Thoughts on the experience of boyhood and politics of ADHD

2025-05-17

Writing for Unherd magazine in an article titled ADHD medicine has failed boys Valerie Stivers notes the following:

Given such results and the difficulties of finding a biological cause, Sonuga-Barke proposes that we view ADHD not as a medical problem, but one of “misalignment” between what he tactfully calls “a child’s biological makeup” — but could also easily be called a child’s personality and situation in life — and “the environment in which they are trying to function.”

I do not know how it feels to be a girl, so I will limit this article to boyhood and to my experience in particular. There is a noticeable number of boys who, like younger me, are naturally energetic (I still am). We are boisterous and seemingly in perpetual motion. We play-fight at every opportunity and will even kick each other with great force while competing, such as in sport. Our violence is not evil though. We merely seek an outlet for our natural propensities to be aggressive. At a more subtle level, we socialise with other boys by better understanding their limits and by testing that their claims are true (more on this below).

This makes sense biologically, as males have the capacity to be violent and predatory. These are not necessary evils, though pretentious social norms want them to appear that way. Violence is problematic only when it is used frivolously. It is a force for good when it is employed in the service of safeguarding values and protecting the weakest members of society. Same for being predatory: it is what drives us to hunt, i.e. provide highly nutritious food including to those who cannot hunt for themselves (babies and the elderly, for instance), but also to explore and to face challenges head on. Violence and the sense of adventure can be pro-social behaviours and it is a dangerous mistake to brand them as undesirable a priori. A society that is on the whole reluctant to push the boundaries is superseded by those that continuously improve.

I remember when I was promoted to train with the adults at my local football club. I was fourteen at the time. The difference in strength between a young teenager and a fully grown man is massive. We did the drills and were about to have an 11-a-side match. A tough guy who was five years my senior told me “you should not be here kid; I will cut you down.” I was playing in central midfield and he was the defensive midfielder on the opposing team, meaning that we would be challenging each other for the entire match. Upon receiving the first pass, I see him coming at me with a flying tackle that I barely skipped. I realised he meant what he said. Instead of backing off, I told him to not question my resolve (well, I actually said something less polite). When he got the ball at the next passage of play, I came in with a crunching tackle that flattened him to the ground. He complained about foul play, to which I responded with “go cry to your mummy, bitch.” After the match, we hugged each other and became close friends. He took good care of me and would always buy me a drink whenever we would meet downtown. Sounds crazy, I know. This is what some boys do all the time. I understand that girls in particular cannot relate to this experience, which is fine: just do not demonise it. Same for bureaucrats and decision-makers who either never had this in their life or forgot how it feels. It is how some of us develop respect for each other, while also making ourselves more resilient in the process. If you are weak but talk big, you will quickly learn to only say what you can actually do, which is a valuable lesson for life.

Where Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is typically made manifest is at school. The institution of public schooling is not designed in accordance with biological needs. It is a one-size-fits-all model that is optimised for the lowest common denominator. Boys who need action and who thrive in the sort of physically competitive environment I outlined above will definitely find 8+ hours of sitting at a desk extremely uncomfortable. They will rebel to the forced confinement and seek ways to make their frustration clear. This is no different to how a dog chews on your shoes and your furniture when you do not provide it with enough physical exercise. These boys need hours of daily exercise just to come down to whatever baseline of passivity the school assumes as normal (“normal” in the sense of “normative” but also “baseline”).

Public schooling is not designed to tend to the needs of children and teenagers, but to meet the demands of the workplace. It takes students away from their home to (i) indoctrinate them more effectively in state dogma and (ii) keep the parents free from parenting duties so they can work for longer. Paraeducation, of the form of after-school schooling, has the same effect.

Then there is the way classes are taught. The one-size-fits-all model reduces learning to an exercise in parroting. Students are discouraged from thinking for themselves and are instead trained to perform at standardised exams. Sure, teachers and policymakers extol the virtues of critical thinking, but will fiercely repress it when they encounter it. I was at the receiving end of such oppressive arbitrariness on many occasions. In one case at a language course, I used a perfectly valid, albeit archaic, form of a common word. The ever pedantic teacher marked my text with a bad grade because I had not learnt the lesson of proper modern Greek grammar. I protested the disproportionate treatment on the grounds that my language was unambiguous, perfectly intelligible to a Greek speaker, and correct in its formulation. But when the development of so-called “critical thinking skills” is but a fig leaf to distract from the mindlessness of parroting, there is no recourse to reason. For boys who are naturally inclined to build respect by testing each other’s qualities (like me and my friend kicking each other), the appeal to authority is nothing but flagrant abuse.

A boy who shows signs of frustration in the face of eight or more hours of incredibly dull lecturing and forced stillness is neither maladjusted nor necessarily defective: its behaviour may simply be a healthy response to an inconsiderate institution. Instead of reforming education, we have an establishment bent on pathologising the behaviour of people willy-nilly. This not only preserves the status quo but also provides a lucrative business opportunity to big pharma and its enablers, of hooking otherwise healthy folk to a lifetime of dependency on drugs. Everybody seems to have a “condition” nowadays because of the perverse incentives built into the industry and its concomitant politics. The prescription is invariably the same: the policies are fine, so take yet more drugs in response to the pernicious side effects you are developing and continue down the vicious cycle towards madness.

I learn everything I set my mind to, while my high levels of energy have empowered me to do the difficult jobs I have taken on, including the construction of my own house. Simply accept that some people are different and they will not fit into whatever mould your bureaucratic hubris has envisaged for them.

I do not have children. If I ever do, I will raise them with four values:

1. Be honest and safeguard your honour above all else.
2. Remain unapologetic about who you are.
3. Use your qualities, strength, talents also in the service of others.
4. Show the middle finger to authority, if you must.

And if an educator takes offence, they will have to deal with me.