Reflections on COVID-19 and Parenting
Monte Rosen
On January 24, 2020, the first day of Chinese New Year, I was on my way to Shanghai’s International Airport with my wife to catch a flight to the United States for two weeks of vacation. While speeding to the airport, I was negotiating the last couple of points on a Memo of Understanding with an investor. After fifteen years of running our business, we were thrilled that an investor would allow us to expand and give us a clear path toward an exit strategy. Just a couple days later, China went into lockdown and the deal was off the table. I didn’t know how long the lockdown would last or if our company would even survive.
As I write this, it is now June 2020, nearly five months later, and we’re living in a different world. Back in January, we heard plenty about the virus in China and we speculated that it would be just like SARS with less than 1,000 deaths. We knew it was bad, just not how bad. What struck me most back in January was how blasé the US seemed to be about the coming virus. No health checks or fever screenings at airports, very few people wearing masks, everyone going about their business. My wife and I decided we would stay out of China for the time being until the virus blew over. In February, I traveled to Taiwan, Bangkok, and Bali so I could at least be in the same time zone as our company. I didn’t see any special measures taking place in any of the airports, including the US.
In March, my wife returned to China to do her two weeks of mandatory quarantine and I returned to the US to attend my Annual Retreat (our 30th) with Mark Zitter, Dave Richardson, Pete Hawthorne, Steve Edelson and Robert Patterson. Before we met up, the group seemed relatively unconcerned about the virus. By the end of the week, everything had changed in the US. We started to see the first shelter-in-place orders, stores were swamped with people stocking up on food, and online stores were long out of masks and hand sanitizers
I have been living in China for the past seventeen years. We no longer have a home in the US and were living as empty nesters ever since our youngest child, Henry, went to boarding school two years ago. In March, I met Henry for his Spring break with plans to visit colleges in the Northwest. Right after spring break started, his dorm was evacuated, and classes moved on-line. Henry was now living with me. Just a week later, my oldest, Sophie, had their dorm closed and classes moved online, so Sophie also joined me, along with their boyfriend Skyler. Just like that, I had three college-aged roommates.
We hurriedly moved into a vacation rental without much of a plan and I rented a car long term. Although working remotely has been busier than ever, living in confinement also means I have more time to spend with my kids, now young adults. This has left me with much time to reflect on what I’ve learned as a parent.
The last time I lived with either of my children was 2017, though Sophie has been in America since 2015. Back then, life had been stressful and chaotic. I was constantly stressed about their missing homework assignments, messy rooms, and incomplete chores. Discussions over these frustrations would inevitably end in blowups – my older child would hide in their room and refuse to talk to my wife and me while my son would throw tantrums and scream at us. When both of my children moved to the United States for boarding school, and now university, I couldn’t shake my anxiety over their futures: How would they cope with their responsibilities? Would they be able to communicate with their teachers and staff effectively, or even at all?
We later learned that both of my children have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. The above scene may sound normal to many parents, but it’s especially familiar for parents of children with learning disabilities like ADHD. When COVID-19 disrupted my travel plans and forced me to move in with three young adults (my eldest’s boyfriend, who also has ADHD, is staying with us), I dreaded returning to my family’s pandemonium and strife. Even though my oldest child had become an accomplished student thanks to their experience at a supportive therapeutic boarding school, they were uncertain about how online classes would impact their learning. Similarly, my son’s senior year of high school had brought on a bad case of senioritis, which was only compounded by our new circumstances.
As it turns out, lockdown has been one of the largest challenges my children have faced. Online learning is particularly difficult for my children, where they must fight the urge to not skip classes or endlessly scroll through social media. Without frequent face-to-face interactions with their friends, emotional difficulties have become much more challenging to cope with, especially in the wake of a worldwide pandemic. Additionally, people with ADHD have an endless thirst for stimulation – boredom can be catastrophic. Without the ability to go outside and explore, my children have become restless.
For people with ADHD, developing the right coping strategies can take years of effort and a strong support system. My eldest had struggled during their first year of college, and after taking a year-long gap year, had finally learned to maintain a regular schedule and build trusting relationships with their peers and professors. Similarly, my youngest’s school had provided him with regular study halls and supportive faculty. All of these are critical for any young person, but especially those with ADHD. Under the right conditions, my children are excellent, intelligent students. I grieved as I watched them struggle, and mixed with my own challenges of keeping up with work in a disparate time zone, my family returned to the same pattern as before – we fought and yelled, I was constantly stressed, and I couldn’t fathom the pigsty my children were seemingly fine with living in.
