I've always wondered how some moms seem to have it all under control. Their five children are well taken care off, their meals are tasty, balanced and organic and their houses are spic and span. Meanwhile, I only have two children and I can't seem to manage to remember that my daughter has her swim lessons every Sunday at 11:30 a.m. How is that possible? Well, apparently, a lot more moms than I ever imagined are turning to prescription drugs–namely those used for ADHD–to help them be all they can be… and more!
Now, I'm not saying that all the supermoms I know are doing this, I'm just saying that between 2002 and 2010, there's been a whopping 750 percent increase in prescriptions for Adderall–a popular drug to treat ADHD–for women 26 to 39 years old and, according to ABC News, critics agree that not all of these women have a real need for the drug.
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Crazy, right? I mean, I had no idea, but the network interviewed a couple of women for whom this was a reality. One of them, Betsy Degree, is a suburban mom of four who started taking her own child's medication out of desperation when she realized she couldn't keep up with the demands of motherhood.
Sadly, what started as a supposedly one-time deal turned into an addiction that had her lying and scheming in order to get more and more Adderall. Eventually, Degree ended up turning to meth, lost her business and nearly lost her children. All thanks to the pressures women today have to be something inexistent: supermoms.
The thing that most caught my attention was that Degree told ABC News that she grew up with a mom who was very neat. "Everything was really clean, beautiful dinners every night and that didn't come naturally for me." Poor woman! I can only imagine the pressure she felt. Luckily, for me, my mom was nothing like that. Then again, I grew up in Peru surrounded by maids who pretty much took care of everything.
But even when we moved to the States and everything changed in our lives, I didn't grow up with the "perfect" mom. I mean, I think she's perfect because she always taught my sister and I that while being a mom was super important to her, so was being a wife, a professional, a friend and, above all, a woman.
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It truly makes me super sad to hear of women like Degree. As women, we need to figure out a way to stop this madness and understand that there's absolutely no value in being a supermom because such thing doesn't really exist–to believe otherwise is a disservice not only to our children, but mostly to ourselves.
Would you take drugs to become supermom? Share your thoughts by leaving us a comment below.
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