Time Cover Story Misses ADHD Cohort

The August 8th cover story of Time Magazine was entitled "Chore Wars" with the subhead "Let it go.  Make peace.  Men and women, it turns out, work the same amount."  But like divorce statistics that are much more illuminating when parsed by cohort (ex: couples who married young are more likely to divorce than those with college degrees who married later) so, too, are chore war statistics.

The article touches on the idea of "cohorts" a little bit with a mention of college-educated mothers being able to scale back at work to get somewhat more "time" at home (vs. another cohort of shift workers who can't) but it misses a huge cohort of adults for whom the chore wars are still all too real – adults with ADHD and their spouses.  As most of you know, in these marriages, the symptoms of adult ADHD – disorganization, distraction, inability to plan and follow through – place a very real burden on the non-ADHD partner who feels forced to take responsibility for those things left undone by his or her partner. Chore Wars in couples affected by ADHD are very real and play a huge role in the marital dysfunction rates for these couples (58%).   Since the ratio of men with ADHD to women with ADHD is about 2:1, there is still a gender component at work for these couples, as well.  With the omission of this cohort from their story, millions of TIME readers will find the research described simply doesn’t apply to them, but won’t understand why.

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