The ADHD MUMS Pod
Real talk from two ADHD mums in the thick of parenting, chaos, and clutter. Gen and Claire share honest highs and lows of neuro-divergent life. We are Mums, but you don't have to be to listen!
We share real, unfiltered stories about parenting, neurodivergence, and daily struggles like executive dysfunction, disorganisation, overstimulation, and Mum guilt. We also celebrate the wins—big or small—with honesty and laughter.
We're both AFAB and biological mums, but this space is for all parents, ADHDers, curious minds, and —even your pets. Everyone’s welcome.
We do swear though, so you probably need headphones if there's kids around!
The ADHD MUMS Pod
ADVENT CHAOS CALENDAR! Letting Go Of Guilt Makes A Better Xmas
Two ADHD mums and single parents reframe Christmas around connection, calm, and clear boundaries, not performance or perfection. We share real co-parenting wins, honest heartbreak, and practical tools for making a “fake Christmas” feel just as special.
• prioritizing felt joy over performative holidays
• simplifying meals with one-pot plans and lighter chores
• resisting social media pressure and comparison
• co-parenting options from shared mornings to firm boundaries
• child-led schedules and alternating traditions
• planning a separate “fake Christmas” that feels real
• coping with the day without your kids
• clear communication about kids’ dynamics with friends
• reframing the run-up anxiety versus the actual day
Further TW: This podcast references at times: alcohol abuse, depression, mood disorders, medical emergency, miscarriage, traffic accidents, grief and loss, teen pregnancy, anxiety, abuse, PDA, low self esteem, and anti-depressant medications, disordered eating, hoarding...
All music written and produced by Ash Doc Horror Lerczak.
Artwork by Gen
For more information about us, our podcast and our ADHD MUMS community, visit OUR WEBSITE.
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Let's get ADHD MUMS up the pod charts and raise awareness when we all need it most!
See you next Wednesday! xxx
It's a roll up to Christmas and we're not with AD.
SPEAKER_01:We're the ADHD mums.
SPEAKER_00:I'm Cla and I'm Jen. And we're both single mothers. Sure. Sure are.
SPEAKER_01:So we'll focus on that, won't we?
SPEAKER_00:That's what we're talking to about today.
SPEAKER_01:But as we've said in previous, whether you're single or not, the mother bears the load, usually. Yes. And if you're not a mother, uh you just listen to us, anyway. There's other podcasts as well, you know. No, stay here. Um go go over to Dad's Rights Matter. Um, yeah, yeah. So it's hard. It's been in a single moment, isn't it, Dave?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and at Christmas, there's a lot to sort out. Yeah. So we've thought about the things that would help.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and we're basically saying you're you're gonna be expecting yourself to like provide and perform and create, but like try and focus on the joy above that. So obviously your your goal is probably gonna always be to provide a lovely Christmas for your kids or for whoever you're providing it for, but try and like pair back and think, no, what's actually just feels nice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, feeling like the connection with your children and the connection with people and what the you know the what Christmas is actually about, yes, that type of thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And um we we looked for like ideas online to me we googled, um, and there was something that came up that was what make one pot dinners. Um and Claire was like, don't know what that is. I was like, What?
SPEAKER_01:I do know what it is relevant. I do know what a one-pot dinner is, but the the actual quote is what? Nah, make one pot dinners and no guilt your Christmas motto. I really get that.
SPEAKER_00:And Jen, Jen likes it. Go on. I separated them though. Yeah, I think just no guilt together as one thing. Well, I suppose because you're so guilt and not doing all the trimmings, are you, when you do a one-pot dinner?
SPEAKER_01:It's just I was a meaning for your Christmas dinner.
SPEAKER_00:No. Do you just mean? You've best be guilty if you're doing a laser. No, I'm messing, I'm joking. Some people are really good, like alternatives.
SPEAKER_01:Who thinks I'm making a big castle? Oh man, just throw some stuff in the air fryer. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking one pot dinner. That sounds harder than what I know. Okay, okay, yeah, fair enough. So it's like saying um minimize your household chores a bit in December, isn't it? Yeah. Because it's a hard month because you've got loads of Christmassy stuff going on. Yeah. Okay, I understand now. And I've no guilt about that. Like, yeah, cut back on your household chores and your cooking and make just make life easier for yourself. There's always justice. Is there even over Christmas time? Did somebody say just dear?
