To think Young Carers should NOT exist and wonder why we are accepting this?

[OopsDearyMe]

I was thinking about my own situation and after seeing the comic relief story about the young carers group. It got me thinking, Why is no one in uproar that children are doing the jobs of social care workers.

If you are elderly and need help, you receive a care package and a carer assigned to you, who visits the home and helps take care of you, yes ? As it should be!

Then why if you become disabled at a younger age, do you not get the same?

Children who work, do so under strict guidelines, if you made your child do the things young carers do, as an able bodied person, you would be seeing social services pretty soon..

So why are we and the government ignoring the fact that thousands of children are doing the jobs an adult carer should be doing?

AIBU to think this is all wrong!

I am not saying the money should not have gone to the charities helping young carers , as I know they do a really important job. But I would prefer the money paid for a carer for the adult, thus preventing any child from becoming a carer in the first place.

NB: I Understand that currently we haven't got enough carers for the elderly let alone anyone else, which is why this happens, But surely this is because the government isn't being pushed to make changes. People seem to say"Oh how sad" and move on..

And also, you have added something in brackets to my quote! I meant I was fairly sure she was responsible for a lot of the household things, I never said anything about intimate care of her mother

There's no need to put word in my mouth to incorrectly illustrate what I was saying.

I wasn't. I was explaining the quotations so it made sense.

You believe she killed herself because she couldn't cope with caring for her dying mother.

I believe she killed hersself because her mother was dying.

Either way I am uncomfortable with the whole thread and particularly with the fact a dead barely-teenager has been identified as an attention seeker through a haze of childhood memories.

But you elaborated incorrectly what I was saying. I.e. putting words in my mouth.

I'm not the only one that thought her actions were a cry for help and attention, this was also echoed by those who knew her at the time of her death, both adults and peers.

I'm uncomfortable with people like you content to ignore genuine issues that cause genuine suffering to children, be it comments relating to what I say or comments saying maybe people shouldn't have children when they are knowingly bringing them into a home where they are guaranteed to have to care for the parent.

Your sense of ethics is very confusing and backwards to me. It is ignorant to ignore facts in favour of preserving feelings.

Cherries, you haven't a clue what I do and how I help vulnerable children. If you believe that you helped any vulnerable children tonight you are wrong. As a discussion it's perhaps a worthy one although I think it's just turned into a pop at disabled and terminally ill parents tbh. However it has helped no one. The children caring for their parents when we started the thread still are. :) Your friend is still dead. If she was indeed 'just' seeking attention well, it worked, didn't it. Generally speaking children aren't very good at killing themselves. When they succeed, we can conclude as a rule they meant it.

Haha. Well done for pointing out that a forum thread on a parenting website hasn't prevented any children from their awful situations in the few hours it's existed. Again you are insinuating that I think she was "just" attention seeking. Are you really incapable of seeing the difference? If that's the case I worry for children in the care of someone who doesn't think attention seeking is serious or worthy of support, and is just considered a "flaw" in their personality.

I was actually just about to post something similar, in that it is truly pointless arguing with you, it will help no one nor change anything. And again, although you clearly can't see it this way, no one is taking a "pop at the disabled" for acknowledging that caring for a parent with no support is a burden no child should have to face.

Or maybe your work with vulnerable children makes you feel that's somehow not the case? Maybe because you got a job working with children you are infinitely better at calling this than I am? I have to disagree based on your attitude on this thread.

And no, I don't think there is much thought or effort required in swallowing a bottle of morphine pills. But you're the childhood suicide expert right?

In relation to the actual thread, I'm glad to see there is more support for young carers, and that they have more measures in place and more avenues available to them when they are struggling. I still worry about how many actually receive that care, and how watertight it is that every child caring is identified by SS. I was interested in peoples' perspectives on this, but of course it's just turned into an argument.

I will definitely not be posting anymore. It is ultimately pointless, I was drawn into an emotive argument that should have ended many posts ago. I will never see eye to eye with your point of view I'm afraid armpitz, I am much more in the mind that children are vulnerable and should be protected as much as humanly possible from these grim responsibilities, I think girls like my friend are a tragic example of what happens when children are not supported, whatever you may think her reasons behind it were, and I hope that the care and support these children are entitled to improves and becomes more comprehensive. But that's it for me, I'm absolutely drained.

