There was a bit on TV the other day about child carers and their ‘heroism’. And, I was a child carer, and…
It’s not heroic, guys. It’s very much not. You keep going because you love your parents, because you don’t want to see them in pain, but that much responsibility as a child can really mess you up. It’s not fair, it’s awful, it makes you feel like an ableist piece of shit when you want your own life as an adult, but…it’s what happened. Happens.
There’s nothing heroic going on when nobody involved (not the child, not the parent, nobody) has a choice, you know? What should happen is, there should be carers trained and paid by the government to step in in those situations, at no cost to the family. There should be free classes in schools that teach people how to care, how to use hoists etc. There should be less stigma around the ‘gross’ aspects of care, believe it or not, there really is no shame helping someone go to the bathroom and it’s horrible that we think there is. There should DEFINITELY be life-saving equipment, wheelchairs etc, provided to people for free, you know?
There’s a lot of ‘free’-dom going on there, which makes me realise that no, this stuff will not happen in my lifetime. But until it does happen, you don’t get to call my child self ‘heroic’. Society failed her and her family. It’ll keep failing people, too, until all the care systems we currently have are overhauled, until we stop sweeping disability under the rug.