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: What If The Best Tradition Is No Tradition At All
We trade inherited expectations for rituals that fit real ADHD lives, from calm Christmas Eve boxes to comfort films and low-lift cheese boards. We also explore chosen family, breaking old rules, and giving yourself permission to redesign or skip tradition without guilt.
• choosing which traditions to keep and drop
• ADHD-friendly stockings with practical, joyful fillers
• simple Christmas Eve rituals that reduce overwhelm
• comfort films as co-regulation and connection
• food rituals like cheese boards and shared snacks
• games for low-pressure family time
• building chosen-family Boxing Day gatherings
• permission to reinvent or go untraditional
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
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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 moms with AD.
SPEAKER_00:We're the ADHD moms.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Jim. Claire is now completely reclined, just so you can picture her Godiva in a cream silk dress.
SPEAKER_00:It's not silk back, girl. What's on your hair today? What do you mean?
SPEAKER_03:It's like a product.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I can tell you a little story about my hair. Um the other day I washed it, right? Um I thought I'm trying to not blow dry it because my hair has gone so frizzy. Um don't know if it's the menopause, don't know if it's medication, whatever, whatever. So I'm trying to not put as much heat on it. Anyway, I've got this thing that like if you like sp you put it in your hair and then you like spin your hair around your fingers and it makes it like curly. Cute. Um I thought I'll do pink curls. Um, you know, so I did buddy them like really random and then went to sleep. And when I went No, that was my plan was to sleep in them. I know, but I'm laughing. I didn't bother like going into a mirror and sectioning them and making sure they all went the right way and all this. I just did it on my bed sitting there, not even looking in a mirror. The next morning I woke up and my hair was like it was like Ronald McDonald's. I kind of it was because I dyed it red as well. Well, it I dye it like orange, but it was really quite bright, and it was like my hair was like out to the top of me. It was like they were like went out to the side, it was like a cloud of hair, but the curls were all random, and some of them were like raggedy ass, so I couldn't even make it look good because I was like, if the intervast being good curls, I could rock this. Um and it was like I was due to go and pick my son up from school and take him into town, and I was running late, of course, and he's already just embarrassed to be seen with me when I pick him up.
SPEAKER_02:I have to really see I have to like walk in front of him.
SPEAKER_00:I have to walk a few steps in front of him to pretend I'm not with him when I'm in the school, so I just had to like then like pin it all up into some kind of French please at the back. But there were all these like random curls coming out of it. I'd managed to curl them in my fringe. I just looked absolutely ridiculous. And then I put my dress on as well, and and and I wear like these little compression socks that go to me, but they just look like black socks, and normally, because I'm wearing a long dress, it like covers and they look like tight, but I'd put my dress in the washing machine on two miles and my dress had shrunk, so I didn't realize until I left the house that it was like I looked like you could see my knees as well, and I just looked like a proper mad person.
SPEAKER_01:You just reminded me there that like when I was like first, very first getting together with the kid's dad in my twenties.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I had this like bestie flatmate, like we were like so close, yeah. Um, and she has now got her ADHD diagnosis and all that, like, but we didn't know at the time, but um, we had that ADHD bestie energy.
SPEAKER_01:I'm making me jealous.
SPEAKER_03:I did some sort of like hair placing at night once, and I had a date with him the next day, and I was just I didn't even think twice about like what my hair was gonna look like the next day. It was something to do that evening. We were just like messing, watching to watching a film or something. And when I woke up in the morning and went to the bathroom and like just was walking around taking out these plaits, and I remember when I first bumped into her, she like literally pissed everything slapping, and she was just saying, like, oh my god, why is she dressed as him?
SPEAKER_02:Because he had really long really long, really long curly hair didn't mean and she was going like, Oh my god, you psycho, you've you're going on this date and you just try and make yourself look as much like him as possible. Like, do you want me to draw a beard and mustache?
SPEAKER_03:And we were absolutely howling. Oh my god. Um, anyway, what we're here to talk about today is traditions, yeah. Um, the traditions of Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:Now we have mentioned them in all these other little episodes, but I mean you you can't if you're gonna talk about Christmas, you can't really escape it. So that's why we're repeating ourselves a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03:Of course, a lot of it is repeat like stuff because it's all on top here, isn't it? But the what we're discussing today with the traditions is like what impact do they have on you? Like, what's the tradition that's like what traditions are basically like dumped on you rather than gifted to you by your experience of life so far? Like and what traditions have you made or what could you make?
