ADHD is Teaching Me Parenting and Capitalism

As I explore ADHD as a potential explanation for my experience and expression over the last 46 years, I’m learning a lot about parenting, and how capitalism affects parenting and child development.

What ADHD is

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a DSM V diagnosis that manifests as distractibility, difficulty focusing, impulsivity, fidgeting, interrupting, purposelessness, addiction, attention seeking, memory issues, time illiteracy, class clowning, disorganization, inability to self-regulate, and is concomitant with numerous other psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety and OCD, and verbal behaviors such as stuttering and blocking.

ADHD is caused by insufficient parental availability, attention, and attunement (which doesn’t mean helicopter, indulging, or controlling parenting, but rather parenting as an expression of the QUESTION “What does this soul need to fulfill their fullest potential in this moment?”), beginning at conception through age 5. The result of insufficient availability, attention and attunement is the poor development of dopamine receptors and brain circuitry, retarding the development of the right prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for focus, motivation, and social and emotional intelligence. This doesn’t mean that the primary parent shouldn’t work during this time, but that they need the ability, flexibility and autonomy to attend and attune to their children whenever needed. Which, I hear, is a lot.

People with ADHD have difficulty sustaining motivation, attention, feeling good / safe, accessing their own emotions, and attuning to the emotions of others (they also can be highly empathetic and feel too deeply, like they have a duty to save the world). 4.4% of the US population has ADHD and this population is growing. Children of divorce and people in prison and rehab are 2-3x more likely to have ADHD. Kids in foster care and orphanages have 8-16x higher incidence of ADHD.?

Rates of ADHD are increasing in the general population, because of the

FRENZIED / always on / in traffic / distracted / social media / modern / capitalist lifestyle resulting in

the increasing necessity for BOTH PARENTS TO WORK FULL TIME and to work ever longer hours, in order to simply live, and

the decline in BREASTFEEDING.

50-78% of US households are now paycheck to paycheck - typically 2 PAYCHECK TO 2 PAYCHECK. Research shows that many parents now have less than 5 minutes of meaningful contact each day with their child.

What ADHD is like for me

Without a formal screening/diagnosis (scheduled for March), but a positive online self-test, and an understanding of ADHD from Gabor Mate’s Scattered Minds and other reputable sources, I believe I have it.

With effort and purpose (or nicotine or caffeine), I can focus, but otherwise focus is difficult. I can now mostly moderate my impulses, cravings, and desire for attention. I usually remember things and show up to meetings on time, but I can forget things. I can procrastinate.? I can break agreements. I can’t stop fidgeting, stretching, and playing with knives. I had a speech impediment (blocking), and with speech therapy overcame it. It’s a challenge in my marriage, as I frequently forget things, break my word, make jokes, crave attention, and seek connection.

In addition to caffeine and nicotine (people with ADHD are 3 times more likely to smoke), I’ve used sports, vigorous exercise, heavy food, alcohol, calendars, reminders, and purpose work to ground, get organized, and focus / execute.

My impulses got me in lots of trouble in my youth. Theft, lying, vandalism, self-harm, fights, detentions, groundings. As a young man, I sought risk - international travel, illegal drugs, unprotected one-night stands, bull riding, skydiving, rugby, drunk driving, etc. I was arrested in 6 different states between the ages of 13 and 27. I am lucky to be alive.

As I’m learning, this deeply selfish and reckless behavior was my desire to throw off the yoke of responsibility for the suffering of the world, which I felt. I literally couldn't entertain any discussion or thought about the health of Black communities in the US, nor anything related to the whole continent of Africa, until I was 27. I had to pretend they didn’t exist because they caused me so much pain to contemplate.?

“The adult has no psychological rest, because the infant and child have never known psychological rest.” - Dr. Gabor Mate

Even though I’ve been doing inner work for 20 years, I still feel a background level of being unsafe, like I don’t belong, don’t matter, and am only as good as my positive impact on others. I read-write-work a lot to impress some one/thing/order/community that doesn’t exist and therefor cannot care for me, reward me, or make me feel safe in return for how much I achieve. I rarely feel safe - like all is well and I can rest. It’s not ok to just be - intellectually, physically, or economically. I can’t sit still. I must move. Learn. Create. Earn. The only time I feel connected, safe and like I matter is when I engage with spiritual practices and plant medicine.

