George, this is a great piece with many powerful valid points.

Can I ask—as a mom of a son with a crippling case of ADHD, that your use of the phrase “pumping with ADHD” drugs” be one you are truly careful to use before you do adequate research and understand exactly what you’re implying. I continue to battle the incredible misinformation, myths and false narratives that many believe about ADHD medication and the lives of those with ADHD, because this false narrative that it’s unnecessary is highly misinformed.

Spend a few days with a parent of a child with ADHD. Listen to everything that parent and teachers do to help those with ADHD. Do the research—deep, objective, scientific. Then, decide what’s being “pumped” into our children.

I will FOREVER be grateful to the doctors, scientists, researchers who studied ADHD to where I have the option of purchasing medication, albeit very expensive and hence a luxury—to help my son have a shot at some normalcy. We tried NOT using medication at first, and I feel many try to at first.

Sadly many who don’t have ADHD have such incredibly unfounded prejudices because of the perpetuated belief that it’s over-diagnosed. I just wish more of you took the time to live with, listen and discover exactly what it is to have ADHD.

Ironically—the picture you painted of the “lost boys”—is EXACTLY where my loving young son would be if I didn’t have the awareness, education and resources to help him have a life where he can be a productive, responsible empathetic citizen. That medication, is gold to a parent like me.

Please help us. Refrain from using such language unless you can verify your expertise knowledge, research and even personal experience with it.

Your heart meant well, I sense. I am not criticizing you, just asking for “pause and thought” on the realities of living with and next to (for parents like myself) with ADHD.