SPEAKER_00:Although we're talking finance, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01:You know, not everyone celebrates Christmas, so yeah, there is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, true. Okay. Um, then we uh we heard the lovely idea about co-parenting with a friend instead of a partner. Yes, like at Christmas time, so gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01:That one's lovely, like do your rapping together. Yeah, I mean yeah, have lovely little even if that's over Zoom, like as a like you know, because you might not want to lug all your presents to someone else, but you could you could share the actual day with someone.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, like if you're a single parent and um you know there's a lot to it, isn't it? And kids would have to be compatible realistically, otherwise you'd just be too stressed.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I just think all kids are compatible.
SPEAKER_00:God, you haven't parented my child. My daughter just like says, no way, yeah, at play dates with like most people that I would like to hang out with the more. She's just like, absolutely not. When we were four, he kicked a rock at me in the yard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Never again getting a chance, and they'd been like quite like friendly. No, that doesn't happen with me. I think your kids have to be good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think come on, your your son would have has gone through many ways, years where he would refuse to like have a a day together with me and my kids because they're so much younger and they're two little girls. No. I thought they he he had reached that stage long ago.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. He's he he's he's often says to me, When can we hang out with Jeb? I thought it was the other way round. I thought your your torso isn't like hanging out with my son.
SPEAKER_00:They struggle, don't they, when they're with my nephew and niece, because there's like a dynamic where like he is older and they're you know and cooler and then they get ignored by the other.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, he's like best friends of your nephew and niece, isn't he? So then there becomes a bit of a power struggle for who gets the attention.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. The older ones all want to go off, so then mine are destroyed.
SPEAKER_01:He's happily, hang out with the many, and that power struggle also doesn't really bother him.
SPEAKER_00:Well, look, so listen, guys, this is this is really reminding, yeah, about fucking communication. Yeah. We've both been spent years thinking who was the other ones kid. They wouldn't want to hang out.
SPEAKER_01:No, I thought I thought your daughter thought my son was annoying.
SPEAKER_00:I thought your son had verbalised that he found my daughter annoying. Oh, he did when he was younger, but he it's he'll still hang around with them because he's. I think she doesn't find him annoying. I think she knows he's annoyed by her, is the dynamic.
SPEAKER_01:He sees them as family, so like it's more like, yeah, you might be annoyed, but he still just get on with it.
SPEAKER_00:Well then, she just knows that he doesn't like it.
SPEAKER_01:And he's doing it, he wouldn't be annoyed either. He's much. Well, there we go.
SPEAKER_00:Guys, the Christmas spirit is amongst us. We're gonna start getting our kids together.
SPEAKER_01:No, my son, although he doesn't he he's got his own things, he's quite C C going about who he hangs around with. He's like just up for hanging around with other people, to be honest, because he's an only child, I think. Yeah, he's like, and he's about to be not an only child as well. Oh my god, that's happening this Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think we've gone off track, haven't we? Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_00:We have we're single mums with no Christmas energy, that's all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and what about this whole choose and toy over performance? Like, a lot of people just do stuff for the gram or for the TikTok, don't they? Don't we know it? Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's like the gram traditions as well. That's a whole nother layer of traditions.
SPEAKER_01:Like the matching pajamas is is now the thing. Actually, like we've never done that, but um last year my partner's mum bought us matching pajamas. So we we had a picture of us in them, I think, on New Year's Eve. Not like a post picture, and there's input on the grammar just sent it to my mates to go, ah, I was in matching pajamas.
SPEAKER_00:It was gorgeous, actually.
SPEAKER_01:But we've still got them, so we probably might wear them this year. We probably might. Maybe on Christmas Eve, but yeah, I don't post on Instagram, I haven't done for a good couple of years now. No, you haven't.
SPEAKER_00:I'm surprised you haven't taken it down in a way, just because it's like one of those relic Instagrams now where it's like old pictures of you and your kids. Like I'm not bad about taking it down, really.
