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Even if you don’t immediately know them by name, with one glimpse of Penn and Kim Holderness, you’ll absolutely recognize them from their many Holderness Family videos, if you’ve been online at any point during the last decade or so. They first skyrocketed to YouTube fame with their 2013 “Christmas Jammies” song and have since racked up millions of views on their relatable videos, from “Every Mom at Target” to “Under the Sea ADHD Parody.” They’ve been open about Penn’s journey with ADHD and how it’s affected their marriage, and continue to keep the conversation going about ADHD and family life, as well as optimizing brain health, with their forthcoming book, ADHD Is Awesome.
Most recently, Penn and Kim Holderness lead a live podcast talk at the SHE Media Co-Lab at South by Southwest called “(Mostly) Thriving with ADHD” on partnership and parenting with ADHD. Here’s the highlight reel from their chat.
On how ADHD affects their family dynamic
Kim: Okay, I will first say that everything that made me fall in love with you I think I can traced back to your ADHD: you’re the funniest person I’ve ever met, and just gregarious and spontaneous. All of those things are his ADHD. And then it wasn’t until we had young kids when I realized, oh, wait, there’s other people in the room. He can’t really just focus on me. And it got really pronounced. We went to marriage counseling about this. I mean, I felt like he wasn’t listening to me ever. People would joke, “Oh, do you feel like you’re raising three kids here?” Yeah. And it sucked. You’ve done a lot of work. I don’t love going to do a deep dive into that part of our story, because we have done so much work on that. I see you squirming a little bit here. But it’s important part of the story.
Penn: Yeah, I’m glad you’re telling it. I’m squirming because I feel ashamed and I feel a little bit broken every time I think about those things, or I used to feel extremely broken. ADHDers are people pleasers. The last thing we want to do is let somebody down.
Kim: But also at that point Penn did the deepest of deep dives, like why does my brain keep me from doing these basic things? We were learning so much. So we have a book coming out called ADHD Is Awesome. And our our family needed this book. So Penn talked to a lot of really brilliant doctors and did so much research.
On women being underdiagnosed
Kim: I learned so much and I would say the most shocking thing I learned was how under diagnosed women and girls are with ADHD. It just pissed me off, hearing how under diagnosed women and girls are. Do you guys want to know why women are under diagnosed? They know why.
Penn: You probably do. So traditionally, girls are expected to internalize their problems, their difficulties when something goes wrong, and especially when you’re a girl you’re supposed to sit still. You’re expected to behave. Boys, if they run around, if they act crazy, those are “boys being boys.” That looks “symptomatic” of ADHD. As a result, Marcy Caldwell, a psychologist we talked to, says girls are just as likely genetically to have ADHD as boys, but boys are diagnosed two to three times more. So fast forward to being a woman and you haven’t been diagnosed yet. Now, in a stereotypical heterosexual relationship, you are expected to flawlessly get the groceries, get the kids out to school, and carry the entire mental load.
On ADHD hitting women in menopause
Kim: We do a lot of content around ADHD, and we get comments all the time. I just wrote one down I want to read to you from Instagram. She says, “It’s interesting that female symptoms are different from males, and very often don’t get diagnosed. And many women going through menopause get ADHD symptoms. My husband and son have it as well as myself. It’s not always easy, but understanding it more helps.” So just getting that diagnosis as a woman can help explain so much.
It is also masked; sometimes it’s called anxiety, so sometimes the doctor will tell you that you have anxiety. Also, in menopause it gets tricky because all these wonderful things are happening in our brain: the brain fog, the inability to focus, and inattentiveness. All of those same symptoms can be traced to menopause as well. So that’s why it’s so important to find a therapist or healthcare provider that can help unravel what’s ADHD and what’s just, you know, menopause, your age.
On partnership and ADHD
Penn: The vital thing that we really learned about ADHD is that these things that are happening these behaviors of forgetfulness are involuntary symptoms, which means there’s nothing that we can do about it. And I know that sucks to hear for a partner.
Kim: It sounds like, every time I was hearing that, you know reading about this, it sounded like it excuse quite honestly. And as a partner and a parent with ADHD, to somebody with ADHD, it sucked.
Penn: You’re touching on right now probably the number one issue in partnering with ADHD: balancing you accepting me for what I am with my responsibility and accountability that I have to take. I’ve got to work my ass off to get systems in place, so people can at least see that I’m trying to make things easier and I can maximize my ADHD. But what she’s doing maybe even more incredible, which is not only accepting everything that we’ve learned, and me for what I am, but also meeting me where I am.