It’s 2021 and the pandemic is still raging. The kids won’t be going back to school anytime soon, and nor will I be going back into the office. The kids miss their friends, are tired of being home all the time, of being with me all the time. Honestly though, I’m not sure if I am looking forward to going back into the office eventually. Sure, I miss my colleagues and, you know, leaving my house, and I do not miss the commute. I kinda miss having an excuse to wear nice shoes, although I still wear my work dresses at home.

No, the thing that I am going to struggle the most with, and I think my kids will, too, once they go back to school, is putting my mask back on.

Masking is a concept that comes from Autism research, the things that people who are non-neurotypical do to “mask” the fact that they aren’t like everyone else. It is starting to gain prominence as well when talking about people with ADHD, especially women. Here, at home, behind a screen, I don’t have to wear a mask to hide my ADHD and ensure that I appear “professional”.

At home, I can be doing something else while in a meeting where I only need to listen. I can also fidget and move around to my heart’s content in other meetings. It helps keep me focused on what is being said. In the office, I’d be struggling in a meeting to sit still, make eye contact, to look like I am paying attention, when in reality, I’m not because that’s not how my brain works.

At home, I can time transitions the way I need to. I can quickly sew a seem or cut one more pattern piece to help me change gears and change projects in a way that works for me. I can walk my dog, I can sit with my son (daughter is 13, almost 14 so…), I can do what works for me to get the work done. In the office…outside of taking a walk outside, there isn’t much I can do except be glued to my computer, and with people able to look over my shoulder to see what I am doing, at that.

The work gets done, and gets done well, and I’m not going to say that the work is better, but it is easier for me because I don’t have to try and look like I’m doing my work the everyone expects me to be doing my work. My interactions with colleagues are mediated by the screen, and so it is easier for me to come off as “professional” as opposed to all-in, overly energetic and enthusiastic, my too-much self that has long been labeled unprofessional.

My kids, too, are thriving at home. Each can set up their rooms the way they like it, the way they need it to be in order for each of them to learn. My son sits in a Poäng, with pillows and blankets, drinking seltzers, fidgeting, doodling, and most of all, venting. We have a routine, particularly in the afternoons, where he wanders over to my room during breaks to get a hug from me, and to complain about what he has to do. I validate his perspective, give him a hug, reassure him that the day is almost over and he will get through it. He can play his animé music in the background while he works, rocking and bouncing, with breaks for hugs.

My daughter is back-channeling like a pro, listening to music, talking to friends, working together, or not working at all. She has a desk where she puts her school-provided laptop, but sits on her bed, where she lays out her other laptop, her phone, her iPad, and whatever books she is also reading, her crafts, etc. Her grades are stellar, and I don’t have to fight with her to get her to do her school work.

Is this the “ideal” learning environment? It is for my kids. I remember chaffing the requirement that I be quiet, sit still, study in silence. I don’t work that way now, so why should I impose these needless restrictions on my kids, knowing that it won’t work for them? Because it will be imposed on them when they go back to school? Because it’s a mask they have to learn to wear because the world expects it of them?

Personally, I’m tired of wearing my mask. I didn’t even know I was wearing one for so long. It feels so good to take it off. I am less stressed, less exhausted, less depressed, less anxious. Why would I want to impose such a thing on my own children if it can be helped? I don’t want to fight that battle on the one hand, but I also don’t want to be the one who keeps holding that mask on them. Home should be the place where the mask can come off, even if we’re also doing school here. They should have the opportunity and the freedom to figure out who they are without the masks now, to have the space to feel good about themselves, mask-free.

I know that when all of this is over, we will have to go back out into the world, a world that expects us to keep our figurative masks on, to do our best to appear neurotypical. I want to give them as much time to be themselves as I can until then.