12 Years Old And Caring For Mum
I’ll be watching this tonight.
Powerful documentary profiling three of the 250,000 children in the UK who care for a parent with a chronic illness or disability. One of those featured is a 13-year-old from Manchester who is a talented archer with ambitions to represent her country. She juggles her training with caring for her mum, whose fibromyalgia means that she is often exhausted and in pain.
Another girl, 12, from Lincolnshire, looks after her mother who has the rare and terminal condition Multiple Systems Atrophy. Increasingly, she in unable to do basic things for herself such as washing and dressing, and must rely on her daughter.
Finally, the programme meets an 11-year-old boy from Kent who has been looking after his mum since she was left virtually paralysed down one side after having an abscess removed from her brain. Through the use of video diaries shot by the children themselves, the programme gives a raw but often uplifting insight into the everyday lives of these extraordinary families.
Same Difference 