SPEAKER_00:Because we want to encourage, choose your own traditions, don't we choose what works for you? Don't do anything for tradition if it's gonna cause you or your kids any problems.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it can feel quite hard to like break your like family of origins traditions. Like, I think everyone goes through some aspect of struggle with that. Um, well, I say everyone, I don't know everyone's life, but a lot of people I've known and myself have had some aspects of like, oh yeah, my family always did this, but I don't want that for my kid for whatever reason, or or when you get together with someone else and you're raising a kid, you have totally different expectations of how you're doing Christmas. Yeah. Speaking of which, my children are at the door to get their Christmas jumpers. Beg in a minute. How lovely, Claire, I can't remember what we were saying, so I'm gonna give you traditions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I'm getting just got a new winter coat, which suddenly her old one didn't fit her anymore, so that's just come off into she's delighted with that. Yeah! No, it was the baby.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, the baby.
SPEAKER_03:But she's very fashionable, she likes how she looks and how it looks rather than how it feels. So the traditions we were talking about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, about making your own, choosing what ones you want to keep, what ones you want to get rid of. Yeah. Accidental traditions make me occur. Then you're saying you've had something on that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Which I've forgotten now because I've just had the tight version of seeing my kids for like two minutes. Um, but here's one of mine to start us off. Go on. So, in my family growing up, I have got two brothers, both half brothers, much older than me. So, in some respect, I was an only child in the sense of the only child. Yeah. Um and I used to stay in my auntie and uncles with my mum on Christmas Eve, and um my Christmas stocking, I think, is the Christmas presents that my mum provided. And it was massive long Christmas stocking, and um I've totally taken on her tradition of the Christmas stocking. Um it's limited in size because I use these gorgeous ones that a friend made for my girls when it was locked down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and but it's a decent size, but anyway, I do their Christmas stocking in the same way my mum did of like I've told you all thrilling filler, like it's all tiny things, but everything in there's like genuinely boss, it's not like like you know, party bag tat or whatever.
SPEAKER_00:It's like stock and filler as marketed as a stock and filler, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and and you know, sweets and stuff as well, but it's like so like f full and like it takes ages to go through it because it's like little wrapped tiny presents and stuff. Um that's off Santa.
SPEAKER_00:We never had stock and when I was growing up, we just had the presents off for the Christmas, and then they were off my parents, but they'd just been like being back.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, see, I mean well, mine were in a pillowcase and see my actual Prezies, um, and they were off my auntie and uncle, but it said Santa for years. But my uh kid's dad that his family had stockings up, but it was literally just like walnuts and shells and oranges in them.
SPEAKER_00:So it's like post-war.
SPEAKER_01:So that's proper Victorian tradition.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I introduced the Stockham with my son because I thought it was cute, and I saw one in the charity shop. This was when he was one. And his favourite toy was like a little drum thing. Um like a not a proper drum and like an electronic thing that played music, and the Stockham was a little drummer boy, and it was so cute. Oh god, and we still gotta still have that every year, yeah. And I just put in and that like little in lip get by like little things to go in there, same as you.
SPEAKER_03:Gorgeous, and I'm saying like like literally like a lip balm stiff and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Like, but it's things that you know that you'll actually want, not like just a bit of task. Yeah, not like you'd get out of a Christmas cracher or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I'm saying, yeah. Um so there's one of mine.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that's a cute one, and um one we have, as I've mentioned in a prior episode, is the Christmas Eve box. Oh yeah, and you actually love it. Yeah, I like that Christmas Eve experience with him where it's always frantic with me because everything's left to the last minute. But because that's his Christmas Eve tradition that he has his bath, and then we sit down and we either read or watch something or whatever, um it gives me a bit of time to just time out, focus on him and me. Um yeah, that's very lovely.
SPEAKER_03:There's one that I really miss from my um childhood because my family's only just stopped doing like the elders doing Christmas for us all, my auntie and uncle basically, um after my uncle died a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um so it's all still kind of like getting used to that. Like when you've lived like nearly 40 years doing it this way, and my auntie is of tradition, my word. Like it's so it's so like definite once something's been done a few times with her, it's kind of just like, well, that's how we do it, you know, sort of thing. So traditions are really big with my family because of her as the kind of keeper together of us all, and the main host. Um, so it's weird like finding our feet, and yeah, just um one that I miss is we used to all go around to theirs Christmas Eve, and um she did not do things by halves, like they were like 15 or 20 different cheeses, yeah, and crackers and bread and butter, and like that is my jam, that is my favourite dinner, just cheese and crackers and butter, yeah, all these different cheeses, it was boss, and then they started to pair it back over the years, but um I'm I missed that, so maybe I should do some cute little form of that for myself. Like maybe I should introduce like me me baby loves cheese, my eldest doesn't eat it, but that's her, isn't it? That's just how it's gonna be at the moment. Yeah. Maybe I should introduce the Christmas Eve cheese board because that would be like very much giving my inner child a lot of love and honouring that little family tradition that I did enjoy.
