch on in the car. Another omelet in the trash, another lesson of letting go.

We make it to school — just in the nick of time before the gates close.

I started Pissed Off Moms because I needed to face the rage inside of me.

Rage comes from following a script—one smeared with trauma, shame, and patriarchal expectations. It’s passed down through family dynamics, the stories we’re told, the sneers of criticism, and the quiet reality that the world isn’t built for those who nurture.

Before I had my son, I believed there was a “right” way to mother.
The kind you see on Instagram: organic snacks always at the ready, yoga with the kids, curated calm in sunlit homes with Montessori toys tucked away in labeled cubbies. Dr. Becky’s advice seamlessly followed.

I had a reference point I subconsciously followed—my own ’90s childhood. As a Korean immigrant, my mother curated her American image of a happy home: camping adventures, the latest Disney princess dresses, a whole playroom for the kids. But every once in a while, when the pressure was too much to bear, the image cracked—and what came through was explosive, festering rage.

Growing up, I tried to placate that rage however I could—self-sacrificing my needs and desires to be the good girl who kept the peace, who kept the image intact.

That instinct—to smooth things over and disappear myself so I wouldn’t become the target of rage—followed me into adulthood.

I managed to convince myself for more than a decade that the life my husband wanted for us was the one we were meant to live. Like so many of us, I subconsciously followed the script that love meant sacrifice, and that a devoted woman follows a man’s vision- especially if his success is not her own. I enlisted my husband (and all the men before him) to be the savior to my martyrdom—and I played that role well.

Because playing the martyr is how many women learn to prove their worth. If you suffer quietly, deny yourself long enough, give enough—maybe then you’ll be loved, seen, safe. Maybe then you’ll finally be enough. So I forfeited my own needs, my own desires, in the name of love, safety, and domestic harmony. I did this because I couldn’t yet envision anything else for myself. I didn’t even prove myself worthy enough to take on the responsibility.

Then I created life.

We had been trying for three years, but the universe made it so Onyx would be born in the middle of COVID, at the height of uncertainty. We named him Onyx because it felt strong, stubborn. I wanted to raise a boy that way—probably because those traits had been buried in me for so long.

I had expectations of myself. I was going to be a “natural mama”—no drugs, no epidural—staking my claim as a martyr mother from the start. Those expectations crumbled fast. First came morphine. Then fentanyl. Then Pitocin, then epidural. Onyx was ultimately lifted out of my belly (or what his dad would call my “portal”) in an emergency C-section after three days of labor.

Onyx’s body was traumatized from his heart decelerating multiple times. I was too drugged from fentanyl and adrenaline to name my own trauma.

I buried my disappointment. My mother had loved to brag about her natural birth as proof of her strength. Clearly, I wasn’t strong enough. So I overcompensated: I cleaned the house the moment I got home, answered emails even though I’d hired someone to cover my measly two weeks of “maternity leave.” I tore my C-section scar open lifting laundry. I’ll never forget the horror of seeing the fatty membrane of my insides seep through.

When we finally put Onyx in daycare at nine months, I felt like I had failed again. Even though I was drowning, it didn’t occur to me that additional support was the village I desperately needed. Instead, I focused on the expectation that I should be caring for this baby on my own. I could feel my stay-at-home mother’s judgment—even unspoken—burning through me.

So I doubled down. Organic baby food. Montessori toys of every variety. We were the family with the “BMW-level” suite of baby gear: the Uppababy stroller, Baby Bjorn, Stokke chair, Foonf Clek car seat. Every “right” thing—because I believed buying the right things would make me a worthy mother.

But as Onyx grew into his own little person, I realized I had given myself away completely—and I had no compass to find my way back to a version of life that felt like me.

Every piece of me felt lost: to my husband’s vision, to my business, to my child, to this image of perfect motherhood.

I had followed the script. Everything looked perfect on the outside.
But the rage was festering.

That rage—my mother felt it, too. And her mother before her. I wish I could know the exact script they were handed. From what I lived, I imagine it went something like this:

Swallow your needs. Be the martyr. Guilt and sacrifice will earn you the loyalty and love of your children. That will be your reward.

It didn’t work for my mother. It didn’t work for me.
And yet so many of us double down—clinging to the systems that oppress us because the alternative (to face the rage, to rewrite the script) is too terrifying.

But rage ignored doesn’t disappear. It warps. It becomes a distorted mirror of trauma.
You end up oppressing yourself—and everyone around you—instead of facing the true oppressor.

That’s what I was doing when I blindly followed the script.
And it’s what I had begun to inflict on Onyx.

Rage is painful because it demands action.
It asks us to burn the script we were given—and write something new.

That’s why Pissed Off Moms exists.
To stop glorifying the martyr and banish it from how we define motherhood and nurturing.
To stop passing down rage as shame.
To stop denying rage—and instead, create a space where nurturing people can face it, own it, and finally turn it into a beautiful, joyful rebellion.

Not just for the sake of our kids, but for ourselves.

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