I often find it difficult to comprehend their struggles. What seem like relatively simple challenges to neurotypicals can be monumental for those with ADHD. For example, in the case of motivation, most neurotypical people are able to see that things simply need to get done. This isn’t the case for people with ADHD. Video blogger Jessica McCabe of How to ADHD uses the analogy of a bridge. Whereas neurotypical people may have to cross a slightly rickety bridge to complete tasks, ADHDers’ bridges are full of holes. Because of their executive functioning struggles, they can’t just walk across. Instead, they have to create coping strategies to get across safely and effectively. These take time and effort to learn. I’m often tempted to tell my children to just “get things done,” but this doesn’t work for them. My oldest child, for example, has to make their projects engaging and challenging. In other words, they have to invent reasons to leap across their missing bridge. Simply seeing the other side isn’t enough of a motivator to meet deadlines.
In addition to impacting their motivation, COVID-19 has also brought a new wave of emotional struggles, which may be especially painful for people with ADHD. Although emotional symptoms aren’t included in the diagnostic criteria for ADHD in either the DSM-IV or ICD-10, recent research has shown that ADHD can be an emotional disorder as much as it is an attentional one. While I may see a messy bedroom as a sign of laziness or irresponsibility, my children see cleaning as difficult to prioritize when they’re straining to cope with their grief, fear, and loss in the wake of an unprecedented pandemic.
School has ended, giving us more time to spend together, in turn creating opportunities for me to better understand my children’s struggles. I’ve learned that ADHD is somewhat of a misnomer and that some researchers propose renaming it variable attention stimulus trait, or VAST. This term hopes to de-pathologize ADHD and instead focus on its emotional symptoms. In many cases, ADHD is not so much a deficit of attention so much as it is an abundance of it. When my children rapidly move from hobby to hobby, I see it as them giving up and possibly wasting money on another abandoned hobby – my children, on the other hand, see this as a way to develop new and varied interests. People with ADHD are naturally curious – my oldest, I’ve learned about sustainable agriculture, Chinese literature, the (confusing) world of video games, and social justice. My youngest has helped me better understand my genealogy and is also a passionate artist and scientist. Their own love of learning has challenged and inspired me to expand my own interests, turning me into a fan of MarioKart, 70’s sci-fi films, and Hatsune Miku.
Learning to cooperate with my ADHD family has turned me into a better problem solver and communicator. The productivity strategies that work for neurotypical folks often fail for those with ADHD, which means that I’ve learned new strategies and tools for how to get things done. This is especially relevant to my own work and has helped me become a better boss. I now have new ways to encourage my employees and great resources to give to families. Instead of punishing my son for failing to complete his chores, I’ve learned to be encouraging when he does do them – praise can be one of the best motivators for ADHDers, who may disproportionately feel the repercussions of perceived rejection or criticism. I’ve developed new approaches to conflict resolution, which has even improved my 25-year marriage.
Supporting three young adults with ADHD while in confinement has been challenging, to say the least. But I’m excited that for the first time in years, I actually get to spend Father’s Day with my children. Some dads might see Father’s Day as a chance for relief from their hectic families, but I view it as day for reflection. For me, being a father means committing to meeting my children’s needs and approaching them curiously. I’ll probably celebrate Father’s Day by barbequing a few steaks – my favorite hobby – but I’ll also be reminding myself that it’s a privilege to love, grow, study, and live alongside my neurodivergent children.
Living with three young adults, 10,485 kilometers from my wife and my company, has given me time to reflect on my personal situation. I’m separated from my wife and don’t know when I’ll be able to see her next, I’m managing a company that went through a severe shock from thousands of miles away, and I don’t have a home in which to live. In addition, I have a slow developing blood condition, CLL, that lessons my immunity, so I have to be extra careful to not catch the virus. One of my biggest concerns going forward will be finding a safe community in which to live. Lately, I’ve taken to wearing a N95 mask and a face shield when I’m out in public.
The word I use the most to describe how I most feel is “gravely uncertain” about my future. I don’t know when I’ll see my wife next, where I’ll be living in the next few months, or how our company will do in the recession. Meanwhile, I am so grateful for what I have – my family and my friends – and the resources to shelter in comfortable surroundings. And grateful for my Stanford experience, and looking forward to connecting with many of you in whatever ways we are able.