People who dedicate themselves to looking after their loved ones should ensure they make time for themselves too, says Morag Chisholm
It is no fun being a carer. It is not a role that allows the option “I’ve had enough of this, thank you. Can I do something different now?” There are no happy endings, the cared-for are not going to get better and release is not necessarily relief. Is there a nobility about caring or is it just bloody awful?
The focus here is on the unpaid, private army, which is increasing relentlessly. Two typical scenarios are caring for a partner and caring for a parent who is slipping into dementia. These roles can have profound effects on the caring individuals concerned and on their relationships.
It is not necessary to actually live with a person to assume the caring role. Although my mother, frail and old, lived 300 miles away with paid carers looking after her, I always had an ear half cocked for that telephone call, the summons, the crisis. And when I was with her, as holiday cover, I was always alert, cat-napping, hurrying back from shopping just in case. I learned something of what caring must be like as an all-day, every day, experience. I am not sure I could do it.
The 72-year-old from Glasgow, who has looked after her granddaughter for 16 years, said: “If I hadn’t stepped in she would have gone into the system and been pushed from pillar to post.”
She said she believes the work of kinship carers across the country is undervalued and not recognised by the authorities, who would otherwise have to pick up the bill for looking after vulnerable children.
‘I wish people would be more understanding‘
Eloquent answer; Karla Begley, pictured here with her son Max in 2010, took to a blog about special needs children to deliver a response to a vile letter a neighbor had sent her complaining about the boy’s sounds
Karla Begley, 44, wrote letter published by a blog about special needs children responding to neighbor’s anonymous complaint
On August 16, Max Begley’s grandmother got a vile letter complaining about the noise the 13-year-old autistic boy was making
The self-described ‘pissed off mother’ who penned the letter suggested that Max be euthanized
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 00:38, 30 August 2013 | UPDATED: 06:03, 30 August 2013
A Toronto mother who had received a shocking anonymous letter last week urging her to have her 13-year-old autistic son euthanized has issued a response in the form of a letter about the importance of tolerance.
Karla Begley and her family were left reeling after receiving a disturbing, hate-filled missive from a neighbor in Newcastle, Canada, informing her that the noise her special needs son, Max, was making while playing outside terrified her ‘normal’ children.
chenrezig 
annie 
JaneJ 