Thupayal Hussain began his teens quite ordinarily. “I’d rush home from school, watch my favourite TV programme and eat the dinner my mum cooked. I played video games and football with my friends.” He pauses. “It’s difficult to look back.”
When he was 15 , everything changed. “I remember the day vividly. My head of year came into the classroom and said, ‘your mum’s had an accident’ - and they took me to the hospital.”
His mother had slipped on the stairs at home and damaged her spine. An active single mother with little money but lots of energy, the accident left her almost bedbound. In the course of a day, her teenage son went from young and carefree to “young carer” – though that wasn’t a term he knew at the time. Now 30, he knows it too well.
Research by Nottingham University in 2018 suggests that among 11 to 16-year-olds in England, one child in 15 is shouldering significant caring responsibilities for a sick or disabled relative at home. And there are many even younger carers too. A recent survey by the Carers Trust found that the pandemic has exacerbated many of the problems these children face, with longer hours spent on their caring duties, and greater isolation leading to a steep decline in their mental health.
Hussain says he feels deeply for them in this crisis: “It’ll be like prison in their own home. They’ll be so conscious that they could be a ticking time-bomb bringing the virus back to their loved ones. That’s a whole extra level of stress”.
Young carers often keep their problems to themselves, Hussain observes. “I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I’m quite proud. I hated people feeling sorry for me.”
After his mother’s accident, the hospital gave Hussain phone numbers for social services, but it took two years to secure disability living allowance and only then did social care follow. In the meantime, Hussain did all the caring alone.
He ran the household, scraping by on the benefits the family were receiving before the accident, looked after his 11-year-old brother, and provided the direct care his mother needed. “She couldn’t have a shower on her own, or go to the toilet … I was constantly up in the night. I was doing things no 15-year-old boy should do, especially for his mum.”
The worst thing though, he says, was the bureaucracy. “I had to battle to get her the care she needed. The forms were immense. I had to go to a tribunal to represent my mum’s case. I had no help with that and it took a very long time.”
His friends didn’t understand. “I’d say I can’t go out because I have to look after my mum, but they just didn’t get it. I’d explain my mum had hurt herself and couldn’t do things for herself, but in the end you get sick of explaining and just say ‘I can’t come’.”
Teachers gave him a lot of leeway on homework and absences. That was essential, he says, but the school didn’t think to help him find more support, and the leeway didn’t help him get good exam results.
According to a 2013 Children’s Society report, young carers’ results at GCSE average nine grades below those of their peers across all their exams. “I missed about 20 days of school in the GCSE period,” says Hussain, “and I was exhausted. My results were not very good and I didn’t get into my first-choice college.”
He began sixth form studying sciences, but couldn’t manage the workload. Switching to business studies helped, “but I still struggled”, he says. Once again, at university entrance, he missed out on his first choice, but by the time he started his business management degree, things had begun to improve.
“By then, mum was getting most of her physical care from social services. I didn’t have to come home to give her lunch. Social workers – great people by the way – were beginning to ask if I needed help. Too late. By then I’d set it all up.”
Still a teenager, Hussain remained his mother’s organiser, trouble-shooter, and primary emotional support for the depression that followed her injuries, but at last he had time to study. And he used it, graduating with a first in every module – the only student to do so.
Now working at Bank of America in the City he says he is is given the flexibility to continue caring for his mother (with 20 days paid care leave a year) and remuneration beyond his wildest teenage dreams.
“I always wanted to be a footballer,” he chuckles, “for the money more than the football – to be able to make changes for my family. And now I can.”
He has bought a house and adapted it for his mother, who he says will always live with him.
What about the emotional impact of his teenage caring? He says: “It’s difficult to put words to that. You get your head down and move forward. I didn’t have time to reflect on myself.”
It was 11 years after his mother’s accident before Hussain had a holiday. When the young carers’ charity, Honeypot, appeared on Bank of America’s biennial ballot for the company’s 2019-20 charity, its respite work really hit home. “I started running around my department saying, ‘you are going to vote for this!’”
His colleagues listened, and Hussain tells me proudly that they’ve raised £500,000. The money made it possible for Honeypot to launch a new programme of residential courses, to improve young carers’ confidence and help them reach their educational potential.
With lockdown, the residential part of the course had to stop, but with an emergency six-figure grant from Bank of America, Honeypot has taken the programme online, running group workshops and keeping their five to 12 year-old young carers connected.
Hussain has become an ambassador for the charity. Its director of income and communications, Anthony Cummings, says he is the “perfect ambassador. He struggled at GCSE, but he kept going. He is tangible proof that with resilience and self-belief, young carers can succeed.”
Hussain says his colleagues have also commented that knowing more about his background made sense of his personality – “I’m very driven and focused. I’ve had to be.”
So does he think his caring experience contributed to his success? “Probably, yes,” he replies. “I’m doing better than most of the people I grew up with and I think it’s because of that determination.”
In lockdown his mother’s carers stopped coming for a while, “so it was back to how it used to be”. But he says the last couple of months have also been “amazing” after his local mosque introduced him to Julie, to whom he is now married.
For young carers struggling today, he says: “I’m not going to say your life is going to be easy – it is not. But don’t let your circumstances define you. Prioritise what matters most to you and keep pushing … And don’t be afraid to ask for help.”
And for the government and the all-party parliamentary group on young carers, he stresses: “Young carers are like everyone else but with different pressures. They don’t need pity. They need practical support.”
Advice and support for young (and adult) carers is available from www.carers.org
Curriculum vitae
Age: 30.
Family: Lives with his wife, mother and younger brother.
Lives: Stratford, London.
Education: Lister Community School, Newham; Leyton Sixth Form College; University of Greenwich, BA business management.
Career: 2018-present: vice president, compliance specialist, Bank of America; 2015 - 18: markets reporting team, Financial Conduct Authority; 2014–15: contact centre team, Financial Conduct Authority; 2013–14: complex case handler, Momenta Holding Company.
Public life: Ambassador for Honeypot.
Interests: Football, gym, cars, video games.