The Conditions that Create ADHD

Although my parents are loving, likable, hard-working, successful, and well-intended, from conception through age 5, I experienced complex or little “t” trauma through my mother’s anxiety, hyperactivity, and dissociation / tuning out (likely her ADHD), and her splitting attention between work, school, my brother and me. She also has a speech impediment (stutter), suggesting her own little "t" trauma from her childhood.

I also experienced little “t” trauma from my father’s neglect / absence (for work), conditional love, manipulation, and inability to attend and attune to others. [My father did not want kids, but had them out of obligation to / pressure from my mom. He eventually took an interest in us around age 2.] This is likely due to his unresolved childhood trauma, which has resulted in anxiety and depression as an adult, being estranged from all his siblings and sons, and possibly Narcissistic Personality Disorder and/or Borderline Personality Disorder . [Children of narcissistic parents also feel a need to save the world, because they’ve been responsible for managing the world of another person since go.] He also has learning disabilities, indicative of the lack of attention and atunement / his little "t" trauma during childhood.

During this period in my life, it was the late 1970’s / early 1980’s. Me generation. Greed is good. Brookstone. More of everything. Peak capitalism. My father was a traveling salesman, my mother was in graduate business school, pregnant with / nursing my brother (he was born when I was 17 months old) and then at work (she returned to work when I was 27 months old). My brother (who died in a car crash in 1995) had many learning disabilities, and possibly ADD. Gabor Mate suggests that full availability, attention and atunement of the primary parent (typically, but not necessarily, the mother) is needed from conception until age 5 in order for the child’s brain to develop properly.?

When my mom went back to work full-time (taking another parent out of the house for 50 hours a week), they hired babysitters - some were awesome, some were physically and sexually abusive. During this period, my parents were unfaithful to each other, did zero inner work, had low emotional intelligence and a limited ability to diffuse tension and conflict in their marriage (which ended in 1987 after 17 years). My Dad’s default response to marital conflict was to schedule more business trips.

I also experienced some big “T” trauma: during childbirth, as my umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck (almost killing me), poor parenting (circumcision, spankings, shunning / time-outs, shaming / emotional abuse, being put in preschool a year early), poor babysitting (physical and sexual abuse), and once being abandoned (forgotten about) after pre-school ended.

All in, my parents did a great job given the information and the circumstances of the times. They loved us, hugged us, spent lots of time with us, took us on vacations, and coached us in sports. Unfortunately their efforts were no match for capitalism, nor a substitute for the healing work necessary to become themselves and be fully present as adults and parents.

Is the person with ADHD tasked with finishing the unfinished business of their parents?

The Cycle

My parents were raised in the 1950’s and 1960’s by loving parents who were also traumatized as children, did zero inner work to resolve their trauma, grief, and anxiety, fell in love, and started cranking out kids in rapid succession (10 total). Although very loving, my grandparents indulged in alcohol, food, sex, and nicotine, and parented with shame, shunning, physical violence, and in one instance, attempted murder. My father’s parents conspired to and attempted to murder my aunt.

I don’t blame my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, or any of my ancestors. I love them and they love me. We’ve just been in a trauma pinball machine together going back to (at least) the advent of the Roman Empire. We’re all doing our best in a system that encourages our worst.

Unfortunately, the conditions capitalism creates are a perfect recipe for an ADHD society, or as Robert Bly termed, A Sibling Society, one entirely composed of, and led by, wounded adolescents, without any actual adults, much less wizened elders. Fortunately, we have many more tools available today to complete the unfinished healing of our parents.

The Prescription

• Parents need to do their inner work (trauma / reparenting) and finish the unfinished business, so as to be able to attune to each other and the child.
• Parents need to space out their children every 4-5 years.
• The economy / society / workplace must be restructured such that 20-30 hours of flexible work per week is all that is required, and companies/governments must ensure and pay for a child to have at least one healed parent on point (available, attentive, attuned) for 4-5 years per child.

Final Questions

• Is ADHD a bug or feature of capitalism?
• Does capitalism need to go? Or can it evolve?
• Are our leaders in the public and private sectors the most traumatized of us?
• Who advocates for the developing child brain?
• Do children need new and explicit civil rights?

Further Reading

• The Sibling Society (1996) by Robert Bly
• Hold Onto your Kids (2004) by Gabor Mate and Gordon Neufeld
• The Myth of Normal (2022) by Gabor Mate