There Were Five in the House, and Who Suggested We All Go Out?
The overwhelm of ADHD Parenting with ND kids (even when we love them all)
Actually, not all of us. Just some of us left the house. Really, me and three kids. Because if it's all five of us heading to the grocery store? Welp. A hot mess doesn’t quite cover it. Divorce might, but thankfully, after twenty-one years (twelve of those with kids) we’re not there yet (kidding, we’re stronger together, even if we are super messy!).
All jokes aside, it took me a solid two hours and forty-three minutes and nineteen extra side quests to commit to sitting down to complete this article. That’s not a huge amount of time in the great scheme of neurodivergent life, but I scored a rainy day, and so fate was on my side.
A question for all the neurodivergent parents of neurodivergent kids out there: have you ever watched a family of two parents and two or more kids walk around a department store, or a shop for groceries without a sense of pervasive chaos happening?
It’s silent.
There’s no screaming.
No tantrums.
No kids hurtling along aisles seemingly under their own steam. No parent going bald on the spot, or reorganising what looks like eight children with flailing octopus arms when in reality it’s only two or three.
And there’s no pyramid of cans toppling in their wake from the highest shelf that a lone parent, at least one aisle and several items behind on the list, desperately tries to contain because they just know it’s their family that caused the impending ruckus.
No, that perfectly normal looking family managed to have their shopping trip quietly, in the complete absence of chaos and…
They walked out with their task completed.
Shop intact. No side quests.
No financial ruin from at least eight impulse purchases that aren’t really impulse purchases because you’d been thinking about several of them for some time but they looked like impulse purchases.
How. Do. They. Do. It.
Because let’s face it—if your family is anything like mine, you got the first scenario from above, where at least one kid fought over who didn’t get their favourite (or least favourite) meal item because theirs was sold out and the substitute option was NOT OKAY. Someone left their phone on the shelf, someone else was asked to go back and find the bread but being out of eye sight of the rest of the family isn’t okay whatsoever because of imminent doom. Once you’re at the register, you realize that you either forgot your shopping bags, which account you're using today, or your wallet, and your sanity is loitering somewhere on a shelf in aisle three.
Solange’s work — from her albums to her immersive visual installations — often reflects this “flourishing” of difference.
Oh, and don’t go into the parking lot because the pigeon is most definitely driving the minivan.
Living as part of a neurodivergent family of either parents, kids, or both, is madness. It’s the world I exist in daily as a full time writer and mum wearing so many other hats I no longer bother counting. Maybe it’s many of you, too. All other roles aside, keeping ourselves motivated without wanting to crawl under a blanket at any point is tough. Just that drive home from the shops seems impossible, and unpacking afterwards? Let’s not go there until recovery happens, please.
If this is you, you’re seen. I see you. You are not alone. And if a random, green-haired, frazzled woman approaches you in the shops one day and says, “It’s okay, you’re doing a great job,” while your kids are playing barrel of monkeys with the promotional display … Hey, maybe it’s me, or someone just like you.
There are shades of neurodivergent days. If today is an I-wanna-hide-my-head-under-the-blanket type day, even if it’s for five minutes because you forgot where you left your sanity (hint, check the toddler’s room, or the laundry) then do it.
Taking time for you is never a fail. But also make sure you go for a top up at some point, because frazzled heroes need that too. Hug it out if you’re a contact person, or if being around those you care for is more your thing, please do make sure that you get your required refill.
Creative kids and parents are weird. We’re messy. Insane. Noisy. But also…
Beautiful.
Wonderful.
Imaginative.
Glorious.
—from an ND mum who writes more books daily than she’ll ever need with side quests that keep banking up while we forgot what the numbering system to keep them in line, a musical LGBT+ ADHD daughter, a duck whisperer ADHD son who plots stories faster than I do, and an axolotl expert daughter who we’re not sure about yet, but come and save endangered species with her. She’ll be thrilled.
