The phenomenon of so-called 'mom rage' can see parents struggle with feelings of intense anger triggered by their children and partners.
A growing number of people are now openly discussing their approach to it and how to deal with the aftermath.
Clinical Psychologist Dr Caroline Boyd told The Pat Kenny Show it can feel overwhelming.
"Anger is a healthy human response and we all feel it," she said.
"I'm a psychologist, I'm also a mum, and I think we're all familiar with that white hot sensation of rage.
"Anger is such an energising emotion which makes it different to other feelings like anxiety or sadness.
"It can feel like this burning fireball erupting from your chest."
Triggers
Dr Boyd said anger can be triggered by many factors.
"It also erupts when we feel belittled, harmed or violated," she said.
"For modern mums, there are just so many anger-inducing triggers.
"Anger is an understandable response to unmet needs, feeling touched out, overloaded in bearing the bulk of the parenting load and feeling unseen and undervalued.
"The trigger can be as simple as a lost shoe before the school run, or a cumulative response to sheer overwhelm in the endless demands of little people in modern life."
'More awareness'
Dr Boyd said anger is now seen as more common than postnatal depression.
"The latest research shows that as many as one-in-three women feel intense anger in the first year of having a baby," she said.
"So, it's actually making anger more common now than postnatal depression.
"What I notice in my work... is that while there's more awareness of mum rage... anger remains the hidden emotion in motherhood.
"Women are still being socialised to squash it. Women get stuck in, what I call, the anger-guilt cycle.
"What really feeds this angry spiral are those 'good girl' narratives that we internalise growing up - we must be nice, not make a fuss.
"These beliefs are reinforced by the perfect mother myth."
'Guilt and shame'
Parenting expert and mother-of-three Laura Erskine has this advice for mothers.
"We're going to get nowhere by reacting and getting angry or shouty with our kids," she said.
"In fact, what happens is quite the opposite; you feel this immeasurable guilt and shame afterwards about how you should have done it differently.
"We need to cut ourselves a little bit of a break as parents and be a bit compassionate to ourselves in order to be able to cope better."
Ms Erskine said apologising to your child after an outburst is a good idea.
"It's not just a 'Sorry I did that' and shutting down the conversation, it's about repair.
"That apology needs to come with no blame on behalf of the child, who may have been disrespectful, but an acknowledgment of what happened and how you would like to have reacted differently.
"Then, I suppose, a discussion around how they might have behaved differently."
'How can we do it differently?'
Ms Erskine said it's not about blame, but "more explaining what goes on with you and your day."
"We all need to get to work on time, we all need to get to school on time and actually, your behaviour, and me losing it with you, while that was wrong of me, it's also impacted everybody else," she said.
"So, everybody's gone to school or work today feeling a little bit sadder because of that behaviour - so how can we do it differently?
"It's about that repair," she added.