SPEAKER_00:Me and my co-parent used to do it on Christmas Eve, like cheese and snacks, and that after my son had gone to bed. Did you hell? Until it just got too much, like I was always wrapping presents on Christmas Eve, so we didn't have that time to sit down. But me and my partner before my son the very first time was only two years ago that my son wasn't with me on Christmas Day. He used to always go to his dad on Boxing Day, and that's when me and my partner would get together and we'd like have loads of Bailey's, eat loads of cheese, leftover Christmas dinner stuff, um, watch movies, and I always have to watch like a Hitchcock movie at Christmas because that reminds me of my childhood so much. Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_03:Um's is Christmassy for me. Faulty Towers and Mr. Bean. Uh oh, I hate Mr. Bean so I don't like Mr. Bean at all. I can't watch him now. My kids love him.
SPEAKER_00:Well, um I always remember watching Hitchcock with like my dad, and now my son will watch them with me as well. And last week was Hitchcock for the first time. I showed him It's a Wonderful Life. We were actually meant to go to um the cinema to watch it, but there was a storeman or something, so we just watched it at home and he did love it, and I love that film, so I'm gonna try and get that to be a tradition that we watched that every year. He's asked to watch Charlie Brown Christmas special, which we must have watched another year. Um so I'm looking forward to that as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Christmas film traditions. I'm thinking, have I got a Christmas film? Oh, my baby. This year she she became obsessed with Home Alone franchise. Like in about March, it started, and she asks every Friday when we have our film night. She says, like, Can we watch Home Alone? Oh wow, or can we watch Home Alone 2, Lost in New York? Oh, can we watch Home Alone 3, the one with you? There's the woman one. Or um, it's like, yeah, she loves Home Alone, so we'll have to watch Home Alone. Aww. Um, that should be a bit of a trad Christmas movie, and there's something else that I love as a Christmas movie. Can't think, obviously, because I'm trying to think about Christmas Christmas. Oh my god, my baby's still too young for that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:I know, because it tells you that Father Christmas isn't real.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, thank you for letting me know.
SPEAKER_00:Jeez, yeah, that's definitely too young for my kids. That was actually when I got confirmation that Father Christmas didn't exist. Because I was like, if it's in a film, then that's confirmation.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, nightmare before Christmas. That's a good one to watch. Oh, yeah. I'd like to make that a bit of a chad. Oh, she's got an alarm going off. Yeah, and the alarm, guys. I won't go into it, of course, because it's someone's private business, but I'm going to, while my children are not with me, I'm going to denit someone else's children.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, she's going to do some delicing. Like Florence Nightingale. Nittinora, like Martha. Nittinora, that's what we used to call. The woman who came in to check. Yeah. Did you used to have that when you were at school? Of course I've not just come up with that.
SPEAKER_03:And what was they on about before my alarm distracted me?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you know where I used to love wait my submanny was little the Christmas books. Oh, yeah, I've got a load of them kept out ready. I must start on them and please them in the advent, like Christmas books at night time every night. Oh, that's nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I'll do that. Oh, that's what I was saying. I want to have a thing like you had of Boxing Day, because again, when I was a kid, it was go to my other aunties. Yeah. And I was telling you before, like, it was just so warm and like fun and like down to earth in a way that like the rest of my family wasn't at that level of like just chill and be yourself and be be really warm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, there's a bit more like I don't know what to call it.
SPEAKER_00:But um Do you know what I love, which I know lots of people might not love? I love a board game. So after our Christmas meal, like in the evening, because we'd have our Christmas meal, then we'd have like a dessert course, then we'd have some cheese course, and then it'd be games. And I used to love games.
SPEAKER_03:With your family at home.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Oh see, that sounds a lot more connected than together than I pictured, but it was Christmas, right?
