"Mom."
"Mom."
"Mom."
"Mom!"
"Can I have a snack?"
I answered the question, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and noticed it was woefully overdue for a clean-out, remembered an email I hadn't sent, picked up my phone after it buzzed, remembered — and probably forgot — that the cat needed food, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, completely forgot what I had originally been doing.
A few minutes later I looked over at my husband. He was still doing dishes. Working. Focused. I hadn't seen him get interrupted once.
So I asked the question that had been sitting in me for a long time.
"Why do the kids interrupt me all the time, but they leave you alone when you're in the middle of something?"
Without hesitation, he said, "Because I'm focused."
My brain briefly offered several dramatic interpretations of that statement, most of which belong in a true crime documentary. Thankfully, after a deep breath and the recognition that I asked the question, curiosity won.
Families organize around patterns
Families don't organize around one person's attention style. They organize around patterns that develop over time, usually without anyone naming them. Everyone adapts, often without realizing they have. I had adapted to mine without realizing it.
To be fair, my husband absolutely gets interrupted by our kids — they're kids, that's what they do. The difference wasn't that he was untouched by the chaos. The difference was that he had a more visible boundary around his attention. If he was in the middle of something, people could tell.
I, on the other hand, had become a moving target. From the outside, it didn't always look like I was in the middle of something, because I was often in the middle of everything.
For years I assumed that was just my personality. It wasn't until I received an ADHD diagnosis as an adult that I began to understand something deeper — not just about my brain, but about the system around me. The diagnosis didn't change everything overnight. What it did was create enough space for me to notice what was already happening.
What medication actually gave me
Medication didn't give me better boundaries. It gave me space — between what was happening and how I responded, to notice patterns I'd been living inside for years, to become curious instead of immediately ashamed.
Years ago, if my husband had said "Because I'm focused," I likely would have heard criticism. This time, I heard information. That difference changed everything. Instead of defending myself, I started asking different questions: What does focus feel like for you? How do you know when you're in it? What do you notice that I miss?
Those conversations didn't become arguments. They became understanding. And understanding creates choice.
Learning to say the harder, clearer thing
One of the biggest shifts in our family hasn't been medication alone — it's been communication. I've had to learn how to say things I never had language for before. I've had to learn to ask for things to be more explicitly communicated when my brain could take a comment down 5,000 rabbit holes. I've had to shift from frustration to education. (and let's be real...I get this right 12% of the time)
"Hey, I know what you want to tell me is really important, and I want to really hear you. I need to finish this first, and then I'll come find you as soon as I'm done."
At first I worried my kids would experience that as rejection. Instead, they experienced it as clarity. Not go away — but you matter, and I want to be fully present with you when I can actually be present.
And then came the harder part: follow through. Trust in a family system isn't built through insight. It's built through repetition.
(If you're parenting while navigating ADHD, you may also find Parenting with ADHD worth reading — more on the everyday realities of raising kids while learning how my own brain works.)
None of this is linear
We don't understand something new and then stay there. We learn, we forget, we revert, we repair, we try again. We integrate something and then fall back into old patterns when we're tired, overwhelmed, or stressed. This isn't failure — it's how change actually works in families.
More than one person has told me, it seems like you and Mike must have this all figured out. We don't. We just have more language now for when we don't, and we're quicker to come back to each other. That matters more than getting it right.
From performance to honesty
Another unexpected gift of diagnosis has been honesty. Before, if I forgot something, I felt pressure to explain it in a way that made me look more put together than I felt — oh, I left it at home, when really, I forgot. Now I'm more likely to say, oh shoot, I forgot — I'm writing it down right now, and I'll grab it.
That shift looks small from the outside. Internally, it changes everything. Less performance, more repair. Less shame management, more truth.
Attention as something we give each other
We often treat attention like it's unlimited, especially for parents and caregivers. We expect ourselves to respond to every interruption, hold every detail, remember every task, stay emotionally available all day long.
But attention isn't only cognitive. It's relational — one of the primary ways we communicate love. When mine is constantly divided, I don't become more available. I become less present with everyone, including myself. Protecting my focus was never about withdrawal. It's about choosing presence on purpose.
As a marriage and family therapist, I think often of Virginia Satir's idea that a family's sense of worth grows in an atmosphere where differences are welcomed and mistakes are tolerated. Families don't change because one person gets fixed. They change because the system becomes more flexible — and flexibility starts with a simple shift: we stop asking who is wrong, and start asking what is happening, and what we need now that we understand more.
What repair actually looks like
Even with insight, even with language, even with intention — this is still hard. We still get it wrong. We still fall into old patterns. We still forget what we meant to do.
And then we come back. Over and over again. That is the work. That is the relationship. That is what repair actually looks like in real life.
I'm realizing focus was never the only thing at stake. What I'm learning to protect is something more relational — my presence, my relationships. The goal was never perfect focus. It was always more honest connection.
When I am more accurately present with myself, I can be more fully present with the people I love. Not because everything is resolved, but because we keep finding our way back to each other when it isn't.
If any of this sounds familiar, I'd be glad to talk.
