Child Carers

For people who don't know,I suffer from an illness called FacioScapulaHumeralDystrophey (FSHD) and hopefully I would like to post a blog about it and how it affects my life at a later time.

However, today I want to share an experience that happened to me yesterday, that has really shocked me and has left me in a confusing position.

With FSHD it has led to me needing a lot of extra care. For example I can't bend down and reach up so find getting dressed very difficult, so luckily I have a very loving and understanding wife who has thankfully for this time put herself into this role. One thing that my wife and I both agree on is that we would never allow my Son to become a carer, especially a child carer. Now I know everyone has a different idea for what classes as a child but for me it is below 12, I and hopefully my wife both agree that a child younger than this should have the right to live their life like a child should.
Now on occasion when my wife is helping me get dressed, our 18 month old Son is often roaming in the same room. So he has witnessed very clearly that Daddy needs care. He has also very clearly witnessed that Mummy helps Daddy. He has several times picked up items and clothes at appropriate times where he has learnt the order of things. For example he will bring underwear out of my bedside drawer and bring them to me and then go to get socks. We all laughed, it was at the time cute and funny that he wanted to help (even if he had emptied the entire drawer to only bring one pair) Yesterday I was left in the house for a short period of time, and was in care for my Son whilst me wife was out. This was fine, we have been in this position before and although funny scenarios have come out of it no one was hurt and we both survived, so why should yesterday have been any different.

Now when I stand up, I often turn myself round and use my arms to push up using the chair as the support. Yesterday was a tiring and one of my weaker days, so you can imagine that standing up was even more difficult. Then the event that I mentioned above happened, my 18 month old boy came between me and the sofa and pushed my front to help me stand. Again, although this shocked me I found it cute and gave him a big cuddle for helping me. Later the same thing happened and this is when it dawned on me my 18 month old boy has effectively become my carer. OK, so looking up child carers they tend do a lot more that bringing clothes and pushing Daddy up, but he is only 18 months old, I hadn't asked for help, he had taken this onto himself to take action. It seems now almost inevitable that this will be part of his life even if i didn't and don't want him to be.

I went on to the barnardos website and read some info on child carers this is the fact that then really shocked me:

Young carer facts

• The average age of a young carer is 10.
• The 2001 census showed that there are 175,000 young carers in the UK, 13,000 of whom care for more than 50 hours a week.
• More than half of young carers live in one-parent families and almost a third care for someone with mental health problems.

This is sadly something that i might have to come to terms with thinking of what is ahead for my Son. The thing that shocked me more was the average age, the word Average. 10 years old is not an old age, far far from it, but the fact that its an average age shows that there are younger children caring for a family members. As young as 18 months? I'm sure that he doesn't yet class as a child carer i am aware of that but it just isn't a giant leap, that potentially he will soon be a member of the above statistic.