This is my first blog post…
and I’m not going to let coming up with the perfect title stop me from hitting “publish”.Welcome to my first official blog post as That ADHD Farm Mom. If we haven’t met yet, Hi! I’m Rebecca, a farm mom, homeschool-ish teacher, virtual assistant, and self-proclaimed “cow doula” living on a cow-calf beef farm in Wisconsin. Oh, and I have ADHD along with being a Manifesting Generator, which means my life is a wonderfully chaotic whirlwind of ideas, projects, and passions.
For a long time now, I’ve been trying to find a way to mesh all of my different interests together into a neat little bundle, and after years of brainstorming, That ADHD Farm Mom was finally born. Keep reading to learn more about all the bits and pieces of my life that needed to fall together in order for this blog to come to fruition.
How I Ended Up On A Farm
Once upon an undisclosed number of years ago, I was born and then raised in a very small, very rural town that you’ve probably never heard of. And when I say “small town” I mean we had a population of less than 800, the school district I went to covered multiple different small towns, and a fairly large chunk of students often missed the first week or so of school due to showing animals at the local county fair.
While I grew up surrounded by agriculture, including spending many days on my aunt & uncle’s dairy farm, I was not raised on a farm myself and had exactly zero interest in farm life…but then I met and started dating a farmer. A handful of years later, I became a farmer’s wife and at that point in time, the only interest I had in the farm was naming the cute babies that were born each spring.
When I met my now husband, I was working towards getting my Bachelor’s degree in elementary education and my brain was far too busy learning all the things I needed to know to pass all the tests I needed to take in order to get my teaching license and there was no space in my head available to learn about cows. Then I got my first full time job teaching 5th grade and still had no room available for agriculture. But then this little thing called “the rona” started up, and my life very quickly began to change.
When I Became A Mom
In March of 2020, schools around the world switched over to virtual learning and I also happened to be around 5 months pregnant. Because learning was virtual, I was working from home which meant no longer spending over an hour a day in my car traveling to and from work. Because I was pregnant and there were a lot more questions about this virus than there were answers, I was spending a LOT of time at home. As a result, I ended up spending more time than I ever had out in the barn and around the cows.
A month or so later our calving season started, and because I was available both physically and mentally, I wanted to help. So my husband handed me a book, pointed to a section about something called “flight zones” and told me to start reading. For those who, like me at the time, are unfamiliar with cattle, a cow’s flight zone is basically her personal space bubble. Some cows will let you get closer to them than others and when you’re aware of exactly how big their bubble is, you can use that knowledge to help persuade the cow to move in the direction you need it to go. And that’s how I found myself spending the spring of 2020 helping cows have their babies while growing a baby of my own.
That school year was my 2nd and last as a full time teacher. Towards the end of the school year when we were offered contracts for the next year, I declined mine and resigned from teaching so I could stay home and raise my daughter. The cliffnotes version of what happened from there is as follows:
I became a mom that summer when daughter was born
I started my own virtual assistant business
I learned a LOT more about agriculture (shout out to the Millennial Farmer for all the knowledge he bestowed upon me)
I got more involved with the farm during calving seasons
I became our self appointed “cow doula”
I started sharing farm related things on social media
The last important thing I need to mention here before we move on to the ADHD side of things is that Lovey, our heifer with her heart in her neck, was born. Sharing about her made my Facebook page go viral for a while which prompted me to get a little more serious and organized about what I was sharing. You can read more about the adventures we’ve had with her here.
This is Lovey.
How I Got Diagnosed With ADHD
As is the case with many undiagnosed neurodivergent adults, while I was able to “keep it together” throughout most of my time on this earth, I eventually hit a point where life simply became too much to handle. Essentially, after my daughter was born, the mask I was unaware I had even been wearing exploded off of my face and I was left feeling lost, confused, and inadequate. Thankfully TikTok was able to diagnose me with ADHD before I even knew there was the possibility of me being neurodivergent. I was then able to talk with my doctor and get an official ADHD diagnosis.
With a diagnosis came lots of learning about my brain and how it works. I was also learning about neurodiversity in general and began to realize how abelist our current society is, especially when it comes to food. Not only are certain foods seen as morally inferior, but we’re also dealing with an unbelievable amount of marketing campaigns being based on fear-mongering and misinformation. (Unfortunately a LOT of that fear and misinformation has an incredibly negative impact on farmers and agriculture...but I won’t get into that right now.) Being neurodivergent is challenging enough in itself, but then you add in the shame and guilt society wants you to feel because the food you buy isn’t up to their “health” standards…it all just makes me very angry, and I will leave it at that for now.
When I Started Putting The Pieces Together
It began with learning about agriculture and realizing how important it is for me to advocate for a slowly dying, and greatly misunderstood industry. But I also knew that I was a little late to the agvocating game and while there is absolutely room for more agvocates, if I wanted to stand out from the crowd I needed to do something just a little bit different.
As I was doing my research trying to figure out what my “niche” could be, I found a metric shit ton of content creators out there teaching their audience” about homesteading, but most of them are doing it in a way that either feels inaccessible to the neurodivergent community or that indirectly shames us, and that doesn’t sit right with me.
Thus, “That ADHD Farm Mom” came to be. My entire purpose here is to get rid of the shame that society wants you to feel because you can’t always cook a homemade meal completely from scratch. I’m here to help you live a homestead-ish life in ways that work for you and your family. I don’t want you to feel guilty or confused or scared when you’re in the grocery store. I want you to feel empowered knowing you’re making the best decisions you can for yourself and your family.
There’s obviously a LOT more to the story than all of that ⬆️, and maybe one day I’ll type out a few more posts sharing more details of certain parts, but for now, please know I truly am so damn excited to have you here as I start this new chapter.
Whether you’re here for parenting advice, meal ideas, neurodivergent survival hacks, or you just want to see some cute pictures of baby cows, I’m truly thankful for your support.
