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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Child Carers

137 replies

prepared101 · 18/06/2022 09:28

I've named changed because I'm aware this is emotive and I'm prepared to be flamed by some who wholeheartedly disagree with me but...

I've just seen a post a large Facebook group where a poster talks about their 7 year old child who has been her carer since the age of 3. THREE.

My 4 nearly 5 year old has asked me a million things already this morning including could I make them a drink, make their breakfast, help them put their swimming costume on etc etc. How on Earth is a three year old a carer FFS. Even at 10/11/13 etc a child doesn't have the emotional resilience to take on someone else's struggles.

IMO it's stealing a childhood and should be illegal. I can't believe that in this day and age we think that's acceptable.

AIBU?

OP posts:
x2boys · 19/06/2022 12:20

orbitalcrisis · 18/06/2022 11:15

The term young carer is also used to describe a child who, although has no caring responsibilities themselves, do lose out on some of the care and attention that a child without a disabled family member could expect. If you are the sibling of a disabled child your parents will typically not be able to give you as much attention as your disabled sibling, it does not mean they are in any way neglected.

In a family with two children if one is disabled, the other is classed as a young carer, yet they will get far more attention than a child in a family with four children when none of them has a disability. We do not see the second child as being neglected though, do we?

It's nuanced. But more help from the government is definitely needed. Charities should not be supporting families, that should be done by the NHS and social services and funded through taxes, not the generosity of a few good people.

This is very true my 12 year old has severe non verbal autism and learning disabilities, I am his full time carer,his older brother ho is 15, misses out on quite a lot ie family days out etc ,he also helps me out by watching his brother if I nip to the shops etc ,but he's in no way a full time carer he understands I have to spend more time with his brother due to his needs.

LunaAndHerMoonDragons · 19/06/2022 12:26

Usually the care offered turns out in practice to be very, very limited. As for hire carers.... If you need a carer or are a carer for DC you're highly unlikely to have any spare money to hire anyone. I know quite a few disabled mums, who all work very very hard to make sure their disabilities don't impact their children. I know many mums with DC with SEN who also work very very hard to meet the needs of all their DC and wear themselves to the bone trying to do it all. I wish I was naive enough to think that the care offered to disabled/ill parents and to parents of high needs children was actually enough to meet their needs, you really have no idea.

LunaAndHerMoonDragons · 19/06/2022 12:28

Sorry that was in response to peonies.

Simonjt · 19/06/2022 12:29

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:08

@lovelychops I'm not implying anything. But people who can't look after a child shouldn't have them, no. If you can't look after yourself, you can't look after a child properly. If you need care after having children, hire carers. UK councils also offer care for people, don't use your children.

Which council provided care do you access?

My husband needed care a few years ago, he has arthrogryposis and was undergoing surgery which would mean he essentially couldn’t do anything for himself for a good 10-16 weeks.

Despite not being able to do anything at all for himself, he couldn’t even feed himself, he was entitled to 0 help.

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:36

If you can't afford private care, go through GP/ council/ charities/ social services. It still should never fall to children.

Simonjt · 19/06/2022 12:37

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:36

If you can't afford private care, go through GP/ council/ charities/ social services. It still should never fall to children.

And what exactly do you think councils, charities or social services will supply?

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:37

@Simonjt were you unable to provide care in that case? Any other adult family/ friends?

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:38

They should supply support, that's my point.

Simonjt · 19/06/2022 12:38

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:37

@Simonjt were you unable to provide care in that case? Any other adult family/ friends?

What care do you think councils, charties, gps or SS will provide?

PashunFroot · 19/06/2022 12:40

I saw this post, it was very sad. 3 is very young to be dealing with seizures.

Discovereads · 19/06/2022 12:41

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:08

@lovelychops I'm not implying anything. But people who can't look after a child shouldn't have them, no. If you can't look after yourself, you can't look after a child properly. If you need care after having children, hire carers. UK councils also offer care for people, don't use your children.

Oh, so as a mother of 4 DC once working FT and being the primary breadwinner. After being disabled by a neglectful driver running me over, such that I lost my ability to work, which then meant we could not pay the mortgage and so were forced to sell our home and go back to renting. And then the year long battle for disability benefits meaning we literally had to sell most of our possessions so we could buy food because my DHs wages only covered rent and bills.

Good to know we should have simply “hired some carers” in that situation. That we are so horrible for “using our children” to help my DH care for me by doing age appropriate household tasks and things like help me dress or bring me a tray of food, or help me learn to read again.

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:45

@Discovereads you should have been provided with carers to help you dress then shouldn't you if there's no suitable adult around.

OneEyedPenguin · 19/06/2022 12:55

you should have been provided with carers to help you dress then shouldn't you if there's no suitable adult around

But adult social care, local councils etc won't provide carers in most cases.

What should disabled people that can't access carers or have enough adult help do? Put their children in care?

Discovereads · 19/06/2022 12:55

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:36

If you can't afford private care, go through GP/ council/ charities/ social services. It still should never fall to children.

Did that. Got some help, but no caring help per se beyond volunteers driving me and helping me attend all the medical appointments which if my DH had taken me to, he would have been sacked for nonattendance at work as these were several times a week every week for years.

Discovereads · 19/06/2022 13:01

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 12:45

@Discovereads you should have been provided with carers to help you dress then shouldn't you if there's no suitable adult around.

I agree there should be more support for disabled, but this support simply does not exist. And frankly, disability benefits are poverty level. The highest % in poverty of any segment of the population are the disabled. We barely have the money to survive and certainly none left over to hire carers.

lollipoprainbow · 19/06/2022 13:04

I think it's appalling that children should have to care for their parents. These poor kids don't get any kind of recognition either just have to get on with it. Akin to sending kids up the chimney.