SPEAKER_01:Like, if it starts being like dead toxic, like beyond what it already is, I might take it down. But I don't mind like having one, I I occasionally look on there. Yeah. If like I come across somebody I'm interested in, a new celebrity or something, I might have a look at their gram.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's it. Yeah, don't be doing shit for the gram. That's not that's just gonna add to your plate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um and what other things co-peer and when you're a single mum, if you're lucky enough to be like us that you still got a sort of um relationship with the co-parents.
SPEAKER_00:That's joining in on parenting the children.
SPEAKER_01:There's things to negotiate around that, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a lot.
SPEAKER_01:So my son's dad, until my son was I think I was ten or eleven, he had every Christmas with me. Because when my son's dad left me, I said, if you think you ever take me kid for Christmas, it's not happening. Yeah. But um, so and he was like wanted to be there on Christmas morning when he opened his presents, so he asked me if he could stay in mine on Christmas Eve. So he used to have every Christmas Eve in mine until um She means he used to sleep over.
SPEAKER_00:I still can't believe he managed that.
SPEAKER_01:He'd sleep over and then my son would be made up. He he he he loved it because he used to sleep in his room sometimes, or it like I had to stay for bed and downstairs. But then he got married, and his wife who has family down south, he saw his go with Air for Christmas, and then one year she wasn't, so he wanted to be with her for Christmas Eve, and my son that year had said, Don't you think it'd be more fair if like I had Christmas with my dad sometimes? And I thought, well, you know, old enough now, that's fair enough.
SPEAKER_00:So it's mad how all these bigger changes have come from him.
SPEAKER_01:Oh well, yeah, because that's it. I do child-led parenting. So we done swapsies of um Christmas now. Um but now what we do is on the morning of Christmas, the one whose house it's not in because we swap will go around and have Christmas morning with them. And now my partner comes and his wife is there, so now it's the four of us, and his wife introduced a new tradition where what they used to do is they'd have a pillowcase, and each person would have a present from each other person in the pillowcase. So, like, because there's four of us, there'd be three presents wrapped in the pillowcase or just in it? No wrapped in there, yeah. Um so, but then it's like we'd put a few little gifts in each of that, so that's cute, and then we all open those on the morning. It's just like token presents like chocolate and stuff like this, and it's cute. So if you can manage to do stuff like that with your cope, but sometimes it's just not possible, is it?
SPEAKER_00:God no, I mean uh uh like when you talk about that and I kind of like personalise it, I just think like boundaries were such an important thing for me after separating, like creating them and like trying to like retain them and then they would drop and then rebuilding them because that was necessary again. Like it was just it was not gonna be like emotionally possible for me to attempt to like co-parent in that really like together way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um I had to work really hard to do that because you know, my partner I'd I've never really talked about this before, but he left me and I was heartbroken. So that first Christmas to have him staying in my house was very, very difficult. But I I wasn't strong with my boundaries.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, obviously all different people's like dynamics are different in terms of emotional safety and you know what what what your co-parent is capable of in their own like mental, you know, space, you know, what they're capable of acting like with you and you know, if if that's predictable or not. All of it, like it's very, very fair. Well, no, absolutely. We we neither of us know what like true single mum life is like, do we, with no no respite and no other parent.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and we absolutely think those people are the the best goddesses.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god, like I don't know how don't know how they do it. Well, I don't know. Like I don't want to be a Grinch, but like you do I don't know. Like my mum was one of them and she was not a maternal goddess. My childhood was horrendous in some ways. So I don't know, I wouldn't make a statement like that personally. I just think like, wow, good on you if you're managing a tall fucking power.
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm not suggesting like domestic goddess, like fucking Nigel. I know, I just I'm just saying I want to give them the prop. Yeah, yeah, good on you if you're doing it, like you know power to you, like well amazing, and I bet you our lovely listeners now in these more enlightened times are probably doing a better job than our parents who you know it was the wild west of parenting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Back in the 80s and 70s and 90s for you.
