I was looking something up the
other day and came across this extraordinary phrase - ‘binary arguments are
the crack cocaine of human interactions’.
They can certainly shut down conversations, cause division, anger, and
huge upset amongst families, communities, work colleagues and friends. Think about
Brexit, or climate change, or even who you might vote for at the next election.
However, it needn’t always be such big issues that give rise to binary
arguments. For example, in our house we have a night owl and a morning lark
that share the same bed.
Last week I read a report of a
large study undertaken by researchers at the University of Exeter involving
just short of 500,000 people. The report suggested that if you are a natural
early riser, then you are likely to be happier and be protected against
depression. The study worked out who was a natural early riser by looking at
their genes – ‘larks’ genes tend to be slightly different from those of
night owls. ‘Larks’ thrive when they get up early and go to bed at a
sensible time and they are likely to do so 7 days a week. Night owls on the
other hand defy their natural body clocks by getting up earlier than they might
want to for work and so on, and are more likely to ‘sleep in’ at the
weekends. Binary opposites like this in relationships are usually thought to make
it difficult to coexist. Happily, we do!
In our house, it’s not just sleep
that provides example of such binary opposites. Food is another area. We both
love food. I love shopping for food, cooking and eating food, as does J (well
she likes the eating bit). I’m a vegetarian and J is an omnivore. Like
sleeping, we manage to co-exist okay. And of course, there are possibly good
and bad aspect of both diets. Recent US studies have shown that eating a vegetarian
diet can help prevent heart disease, cancer, obesity and even reduce the risk
of developing severe Covid19. The
reduction in risk compared to meat eaters can be as much as 59%. However, researchers
at University College London and Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health
have found that children who are given a vegan diet are likely to grow up shorter
and have weaker bones. Their research notes that vegan children (now that also
sounds weird) should be given daily vitamin B12 and vitamin D supplements, so
as to avoid potentially long term health issues. There are said to be over
600,000 people in the UK who eat a vegan diet, and if you want to join them, there
is some helpful advice here. For ideological reasons, I have been a vegetarian
since my late teens but these days, I’m always willing to buy meat and fish for
J. I draw the line at cooking it for her, however.
Children were also on my mind
last week for other reasons. I was thinking about ‘children who are looked
after’, and ‘looked after children’. Two very different groups, yet two
groups who share many similarities. They are all children and young people who
care for or who are cared for. Today marks the end of this year’s Carers’ Week.
This is a week where the importance of unpaid carers in many people’s everyday lives
is recognised and acknowledged. You can read about this year’s campaign and
news here. Carers of all ages often face many challenges. However, children and
young people who are carers face some of the most difficult. The Children’s
Society has a web site (see here) that sets out in big, bold and no uncertain
terms what some of these challenges are.
The sheer scale of the numbers of
children looking after someone else is staggering. The Children’s Society
estimate there are over 800,000 young carers aged between five and 17 who are
looking after an adult or other family member in the UK. ‘Looking after’
in this context will often mean providing care for someone who has a physical
or mental health problem, or someone, perhaps because of drug or alcohol misuse,
is unable to appropriately care for themselves. Caring for someone with such
needs brings with it huge disruption to the normal processes of maturity, education
and socialisation. Sadly, it is often true that young carers are hidden from
view, with their caring responsibilities simply not known by other significant
adults or even their friends. So, finding ways to promote resilience and
properly support them can be difficult.
The other side to this binary position
is those children and young people who are ‘looked after’. The term ‘looked
after’ has a specific and legal meaning that is set out in the Children’s
Act (1989). In March this year, there were 107,163 children and young people being
looked after and in care in the UK. Children (up to 30% of children in care
enter the care system before they are four years old) and young people come
into the care of a Local Authority because it is either unsafe for them to remain
in their home or because, for many different reasons, their parents are unable
to look after them. Like young carers, ‘looked after children’ can experience
the same disruption to their education and in accessing opportunities to grow
and learn. Whilst many of these young people have good experiences, it’s still
the case that many care-experienced adults struggle to find employment compared
to their non-looked after peers.
There is currently an Independent
Review of Children’s Social Care which is due to report in Summer this year. I
hope that by the time we get to Carers’ Week 2022, we will have started to see some
significant improvements in how all our children and young people are cared for
in our society. For me, it's not just the care of the individual that counts the most, its the care of relationships all children and young people experience that really matters. This, I hope, is not a binary argument to make.
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