Welcome back to season three of The New Fatherhood podcast.
Life with children can often feel overwhelming. And, in a way, that’s what this episode is all about.
But before you hit play, I have to confess something.
This interview was recorded three years ago. Not last month. Not over the summer. Three years ago, I sat down with a writer and father of three Jesse J Anderson, also known as ADHD Jesse. I asked him everything I could think of about ADHD and came away from that conversation promising myself that I was going to book myself an assessment to find out if I had ADHD too.
And then I did nothing. For three years. Why? Because nothing was on fire. There was no deadline. Nobody was waiting on it. Jesse was generous with his time and his experience, and I repaid him by leaving our conversation in edit purgatory for years.
I’ve always struggled to understand my relationship with effort and output. I’ve been writing the newsletter, almost weekly, for five years. I wrote a book. I’ve read every productivity book there is. I built systems for everything. But somewhere in my thirties it started to dawn on me that they weren’t systems at all—they were coping mechanisms. Scaffolding I’d built around something I couldn’t see and had never named.
Here’s what my life actually looks like behind the curtain: I can’t start anything without a deadline thundering towards me. The newsletter goes out once a week, and that’s the only reason it goes out at all. I’m terrified of being told no in a way that is completely out of proportion. There’s a name for this, you’ll hear Jesse explain it, and when I first came across it I had to close my laptop to go for a walk. It’s why I can spend years writing a book and then find it almost physically impossible to send an email that tells anyone it exists.
There’s a gap I think about a lot. And it isn’t the gap between being a good dad and a bad one. But the gap between the dad you are, in your worst moment, and the one you aspire to be. We treat that gap as a character flaw. But what if it isn’t? What if something has always been there, invisible, pulling the strings—and you’ve spent forty years blaming yourself?
Jesse knows all about that gap. In this episode, you’ll hear us talking about t-shirt tags and lunchtime detention. About the four things that actually motivate the ADHD brain, and why “because it’s important” isn’t one of them. And we talk about watching your own kid struggle with the same things you struggle with, and how it feels to know precisely what’s coming.
Make sure to listen to the end, because when this is over, I’ll tell you what happened when I finally did the thing I promised all those years ago.
This season of The New Fatherhood is presented by Matic. Matic was founded by two fathers who love technology and wanted to spend less time cleaning the house and more time playing with their kids. That’s about as on-brand for this newsletter as it gets. It’s a floor-cleaning robot that vacuums and mops on its own, builds a 3D map of your house using cameras on board, and keeps all that data on the device rather than in the cloud. WIRED gave it a 10/10, the only perfect score their reviewer had given in over a decade. Readers of The New Fatherhood get a free annual bag pass; go to maticrobots.com/fatherhood and take vacuuming and mopping off your chore list.
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Subscribe to the Podcast
Where to Find Jesse
Extra Focus newsletter at extrafocus.com
Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD at extrafocusbook.com
Episode References
Dr William Dodson’s interest-based nervous system (NICU framework)
Superparenting for ADD by Edward M. Hallowell and Peter S. Jensen
Timecodes
0:00 — intro: why this episode is three years late
5:04 — getting diagnosed at 36
8:00 — rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)
11:39 — parenting kids with ADHD
19:29 — the Four C’s of motivation
26:34 — positive reinforcement as superfuel
28:13 — presented by Matic
33:46 — advice for parents: assume the best intentions
36:41 — experimenting with medication
43:54 — Kevin’s own ADHD assessment
Credits
Host: Kevin Maguire
Managing Producer/Editor: Elizabeth Van Brocklin
Sound Editor: Sam Williams
Theme Music: SOHN
