You’ve seen the ADHD memes and found yourself the only one not laughing. I still struggle to react appropriately when ADHD jokes rear their ugly heads. How do you respond?
As you might imagine, I don’t find it charming or funny when a neurotypical person, during a brief bout of forgetfulness or distractibility, says, “I’m so ADHD right now” or “Sorry, it’s just my ADHD kicking in (laugh).” Who knows — maybe some of these people have undiagnosed attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD), and they are trying to use humor to defuse or lighten up a certain situation. Most of the time, though, ADHD is a punch line. I know because I used to joke about it, even after my kids were diagnosed.
And then one day after I cracked an ADHD joke, I thought, “What’s so funny about this?” I even took an informal survey of some moms who have kids with ADHD. I was surprised by the split opinions; I was even more surprised by the intense emotions on each side. It was either, “People need to lighten up. It’s no big deal” OR it was “This is not even remotely funny.”
And so I decided to stop joking about it. But how should I react — if at all — when others do? I’m often torn, and context certainly matters. When it comes as a Facebook post, I’ll ignore it if I just don’t have the energy. Other times I try to find a way to educate others about ADHD — through a semi-sarcastic remark, a serious comment, or a statistic about ADHD. I owe it to my kids (and myself) to let people know the condition is real, treatment is necessary, and it really is no laughing matter.
