Steve:

Okay, thank you. And is there a point where you start to see those differences exacerbated as they become adults?

Claire:Yes, I think a lot of women would report that I think the older the child gets, the more society demands of them. And I think if we look at this within the wider picture of still some of those gender stereotypes that are very prominent, I think we've moved forward a great deal in that realm. But I would argue that there is still this very much underpinning expectation that women have and should fulfil certain requirements within our wider society. That, of course, is the mother, which is obviously a very primary role for many women, but not all. But also, I think, maybe the home keeper, as well, again, I think we've moved way forward in that in that mindset.

But I think it would still be reasonable to assume that that may well fall more to females than men. Of course, I want to be careful in saying that, that is not automatic. But if we were to think within that framework where maybe women are expected to be the primary caregiver to their children. I mean, that's a huge pressure in itself and requires a considerable amount of organization. And, as we know, kind of thinking about ADHD and those experiences and those symptoms, and understanding that, that a primary area of difficulty is within that executive functioning realm where you've got planning, organization, sequencing, remembering, judgment, you've got all of these sorts of higher-order executive functioning skills, which a number of people with ADHD have considerable difficulties in.

So where you've got society sort of expecting women to have it all together, to run a family, and may well be working alongside that, which is very, very often the case. You've got lots and lots and lots of plates spinning. And I think one of the things that comes through for women, when I meet with them, is this sense of things being just very overwhelming and incredibly stressful.

So if you then think about how you process some of that, and how do you try and organize yourself, when that's quite a fundamental challenge, just simply because of the way your brain is wired. And you can imagine the challenge for women who don't get that diagnosis whose challenges aren't officially recognized. That then becomes kind of certain names and labels that women can attract. She's scatty. She's all over the place, she's unreliable.

And then of course, underneath all that comes that sense of your own identity in wanting to do the best that you can do. And I think that comes through really clearly in the women that I've met, where they feel that everything's falling apart, and have just, well, but very often attributed that to their own failings and things that they haven't got right. Whereas it's really about some of those societal pressures, which are very unwritten, but I think very prominent everywhere. And there is this need for women to sort of fall in line with some of these.

And of course, it's not a choice that you can't do that. It's, well, "I want to do this and I want to do that" and always thinking ahead, planning loads of things, wanting to get it all right. And then there's this kind of crescendo where those plans all sort of all unravelled because they were put together in such a kind of impulsive or poorly thought through, poorly planned way that things then don't work out, which of course, leaves that, that women sort of feeling. Well, I've, I've messed it all up again. Which of course, none of that is ever intentional, but can often be the outcome. And I don't think that's really recognized or supported. I think there's just an automatic assumption that women can just do that whereas we know that's not the case.

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