I feel like we all need to take a good look at ourselves. What is wrong with us?! As the very visible displays of hate and discrimination loomed large over the UK recently, Carers UK released a piece of research that was (accidentally, I imagine) incredibly timely.

Their research found that a fifth of carers (19%) said they had been treated unfairly or unfavourably by the general public, and 22% of carers in paid employment said they had been treated unfairly or unfavourably at work.

I’m willing to bet those figures are higher is reality. Fairness can be a subjective thing, but Carers UK’s research suggests that unpaid carers often feel invisible, overlooked and undervalued. Amen.

55% of carers say better understanding and recognition of unpaid carers from the general public is needed. Again, I think that figure is much higher in reality. I think unpaid carers across the UK can all agree that ‘the general public’ has a very paradoxical view of us. We’re either selfless heroes or benefit scroungers.

Make up your mind folks, which one is it?

We’re neither of those things, of course. We’re just people who have an extra burden to carry, one we don’t want or didn’t ask for in most cases, and are trying our best to fight an inadequate and unfair social system to get some level of much-needed help. There is also the uncomfortable fact that most of us will become unpaid carers at some point in their lives – not a nice thing to think about, I know.

Maybe that’s it? Maybe society doesn’t dislike us as such, but hates the idea of us. We do represent family members getting sick and old. We remind them that we have a terrible health and social care system, and that life is hard sometimes. So they react by ‘othering’ us; either with false and flattering heroic labels or by demonising us as weak, lazy, and gaming the system. The result is that we’re either too ‘good’ or too ‘bad’ to be considered. Great, we have a collective opinion about this and we can all go back to demonising illegal immigrants. PHEW.

Carers UK is calling on the government to make caring a protected characteristic that, according to them, would increase awareness of caring in society, making unpaid carers more visible and more widely understood. The Equality Act 2010 aims to prevent discrimination and encourage equality. In the Equality Act there are nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of these characteristics.

I’m not sure how much difference it would make for us in society in general but I think it would help, and give us a level of protection at work. For those of us who are able to work, anything that keeps unpaid carers employed is a good thing. Any legislation that recognises caring as something real and tangible is a good thing too.

Unfairness and discrimination are borne out of ignorance, so unpaid carers need to keep speaking up, and having legislative back up gives extra weight to our voices. We might even remind some people that we’re all the same- just humans trying our best…some should be trying harder than others!

You can read Carers UK’s research here: https://www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/our-campaigns/making-caring-the-10th-protected-characteristic/