I was a young carer 40 odd years ago, long before young carers were recognised. My mother had (has) a long list of mental health illnesses that impacted hugely on my life as a child. I dealt with things no child should ever have to deal with and I still bear the scars of those things today but they have probably made me a more understanding person than I would've been had I not had the childhood I had. I was able to experience the alternative to being a young carer as I spent time in and out of the social care system too until I was deemed old enough by social services to fill my mum's boots and care for my younger siblings and run the house while my dad worked, not all men are feckless enough to do a bunk when their wife develops a serious mental illness (depsite the fact that his own parents wanted him to "walk away" from his baby daughter and very sick wife to "forget about them and start again").

hellhas I'm so sorry you went through that, I'm very glad you had a good relationship with your dad

The person who I referred to as my adopted mother had to look after her little sister after her mother died. This was in the late 70s and not in the UK. I also know of many children who act as young cares outside of the UK.

My dad has MS, and unfortunately requires quite a lot of care. When i was around 10, my stepmum decided that it wasn't her problem, and i couldn't leave my dad without dinner because that bitch couldn't be bothered. (Before anyone jumps in, she really didn't have a good a reason, she said at the divorce that she never married the MS, it wasn't her problem. She tried to cite it as unreasonable behaviour on my dad's part). I did a lot for my dad, until he remarried when i was 19. My new stepmum gave me my life back, before that if i wasn't at school i was at work or caring for my dad. I still feel guilty for leaving her to it, but i know they are blissfully happy together, MS or no.
My friends and my husband are often shocked at how much i did for dad but I'd do it again. I just wish my school could've been more understanding. I frequently got sent home for wrong uniform, as if my lateness, scruffiness and lack of homework was intentional. I got good gsces by luck, mainly, but i was a definite school refuser because of how i was treated. My college was much more understanding thankfully.

Thanks cherries, sadly I don't get on well with him. I admire him for standing by her but he stood by her to the extent that he ignored her violence towards me and sided with her when she cut me out of her life completely, he even walked by me in the street and cut me dead (she had thrown me out for being 10 minutes late home from work one night, they didn't speak to me for two years). I was a homeless 17 year old who slept rough for a few nights because she really believed I was an evil teen and he did nothing to make sure I was OK.

Oh god hell :( I'm so sorry, completely misconstrued your post. It really is unfair that your childhood was blighted like that, I honestly can't believe how cruel people can be to children, let alone their own children :( And what a burden it must have been not only to go through those lengths to support your mother, but then to be treated so badly in return. I honestly can't imagine... You just shouldn't have been put in that position at all, it's so frustrating. I really hope you have IRL support now

Not at all YBU! Surprised at other posters. I have seen the effects first hand of young carers and on the whole, it has a significant impact on the 'young person'. In my experience, at best, their attendance at school suffers and fairly quickly they fall behind. At worst, not only is their education affected but the anxiety of leaving the parent alone or younger sibling can seriously affect their mental health.

Happy to be corrected, but I can't think of a scenario where a child of school age should be the primary carer. O

YANBU. I have thought this for a while - why is it seen as acceptable for teenagers and even primary school aged children to have serious caring responsibilities - in a society where we are apparently concerned so much about the welfare of children, and there are so many laws designed to protect them? What would happen if the child were to protest and refuse to carry out caring duties? And what happens if they want to leave home for uni or something at 18? It is such an anomaly, it doesn't make sense, and I can't believe it is allowed to happen in the 21st century, and they are just left to get on with it.

Social services should be stepping in and sending round paid carers, so these young people can have something like a normal childhood. Why is this not happening? I wonder what other Western countries do about it?

Social services should be stepping in and sending round paid carers, so these young people can have something like a normal childhood. Why is this not happening?

a) Because money
b) Because hardly any of the young carers I grew up going to clubs with would accept it, particularly those with parents with MH issues, because once the carer has done their few hours a day, they leave the young carer to deal with the resulting MH episode triggered by the stress of having strangers in the house.

They'd still be young carers after the paid carers left.

YANBU

Of course many elderly people pay for the care, but there is a system in place if they cannot. No such provision is set up for those disabled at a younger age."

WRONG. There is provision (yes, strained and under-resourced) for working age disabled people. It works exactly the same way as it does for older people.

Please stop claiming you know the system when you obviously do not.

This thread has raised a few questions i hope someone wouldn't mind answering, i hope i don't appear ignorant.