SPEAKER_00:So definitely. Um, but for me, the lucky thing with the co-parenting dynamic was that he in his culture the main Christmas celebration is on Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it just worked out that like my children were gonna go to him the night before Christmas Eve, have their kind of Eve of Christmas with him, and then have Christmas Day type day on Christmas Eve with him, and then they would come to me Christmas morning. Yeah. Um, and so obviously I had to let go of experiencing Christmas Eve with them. Like I don't as a rule have Christmas Eve with them. But again, it's been one of the like separated family experiences that I've had that I've been really like I don't know if it's proud of myself, but just very like relieved and pleased that like I've been really, really, really adaptable and resilient and able to just say that's okay. You know, that's something that I'm not gonna experience with them. They're still having Christmas Eve happy and loved and excited. Yeah. Let me look for the positives here. So I've kind of just thought, you know, I don't have the tense side of that because I would find Christmas Eve, I think, probably quite like exhausting with their kind of them into bed, yeah, and all that stuff, and like I'm sure lovely, um, but I just have rolled with the punches and been like, okay, uh I'm I'm just able to focus on them and think they're having it and that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but then this year's a bit different because he's asked to take them away for Christmas, yeah. So I'm kind of like, oh god, that was a bit of a like blow initially, but you've encouraged me to do the like to set the date kind of thing for my fake Christmas, and so I've organised all that now. I've invited my family over, I've made a little invite, sent it out on the WhatsApp, I've told them like what bevies we're having, we're gonna have an all-day buffet.
SPEAKER_01:And this is the thing to remember, because I remember the first year I was without my son for Christmas. I I was so dreading it in the run-up, and it's a gut punch, and you feel it like it, grief and all this, because I never ever wanted that to happen. But it's just one day, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:This is the thing, and again, it's like I am looking forward to our Christmas. Like, I've I'd I think you encouraged me and gave me the idea, yeah, you did last week saying do a Christmas Eve, and a Christmas day, on a boxing date.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I'm doing because I'm doing an early one. And I used I was thinking I was saying I used to have one with me nan early, and I loved it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so I've put that in. My family are invited, they're really looking forward to it because it's like before the Christmas like rush and stress, and like we're just gonna be able to chill all day. It's not gonna be a problem with trains, so they can I've said that I'll either make up beds for you or the trains will be on till like almost midnight.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so they can have a bevy, like you know, I'll be able to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like the pressure. Kids can appreciate them more because they're getting them spread out rather than all at once.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely, and definitely, and I get to have because I've worked it out, and I'll do this every year now. I will get to have Christmas Eve with my kids. I'll do some form of it every year, you know, even if we I don't know, no, it probably won't if they were the dad Christmas Eve, but you know what I'm saying. Like, I'm gonna get to have a few.
SPEAKER_01:If he finds it really enjoyable and they do, you might want to repeat it every year. You might think this was lovely and I want to do it again.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of Christmases they'll be with me on Christmas Day, though, won't they, anyway? Like afterwards, but maybe then we're going to another family member, and so maybe I'll do a Christmas party every year, and on the night before that we'll have our version of Christmas Eve, yeah. Um but I'm really looking forward to it, and it really reminds me the when you're separated and your children are going off to another parent, these days, like if you're able to, if you can separate it in your head and just be like, as long as they're having a good time on the day, I can make our good time around this like seasonal festive holiday or whatever, whenever, and it can be just as good, and then they get two that are just as good, and like it's another thing, isn't it? What how you're gonna feel yourself on the day when you're not with them, and we've discussed that like not wanting to be with other kids on the day if you're not with your own and stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because it can be a bit like triggering. So the first year I was out with without him, I was with my partner's family, and we went to his grandparents, and it was the most relaxing Christmas I'd had in years. I could just have a drink and yeah, you speak about that one so fondly. Well, both of his grandparents died shortly after that, so I'm so glad that I had that with them as well. Yeah, exactly. But so it was the run-up to not being with them that was worse than the actual day of not being with them. So if you're in that situation, just know that it's just one day and you'll get through. Even if they're going away for a bit, it's just a few days.
SPEAKER_00:Well, their dad's actually started to say, Oh, well, actually, the um I'm managing to not do an impression of his voice, which is really hard for me. Um, oh well, actually, like the family that was gonna come and stay at my mum's might not be coming now. So uh, but again, with the boundaries and co-parenting, I've just kind of paid not much interest and sort of said, Well, we've worked out ours now, so I guess you're still going to your mum's.
SPEAKER_01:You're gonna have to do it. We've kind of like oh, because that's what the kids think is happening.
SPEAKER_00:No, of course not. So, anyway, that's that's up to him to that. But um, yeah, we've better hurry along.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, raise a fist and say it with us.