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 13:08

@OneEyedPenguin Only if they're unable to care for their children

Timeforabiscuit · 19/06/2022 13:24

@Peoniesandcream I don't think you understand, there is no help from councils, let me just reiterate that again THERE IS NO HELP FROM COUNCILS.

Charities maybe, passenger transport to hospital appointments, maybe.

But if there is a working adult in the home, you are well and truly fucked and on your own.

But it's OK, I'll just drop my kids off at the poor house coz their dad has Cancer and they might need to be able to dial 999 if he has a seizure.

I don't think you understand how different families work, at all, mine need to do the washing up by way of pitching in, when we were doing daily 3 hrs round trips for radiology, every week day for 6 weeks, they needed to make their own dinner.

By your lights, my kids should be removed from my care - what do you think actually happens? An army of nannies just falls from the sky nanny mcphee style? Our income dropped overnight by 75%, statutory sick pay is £99.35 per week, that doesnt even cover petrol to get to radiology! (You get free parking at least).

It's terrible there are child carers, so write to your mp and say so, but you can get in the sea if you start laying into me and mine for making the best of limited choices.

OneEyedPenguin · 19/06/2022 13:27

Only if they're unable to care for their children

What do you count as being "unable to care of their children" though?

OneEyedPenguin · 19/06/2022 13:28

For*

MargaretThursday · 19/06/2022 14:01

Teaching a child what to do if their parent has a seizure or similar is not unfair on the child. It's actually empowering the child if they know what to do, and taking away some of the fear, and certainly is less dangerous even for a young child. If there's a real danger that one morning you might not wake up, wouldn't you rather that your young child knew what to do? if they don't then they don't know how to get help, which is far worse both mentally and physically for them.

Caring can mean different things. I think people are assuming at 3yo the child did everything. But at 3yo mine used to love to have little jobs like load the washing machine, I'm not needing them to do it as I'm not disabled, but I can imagine that if I had been, I could have easily made a game of it so they thought they were having fun while doing something valuable for me. Like when I gave dd1 the "task" of being in charge of the wipes for #2's nappy changes. She was terribly proud of having such an important job and it meant she didn't feel left out while I was dealing with dd2.

But also young children are capable of more than we let them do. Dd1 "did" some shopping and cooking when she was 2.5yo. I was very sick when pregnant with dd2. So sick I couldn't go near food without vomiting. Even going into the kitchen or the supermarket was a problem.
So dd1 learnt to do a few things. She "cooked dinner" a couple of times a week. By this I mean she went into the kitchen, chose a couple of potatoes from the bag. Brought them out to me where we carefully pricked them with a fork. She walked back into the kitchen, put them in the oven and closed the door and switched the oven on. Sometimes dh put something in the oven before he left for work and she'd put it on at the right time. Then when dh came home he'd do everything else and get the cooked food out of the oven. Was that an unfair burden on her? I don't think so. She glowed with pride at eating the dinner "she'd cooked" and wanted to do it more often than we wanted baked potatoes, even if it was one of the few things I could eat without vomiting.
Shopping-yes she did that too. Normally dh made her a packed lunch before he went to work, but occasionally things fell through, or we needed something urgently from the shop. So we walked down to the local Sainsbury's together. She went in clutching the money. The shop has a full length window along one edge so I could watch her all the way round. She'd pick up what was needed, and go and pay. The staff knew her, any questions she'd come back to the door and call through. There is only one door so she couldn't go anywhere else. Again she loved doing it. I remember one time her looking at her packed lunch and announcing she thought she needed a packet of crisps because she knew that meant she could go shopping. The staff were great about it-mind you they were probably thankful I wasn't in there because they aren't keen on cleaning up vomit.
She's in her 20s now and still enjoys food shopping and cooking, so it clearly didn't put her off too much.

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 14:08

@OneEyedPenguin What do you think it means? If you're unable to care for your children properly, disability or not, in general, yes someone else should be caring for them. Common sense really. The recent examples of children learning to help wash up or assist with cooking isn't the Same thing as being a carer. Many families teach the children to do those things at a suitable age which is part of growing up. As I've stated in my previous posts I'm talking about children being considered actual carers. It's wrong I will always disagree with it and that's that. People need to find suitable alternatives. My family member with MS has 3 DC and will exhaust all options and still never use her DC as carers and I would do the same.

OneEyedPenguin · 19/06/2022 14:16

If you're unable to care for your children properly, disability or not, in general, yes someone else should be caring for them

But some people would say a child parent unable to cook a meal is unable to look after their child properly. I'm asking what you count as unable because people have different views.

My family member with MS has 3 DC and will exhaust all options and still never use her DC as carers and I would do the same

So your family member would put her children in care? Children in care have dire outcomes, the care they receive from the state is way below what most parents would find acceptable. It's used as a last resort for children that are at extreme risk of harm.

As I've stated in my previous posts I'm talking about children being considered actual carers. It's wrong I will always disagree with it and that's that. People need to find suitable alternatives

And if there are no alternatives?

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 14:38

@OneEyedPenguin no my family member will have help from her husband and our family, her children won't go into care. By alternatives I mean if there is no care for you and you can't care for yourself then you yourself would need to go into care/supported housing.

Peoniesandcream · 19/06/2022 14:40

Being unable to cook a meal ie feed yourself and children, yes that's unable to care for them, being unable to clean/ help your child if they're hurt/ choking etc. There are hundreds of examples.