Member-only story
A Modern Pathology
Thoughts on ADHD and modern society
Statement of priors: I do not have ADHD. I am not an expert in ADHD. I do have a child with ADHD, and I am a teacher with a terminal graduate degree in education. If anything in the below reads like I’m missing something biological, psychological, or otherwise insensitive, I’ve failed. And I hope you’ll let me know if that’s the case.
I talk about a lot here. I don’t talk a lot about my kid’s ADHD. I’m not exactly sure why that is. I’ve thought about it. About a year ago, I even had the presence of mind to ask my kid if I could (they said yes). But I still haven’t much.
I think that one reason is that I’m well aware that I’m not an expert here. I’m not even a citizen of this space. I’m a guest. I don’t know how much a perspective like mine should be considered in the conversation, though I suspect it’s relatively little. There’s a long history of people who occupy dominant hegemons holding forth about things for which they have very little personal skin in the game. It feels like that is almost always best avoided, unless it is done very deliberately. Even then, mistakes are basically inevitable.
I also worry that talking about this will be to essentialize or problematize my child. I can see this even in how I’m framing things. If you don’t know me, and you’re reading this…