SPEAKER_00:Oh no, this is more like in in recent times like that. When I was a kid, it was just chaos. Oh we used to go to my nanas, and obviously my mum is one or seven, and they've all got two or three kids, and they'd all go to the pub and leave us kids all in the house. Wow. With your nan. No. Everyone all the adults were in the pub. There was like one to one of the two. Um and uh luckily a pub's closed half day on Christmas Day. So they had to go. So they come over, but they'd all be pissed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but I'm on a boxing life thing. There's some other mates of mine who are like a gorgeous gang who are like again. It's like when I was at school where I've got like oh loads of mates, but like these the this crew are like a crew and they definitely like welcome me, but I I know I'm not one of the crew. I'm like a a a guest member and I love them all. It's mates from the music world in in our teens and twenties, you know, but they were tight. Yeah, and I was like floating around and doing this and that and this and that, whereas they were social boss of the end, Genevieve.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it leaves you a bit like no, but everyone everyone always wants you out, but you know, yeah, they'd love you to be part of their crew, I'm sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I'm in the group chat with them. There's about 20 of them, and they've all most of them have got kids now, and of course, you know, a lot of them are enzy, or they're just you know, they they do things their own way. I I mean the parents, not the kids, but they've had this tradition for years since before kids came along, and now it's just expanding into a more and more family-friendly thing where they hire out this church hall thing, it's not expensive, it's like a kind of community centre type place. Yeah, they hire it on Boxing Day when no one's ever wanted to hire it, and they make a big roast in the kitchen there, that's cool, and they all just have like a big Boxing Day booze up Christmas party type thing. I love it. And I've always kind of toyed with going, I always get invited, but it's that feeling of like, oh, but I'm not actually, you know, one of those. Oh come yeah, I know, I love all of them, and I know they love me, so I should just go on yeah, yeah. But um, that what a fucking great tradition to set up between friends, and now they're becoming more and more and more and more family as their children have come along and become first gener second generation friends, and like well, because my son is only child and he doesn't have any cousins or anything that live near us.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Like I've already seen you and your sister-in-law as like my my son's sort of extended family in Liverpool, so I like to try and like I had to use all of them for a Christmas party last year's.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that was so nice, and that was a lovely part of you knowing that you were moving house, wasn't it? Or or work, yeah. You'd just got your house together. That was it. Oh, that was it. You'd had the big overhaul, hadn't you? Um that was so nice. I think doing things like that, I think there's another thing, even though we're kind of a lot of the focus on these little advent calendar episodes is like take the pressure off. That actually reminds me to encourage and inspire you to go for it though, if it's within your means, within your budget, within your capacity. Like don't put everything off because things like that, like that took a lot of effort from you to make that happen. That party, like, there was like you had all sorts of lovely food on, and you'd cleared the house a lot for it, and like you had loads of people around.
SPEAKER_00:That's knackering if you're not in the the best place, like energy-wise, but like the photos and the memories from that I was looking at them yesterday, that's what reminded me because I've been clearing all my photos out, and I keep thinking how can I get together with all of them before I go into hospital, but it's like my flat a bit small for like little ones and that maybe we should think of somewhere we could we could all go together.
SPEAKER_03:That's how I think because that's a good point. It'd be nice to do a Christmas thing with you and your son as well.
SPEAKER_00:Because I think that's like new traditions, is to to remember about your chosen family as well, which can be because sometimes family relations can be difficult and it all all comes out this time of year, doesn't it? I know the thing about change and traditions from like when you were young and stuff, it's all like recognising aging and growing. There's so much stuff going on, isn't there? Like um that mate taking time out with just your people, you're your mates, who you've chosen to be your mate can be good, and you can find it.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of the time know your best, yeah. Yeah, and love your best. I've gotta say, I'm sorry, but a lot of the time with people's family, it might be that they're like friends, they're dear friends who, yeah, you keep choosing each other. Like show your love in a in a better way than than like family members. Do you know what I mean? I'm just saying, give space.
SPEAKER_00:If you present yourself in your most authentic way with your chosen people, then perhaps you know you're loved for your authentic self in a different way than your family can because for me it's like I don't always present myself as myself to my family, yeah. But then I guess I guess you've gotta remember they've known you since you were a kid and all this, so they know different parts of you. But yeah, I think make time for people who refresh you and and it uplift you at a time that can be full of weird and uh uh like situations that you find yourself in with extended family and family members and stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and before we go, I want to flip side it again and say we're focusing a lot on like traditions and like what traditions can you make? What do you want to make a tradition? Blah blah blah. We're ADHD people. If we want to rock through every year of our life, treating Christmas like a new experience, that is absolutely fantastic. Like, go for it. Like, if you and your family and your crew and your kids like are okay to like take every year as it comes, do like do new things every year, like be like untraditional, then that's boss too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, chaos can ensue if you want it to, and you roll with her.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so raise a fist and say it with us since it's in Christmas.
