ABSTRACT
Retaining the focus on issues of gender and family from the previous chapter, the analysis in this chapter moves away from problem children to explore individual accounts of what it means to be a parent of a child with ADHD. In the two cases presented here, the condition of parenting a child with ADHD (Carpenter and Austin, 2008) produced feelings of guilt and responsibility, which led to positions of advocacy being taken up by each parent on behalf of their children. Parents adopted this position in order to regain some agency in decision-making processes regarding their children, however, the reverse effect was frequently experienced, with each parent facing repeated subversion of their identity, leading them further into a project of parenting according to medically conceived truths of behavioural disorder. I will begin by introducing the different perspectives on the relation between the family and ADHD, before moving to the analysis of the interview data.
