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In general, society has traditionally measured a woman’s success as a mother by the accomplishments and behavior of her child. When a child is perceived as deviant or abnormal, fingers tend to point toward the mother. As I quickly discovered during my preliminary review of the literature, mothers of ADHD children are the focus of a great deal of public, professional and academic observation and commentary. In some respects, this centralized focus has helped to perpetuate the age-old image of the “bad” child as a reflection of the “bad” mother. The overwhelming tendency to blame mothers for the outcomes of their children is evident not only in ADHD research, but also in discourses related to gender roles, parenting, and motherhood.
In general, more attention has been directed toward understanding the influence of mothers on the behavioral problems displayed by the ADHD child, and far less is known about the reciprocal effects on maternal well-being. Thus, my exclusive focus on mothers has been, in part, a reaction to their particularly vulnerable position in the debate over the rising diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. There was also an apparent need for current, well-designed research concerning the impact of raising an ADHD child on the emotional and social well-being experienced by mothers. The advancement of negative stereotypes and sweeping generalizations from narrowly selected research populations clearly necessitated further examination.
I originally set out to confirm existing research concerning the stress and emotional burden associated with raising an ADHD child. According to previous findings, mothers of ADHD children experience more stress, depression and anxiety as a result of the behavioral problems displayed by their child (Baker, 1994; Befera & Barkley, 1984; Cunningham, Benness, & Siegel, 1988; Fischer, 1990; Mash & Johnston, 1983).