Why These Boston Moms Have Scream Sessions in a Football Field

Most moms get together for a cup of coffee, a chat in the park, or playdate with their kids in tow, but for a group of Boston moms, it's scream sessions in a high school football field that has forged their newly-discovered bond.

Sarah Harmon, who works as a therapist, told "Good Morning America" that she organized the scream sessions, along with fellow Boston moms, as a coping mechanism in the pandemic. She believes that screaming at the top of their lungs helps the moms release all the rage, intense emotion, exhaustion, and grief they have experienced in the last two years.

Harmon, a mom to two girls aged two and five years old, was eager to start The School of MOM just as the pandemic happened in March 2020. As with everyone else, she shifted online and started learning from other moms about their feelings of anger, fear, anxiety, loneliness, guilt, and resentment. Most mothers also shared their struggles of being stuck at home and with little community interaction.

In one of her therapy sessions, Harmon casually brought up the idea of getting together on a field, with social distancing measures, to "scream it out." Her clients were enthusiastic about the idea.

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The First Scream Session

A study from Pew Research revealed the immense pressure mothers experienced during the pandemic both as working moms and the primary caregiver. While these pressures are nothing new, the pandemic highlighted how eight in 10 moms believe parenting responsibilities piled more on them than their spouse.

So, on a cold night in March 2021, or roughly one year after the first coronavirus wave, the Boston moms came out of the shadows to do the very first scream session. They did five rounds of regular screaming, a round of yelling profanities, and a "free for all" scream where they shouted whatever they wanted to release.

Ashley Jones, a mom of a three-year-old, said that the scream session was exactly what she needed. After the scream session, the moms exchanged pleasantries with some hugging and then went their own way.

While they planned on doing this once a month, the pandemic situation seemed to improve because of the vaccines, so they did not gather at the football field for a long time. However, the Boston moms decided to hold their second scream session with more women in the advent of the omicron variant spread in January 2022. This time, they admitted to feeling a sense of defeat as families had to make more immense adjustments entering the third year of the pandemic.

Other Mom Groups Followed

Harmon said that she had received messages from other mom groups and elderly groups, who have been gathering and making their own scream sessions. They organize quietly to not cause a ruckus amid the increasing impact of the omicron spread.

The therapist said it feels great for other women to acknowledge and normalize negative feelings like rage or anger. She noted that these are important to healing from the mental trauma of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Hopefully this message for people is permission to let it out," Harmon suggested. "Go somewhere safe, grab a friend and release it."

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