Last year, the Carers Trust estimated that a worrying one million young people across the UK were looking after a family member with a disability, illness or mental health problem
Former X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos has shone a light on her experience as a young carer amid her mother’s battle with schizophrenia. The 36-year-old said the immense responsibility started from the moment she was born, with her childhood filled with endless hospital trips and ‘a lot of chaos’.
Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast last week, the N-Dubz singer said: “I’d always realised because when she’d go into hospital, I’d go and stay [with] my aunt and I’d have a very happy life at my aunt’s. And I’d have a lot of structure and routine, and then it’d be time to go home and I’d be like ‘oh no, not again’.
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“But I think the unhappiness towards it started when I was like 13, when I saw, you know, my friends environments and I was like ‘ah, I wish I had that’.”
Last year, the Carers Trust estimated that a staggering one million young people across the UK were looking after a family member with a disability, illness or mental health problem. Some young carers are as young as five years old.
Worryingly, its research also unveiled that one in five would spend more than 12 hours a day caring for their loved one during the summer holidays. This may include anything from the cooking and cleaning, to lifting someone out of bed.
At the time, Paul Carberry, chief executive at Action for Children, said: “We see first-hand the awful, often life-long impact of loneliness, anxiety and stress on this hidden child workforce who dedicate their formative years to helping loved ones. They are desperate for a break from their responsibilities and to have a bit of fun in the holidays.”
Tulisa added that caring for her parent triggered ‘a lot of emotions’ and ‘a lot of chaos’ that forced her to ‘grow up really fast’. At the time, she also asserted that authorities could have done more to help out.
Despite this, she said: “But I guess you could say it gave me a good strong set of life tools.”
