Our anger matters.

Reflections on grief, adult orphanhood and finding my own healing with anger between my mother’s resentment and my father’s rage.

Though today marks the second anniversary of my mom’s death, it is also my joint initiation into adult orphanhood with my brother and sister as our father passed roughly seven years ago. Though it is by no means unique, it offers a somewhat uncommon perspective to have passed through one of life’s major milestones before the onset of middle age. To riff on the Jamie Anderson quote a friend once shared with me: grief, as an intense flavor of sadness, is love with nowhere to go. As Kubler-Ross observed, both anger and sadness have their place in the grieving process. Though anger is the lens I want to examine growing up with my parents’ contrasting personalities, let’s first step back for context.

While emotional regulation is necessary to proper socialization and thriving as a functional individual, schisms in emotionality form the core of our wounding. Family upbringing, early childhood and culture lay the groundwork for the individual’s emotional orientation where we learn what is and is not okay to express. The implications of this cannot really be understated: it may very well serve as the blueprint for both our personality and worldview. While woefully incomplete, here are some encapsulating words about my parents to set the stage before sharing further introspection.

My dad, born in 1936 to British-Canadian parents, presented as a classic extravert -- prone to speaking loudly, gregarious, spontaneous, loving, a real bon vivant, passionate to a fault. A story that really highlights his character was throwing a massive party for his 50th birthday, sneaking out and skydiving back in. A key lesson growing up with my father centered around his occasionally explosive anger though his sensitivity and passion showed up in his dedication to family, friends and community involvement. He served on municipal council for a decade, volunteered in promoting libraries and often went the extra mile for neighbors.

On the other hand, my mom was a typical introvert. Though born in Shanghai to Chinese-Canadian (her dad was born in Canada) parents, she emigrated to Vancouver when she was two years old as the Communist regime took power in 1949. She excelled academically as high school valedictorian and won a tour across the country performing exceptionally on a civil service exam. Steady as she goes, she commuted daily for close to twenty years. She went back to law school around forty to change careers after enduring a defining injustice in her early twenties: after being groomed for a foreign placement as a trade commissioner in Milan she was reassigned upon marriage due to a sexist policy. Growing up with her my key lesson involved discovering the unintended consequences of emotional containment.

As a young boy, I was prone to some rather spectacular conflagrations of anger that doubtless caused embarrassment, if not outright harm to myself and others. Notice the similarity to my father. Whether it was conscious or not, at around ten years old I concluded that I no longer wanted anything to do with anger and emotions more generally. Vulcans were my model. This was met with positive social reinforcement particularly by my father. While I suffered the occasional brouhaha they were far less frequent though just as intense. In short, I did my very best to expunge anger. Anger was not okay.

It wasn’t until I was nearly thirty I realized I even had a problem. About a week prior to heading out to sea for work, I received a surprise promotion to band leader. Though one of the happiest days of my life, middle management turned out to be quite stressful as it gradually dawned on me that I had serious communication deficits. These shortcomings emerged particularly around expressing boundaries and balancing the needs of upper management with those of my subordinate bandmates. I doubt I even knew what a boundary was. Being so divorced from my anger I clung to the idea of unsuccessfully attempting to please everyone. Unsurprisingly, this did not pan out and I ended up getting demoted back to sideman. 

And while I’m focusing on anger for the sake of scope, cutting off my anger also led to difficulties around attraction, romance and intimacy. In my experience, it turns out they are not separable. Biologically, each emotion serves a role in the survival and well-being of the organism. Anger forms boundaries. Anger is vital. Anger is alive. As Brene Brown summarizes succinctly, “setting boundaries is making clear what is and isn’t okay and why.” 

I’m nearly forty now and after several years in men’s work and personal growth communities, I’m still learning how to skilfully express boundaries. But I’ve come a long way. I’m able to comfortably stare into a man’s eyes while we shout expletives in each other’s faces (disclaimer: there is ample context and deep trust around such a process) and find it invigorating. 

To my father I would say that your anger mattered. Though you had trouble seeing it when you lost control, you fought for what you believed was right and to protect the vulnerable.

And to my mother, I would also say your anger mattered. Though you struggled with finding your voice, your work in arbitration quietly spoke volumes.

Our anger matters more than we may ever know.