Those that say if you're disabled and go on to have a child knowing they will be your carer because it's what you want to do.. how do you manage to care for a baby and toddler if you need so much support yourself?

Ok i realise that's one question. for now.

Definitely not okay for a disabled person to have a child they can't look after. It's completely different to becoming disabled after having a child but to have a child knowing you will be dependent on them is completely wrong and unfair.

It's horrifying yet there are so many. These children are being robbed of their childhoods.

The partners, family members and social services should be doing the caring not ever the children. Children should be looked after by adults, not the other way around.

I've read lots of stories where children have been born into families that can't care for themselves so the parents choose this life for them. Heartbreaking.

My daughter became a young carer when my husband was very ill. It is not about the jobs they do that an adult should do. It is about the fact that I had to work, my husband was ill so she helped. Accessing the young carer support group ensured she had help to understand her feelings and to know she was not alone. Do you think I wanted my daughter to be a young carer? What do you think SS could have done? My husband was not ill enough for a carer apparently. Should I have given up work, gone on benefits and ensured my daughter did not get all the things my working provided? Like a house? Do you not think those parents live with the guilt every day? Do you think they enjoy their children having to look after them?

YANBU.

Friend of DS1 could never stay for after school activities because she had to get home to care for her mother, do the housework, washing ironing etc.

Her mother pleaded with her not to go to university because she wouldn't cope without her.

So unfair. She'll probably never get up the courage to leave home and have a life of her own.

YANBU - frankly if there isn't a parent in the home who can care for the children, they should be treated as if there's no parent in the building.

We wouldn't view that if a parent was a patient in hospital that it's ok to leave the children in the home alone because the oldest child can get the others up and dressed and breakfasted and to school on time. If there's no parent incapable of looking after the children then they need to be removed or a responsible adult be in the home at all times.

That's expensive, but at least we should stop romanticising Young Carers - many of are basically neglected children (even if their parents don't want to neglect them)

I think we all know there are shocking parents out there. Selfish parents, parents who neglect and abuse their children, parents who see drugs or alcohol as more important than their children, parents who may be well meaning but clueless.

However, these parents are in the minority. Most parents won't get things right all the time but they try and for the most part succeed. Children thrive, are happy and know they are loved.

If a child is a young carer, their situation will be as different from each other as children who aren't young carers are. It isn't possible to say 'oh well, I knew somebody who was a young carer and her parents were like this and so she was like this and so it's wrong.'

Someone growing up with an ill, disabled or terminally ill parent has to grow up quickly and accept some truths that some find unpalatable. It's easy to insist that we protect children from this. But the only way is if another adult does all the caring. Since any other adult in the property generally has to work to support everyone (disability and illness aren't cheap) some does fall onto the the children.

Insisting a live in carer does the intimate jobs and the housework and the cooking is a) hugely, hugely expensive and b) I'm not sure most families would want this. It doesn't matter who is helping your mum into her nightie if she's dying. In fact I think sometimes and in some circumstances children actually can feel marginalised and shoved out - 'run along dear, I'll sort this!' doesn't stop the gnawing worry about whether your mum is going to be alive next month or not.

In other words, caring takes an emotional strain as well as a physical one. Attempting to remove the emotional worry by removing the physical tasks isn't the answer.

If what people are arguing for is more support then that's fine but the form it takes shouldn't necessarily (imo) be in the form of adults stepping in. What may seem to you or I as allowing a child to have a proper childhood can feel to the child like being barged out of the way and pushed out.

I suppose each case should be considered as individual. But I am certainly uncomfortable with the statements that disabled people should not have children (and I know the disclaimer is 'if they can't ...') but what some don't perhaps see is what they CAN do. A woman in a wheelchair might not be able to bath her baby very easily. But she is always there when her 9 year old comes home from school. When my mother had me, she and my dad were healthy people in their thirties with their own parents alive and supportive. Fast forward ten years and with various illnesses claiming their own parents, a terminally ill mother and a grief stricken father on the brink of a nervous breakdown and somehow you muddle through.

The only thing from all that which remotely affected me was when they stopped loving me.

I don't like 'children are resilient' because imo they are not. They are not resilient to living with a lack of love, neglect, cruelty or chaos. But when they have love and when they have someone who has got their backs like no one else in the world, when you are driving down a country lane with nothing but your parents but you know they are 100% with you, you feel secure.