The Words Every (Neurodivergent) Parent Needs to Hear
I started reading "How to ADHD," then I started to cry.
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I’ve been low-key stressing about the first post I’m going to write for Raising Gen Alpha in 2024.
After such an eventful and depressing 2023, I have a lot of ideas, expectations, and dreams for 2024. Part of that is this here newsletter/publication. I keep thinking about whether I should write about X or Y or first change my settings or adjust the “short description” of this newsletter that probably nobody pays attention to… or maybe something else entirely.
Honestly, it’s left me a bit paralyzed due to the perfectionism I definitely still struggle with. Instead, I’ve been working on my new job and internally pretending that I’m not stressing out about what to write here.
Then tonight, I continued to read my new book, How to ADHD: An Insider’s Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) by Jessica McCabe, which is based on her very successful YouTube channel of the same name. When I began to cry at the end of Chapter 2 (“How to ADD ADHD”), I knew that I just had to tell you what I learned.
It’s words that I think every parent—especially those of us who are neurodivergent and/or have neurodivergent kids—needs to hear right now. And all the time, really.
Keep Going… For Neurodivergent People
That’s it. That’s the advice.
Well, okay, there’s a bit more to that… so let me explain.
In this chapter, Jessica gives a brief introduction to what ADHD is and focuses on some of the basics, such as that Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder isn’t about actually having a “deficit” of attention but rather not being able to “control the intensity of our focus or what we focus on.”
Additionally, she explains that you don’t have to look like a hyperactive little boy to have the “hyperactivity” part. As the points out and I can definitely say about myself since I first got my diagnosis in August 2021, hyperactivity for women and girls often shows up as verbal hyperactivity. Yes, I talk really fast. #sorrynotsorry
She goes into some other misconceptions about ADHD, the stigma and hidden struggles, and then finishes with The Toolbox section that will end every chapter. Finally, she ends it with the bigger thing we need to take away from this chapter… and here’s where I started crying.
A litany of things went wrong, but I fought through all of it, partly because I cared so deeply about what I was doing and partly because I wanted to prove that voice wrong.
But one week, I couldn’t argue with it anymore. I hadn’y written an episode by the time it was supposed to have been shot and edited. I wasn’t just failing; I had failed. I posted a tweet formally communicating this failure, explaining to my community: “Maybe that voice was right. Maybe I can’t do this.”
I waited for my community to agree with me and release me from the promise I’d made to help them. I expected them to tell me it was okay to do something else now. Maybe they would berate me, which I figured I deserved.
Instead, I got encouragement.
“What? No. You’re doing great. Keep going.”
… I didn’t know that was an option.
It sounds ridiculous, but living with ADHD and grappling with its challenges left me believing that you could only fail so many times before it was game over. Before I’d run out of time, out of understanding. Before I’d get fired or someone would stop being my friend. Before I’d hit my limit of disappointing people. Before I’d hit my limit of disappointing myself. Before I could give up. Once you’ve failed failed, you had to move on and try something else. That’s how it went, right?
I had been given permission to stop. Now, I expected permission to quit.
What I got was permission to keep going.
It was at the “I didn’t know that was an option” section that I started to tear up.
Clearly, I related to pretty much everything in this section. The job worries, definitely the friend worries (more on that in a future post), and mostly disappointing myself. I’ve done that so SO many times in the past, after all.
Isn’t that what we humans do?
The Words Every Parent Needs to Hear
“Keep going” may feel like the simplest piece of advice, but it’s also incredibly significant for those of us who are parenting in 2024.
Whether you’re neurodivergent or not, parenting is really freaking hard these days.
I know it’s always been difficult but we also had stronger communities of support before. The loss of community and the proverbial “village” that parents of the past raised their kids in has been on the decline for years, but it feels especially painful since the start of the pandemic—and for those of us who had kids during 2020, 2021, and beyond.
I think what especially struck me about the “keep going” advice isn’t just those words but the acknowledgment that so many of us don’t know that’s an option or that many of us feel like we don’t have permission to do so.
In parenting, it’s something else entirely. It’s more that we have to keep going, no matter what, but we can also choose to.
No matter how tired, frustrated, exhausted, burnt out, depressed, anxious, and insanely worried we are, we have to keep going. Our feelings ultimately don’t matter because we have chosen to and are tasked with raising a child.
But even if that’s the choice we made willingly (at least until Roe v. Wade was overturned, but don’t get me started on that right now), parenting is still really fucking difficult even in the best of circumstances.
Parenting in a pandemic? Parenting as a neurodivergent adult? Parenting as a Black person? Parenting as a queer family? Parenting when you aren’t sure your daughter will have control over her own body? Parenting in a red state where every other neighbor is pro-guns? Parenting on a burning planet?
NONE OF THAT IS EASY.
What really hit me about Jessica’s words, though, is that we can choose to keep going.
Not “keep going” because we have to. But KEEP GOING because you choose to.
KEEP GOING because it’s an option. KEEP GOING because you can give yourself permission. KEEP GOING because you don’t have to do this in a way that doesn’t work for you, in a way that hurts you, in a way that makes you want to give up.
KEEP GOING because you can find another way, a better way, a way to do at least a little bit more for yourself, for your child, for the people you care about, for the planet.
As I think about these words, I look back on the hardships of 2023 and look forward to the dreams of 2024.
I’m going to KEEP GOING because I believe that I can raise an anti-racist, feminist, neurodiverse, queer ally of a child. I’m going to keep going because I’ve spent so many years feeling hopeless—ever since 2016 if I’m honest—but that doesn’t have to be the only thing I feel every day.
Barring a return of my depression, I want to keep going for myself. As a parent, that will sometimes mean putting myself first—like I’m doing tonight as daddy parents solo while I hang out in bed, reading How to ADHD and writing this post. Sometimes, “keep going” will mean giggling as my son waves a bell around and goes running down his daycare hall singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of his lungs—something that happened today. And other times, “keep going” will mean grabbing his hand and trying to hold onto my composure as I try to calmly explain to him for the 1000th time that it’s always okay to be mad but it’s never okay to hit mommy (or anyone else)—something that happened yesterday.
For today, “keep going” means letting go of my own perfectionism and fears, and instead writing something here that inspires me.
And, well, “keep going” also means continuing to show up here, with you my fellow Gen Alpha parents, and creating the community we need. The community we don’t have. And to “keep going” even when it all gets hard again because inevitably it will. And inevitably, it will get easier again too.
So, let’s all keep going through the ebbs and flows of life. Let’s all choose to keep going.
Join me in conversation… How are you feeling about the start of 2024? Are you feeling some hope and/or some hopelessness? What’s an area of life that you need the reminder to “keep going?” I’d love to hear from all of you!
Talk soon,
Irina (she/her) - raising a March 2020 Gen Alpha kid