At 2 a.m., I put the finishing touches on the three-tiered birthday cake. It was perfect. My 2-year-old would certainly know how much I loved her when she saw this cake, I smiled. This, of course, was a lie. Although I had convinced myself it was for her benefit, my 2-year-old didn’t measure my love in cake tiers.
Thirteen years in, I know the truth. I now understand why one cake took two weeks to plan, one week to prep, and all night to create. This is where ADHD thrived—the 2 a.m. slot where the discontent met the creatives, and the perfectionists mingled with the anxious. I spent hours in this zone as a young mom. In this zone, I found solace. The mess was deliberate, the outcome rewarding. No one demanded anything of me; this was my choice, my time. I found beauty in the busyness and contentment in the chaos. At 2 a.m., hovering over a three-tiered Dora the Explorer birthday cake, I was free.
I didn’t know I had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) until my oldest child was 17. Before children, my life was filled to the brim. If I could somehow make it work, I would . . . and I did. However, living with this personality style while raising four kids was harder than I imagined. The slower pace of motherhood often felt overwhelming and was regularly disappointing—two emotions I had rarely experienced up to then.
Learning the symptoms of ADHD helped me identify why I struggled with some areas of motherhood but thrived in others. This knowledge provided freedom from the disappointment of unmet expectations, and a sense of relief I wish I’d known 17 years ago.
I’ve learned that ADHD symptoms can onset suddenly at any age and don’t always require medication. According to psychiatrist Nicole Washington (2023), women can experience ADHD neurobehavioral symptoms during pregnancy and/or motherhood as stress levels increase, and mental functioning fluctuates. Due to fatigue and hormonal changes during these years, ADHD can go misinterpreted or ignored, resulting in offspring emotions such as discontentment, anger, boredom, anxiety, and guilt.
I’ve known these feelings firsthand. The intense love I felt for my children was often coupled with boredom while playing childish games as my attention inadvertently drifted from them to more alluring diversions. Enter guilt. Likewise, the need to feed my children was met with daily dread as the clock edged towards 5 p.m., and I would be forced to make yet another meal that may or may not be eaten. Enter anxiety. The need to keep my house clean was often spoiled by the fact that anything was better than following through with mopping the floor, cleaning up cereal, or scrubbing the shower. Enter discontentment.
Familiarizing myself with the symptoms of ADHD helped alleviate such feelings. When I understood the neuroscience behind why I avoided household chores, my guilt was replaced with compassion as I sought new strategies to help manage these tasks. When I realized why I spent time planning for the future instead of enjoying the present, I dispelled feelings of discontentment by practicing mindfulness, returning to nature, and expressing gratitude. I also understood why my well-intended and attractively decorated meal calendars went ignored eight days later. I stopped berating myself and instead looked for alternative strategies to simplify family mealtimes.
It’s 12:40 a.m., and I feel an intense determination to finish writing this tonight. Not because I have a looming deadline, but because I have ADHD, and when I’m excited about something I find it difficult to stop, and that’s okay. However, I now appreciate the importance of setting personal boundaries and making time to breathe and relax. So, with this in mind, I’ll take a breath, wrap it up, and let my body unwind after this busy, but happy day.
by Jordan Pederson 
by Crystal Hill 
by Moriah Couch 
