Young Carers: A Silent Cry for Help

Which one?

Something to wear over this.

Maybe the gray one?

A high school student takes care of his mother who has cerebral palsy.

He cooks, does laundry, helps her change...

it can all take as much as five hours a day.

He is one of the so-called "young carers," or children under 18 years old who take care of family members.

Among 2nd year junior high schoolers in Japan, as many as one in 17 are believed to be young carers.

Many of them never even seek out help.

Never.

It’s not the kind of thing that gets solved
by talking about it.

But turning 18 doesn't necessarily make life any easier for such carers.

Now 43, this man tended to his sick mother mostly on his own for some 30 years.

He had to sacrifice his own aspirations for life, from higher education to having a career.

I lost all reason to live.

When my mother died...

I felt like I was finished too.

Why are young carers not even reaching out for help?

We set out to investigate the circumstances of young caregivers in Japan and the local government assistance available to them.

We received countless heartbreaking responses from the children we surveyed.

I was told not to discuss
my family situation with others.

"Sounds tough!" Those words were
all my friends had to offer.

How can we best reach out to such struggling youngsters?

Joining us as we explore this question is Ozora Koki, a 23-year-old university student who runs a nonprofit that advises and supports young carers

and other troubled youngsters through an online messaging service.

Ozora himself grew up in a complicated family environment, and at one point lost his sense of meaning in life

as he struggled to keep going amid the challenges.

What worries me is the prevalent belief that
burdens should be shouldered alone.

It leads to an overly self-sacrificing approach
to taking responsibility.

People feel that it’s somehow shameful
to ask for help, but that’s not true.

To me, asking for help is the most
natural of human responses.

Join us on our journey, as we listen to the silent cries for help of the young carers hidden in plain sight among us.

In the summer of 2020, we met a young carer in his first year of senior high school.

When he gets home from school at 8:30 at night, he has to start caring for his family.

Kento's parents divorced when he was little.

He now lives with his mother, who has disabilities, and a younger brother.

Kento begins with laundry, so he can start other tasks while the washing machine is running.

Next he must prepare dinner.

This is his mother, Hiroko.

Cerebral palsy has left her less mobile with every passing year.

She can no longer manage most housework, including cooking.

- Are we totally out of food?
- No, there’s some.

But there’s no rice,
so I’ll make carbonara today.

Kento always tries to come up with a menu that let's them keep costs down as far as possible.

I’m going out for groceries.

Kento goes shopping after dark three or four times a week, sometimes even later than this.

He first started preparing meals under his mother's guidance when he was in 5th grade of elementary school.

My mother was having trouble using her hands,
so I decided to take over.

Saving labor whenever he can, Kento prepares enough to cover both today's and tomorrow's dinner.

Hey, wake up.

He also looks after his fourth-grade brother.

Tired and hungry waiting for dinner, he had fallen asleep.

I cooked this without tasting it.

You measured everything by eye?

- You have sauce on your face.
- Can you pass me a tissue?

Kento is always attentive, whether giving his mother a straw for her drink, or picking up a dropped fork.

He finally finishes all the household tasks for the day just after midnight.

Each day feels too short.

When I’m doing housework, I keep thinking
about the next thing I have to do.

It’s tiring.

But I’m used to it.

- Let’s go to the park.
- Alright.

Today is our 4th day of filming...

We get a first glimpse of Kento's life as a normal high-schooler.

One of the first things he did on entering high school was sign up for the dance club.

He's been too busy with housework to attend practice, so he's teaching himself using videos his clubmates share with him.

Kento hasn't revealed much about his family situation to his friends.

In the past he'd been mocked by others for having a mother who uses a wheelchair.

So these days, he just tells his friends he can't join them because he has housework to do.

He wrote, "It’s cool you do housework."
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but my friends take for granted that they’ll
have dinner and a hot bath waiting for them.

Kento has no adults in his life he can count on.

A daytime helper does come from time to time, but they're there to support his mother, and not for Kento to talk about his problems.

I have few adults around to talk to.
I mean, literally none.

It’s not the kind of thing that gets solved
by talking about it.

We conducted a survey of a thousand young carers, sampled using the LINE Research Platform.

When asked if they had ever sought advice about being a caregiver with anyone, 72.9% responded "Never," "Almost never" or "Rarely."

Among the reasons given, the most common answer at 28.7% was that they felt talking about it would be pointless.

Many also simply felt uncomfortable to talk about their situation, or thought it was unnecessary.

Yet without help, young carers risk deepening their isolation.

The experience can even affect their own future and life choices.

Meet 43-year-old Kazuya.

He took care of his mother for some thirty years, from the time he was in elementary school until her death five years ago.

We first met Kazuya two years ago when he was 41.

His meals consist of bread and vegetable juice mixed in a blender.

The prolonged stress of being a caregiver caused Kazuya to develop an eating disorder.

He can't eat solid food.

He used to prepare liquid food like this for his mother.

Now he does so for himself.

Nowadays, I only eat to stay alive.

Kazuya spent most of his adolescence as a caregiver.

He felt left with no choice but to give up on higher education or finding work.

In normal circumstances, I’d have
got a job, working for a company.

But I was so busy just getting through each day,
I couldn’t afford to think about my own future.

Having lost his father early in life, Kazuya was left to look after his grandmother and sick mother.

The three of us lived together,
my mother, my grandmother and I.

It was a precious time.

Things became especially tough when Kazuya was 25 years old.

His mother broke her hip and became totally bedridden.

She also became increasingly emotionally disturbed, and would reject the help of doctors and carers.

Mostly, my mother wouldn’t let anyone
touch her except for me.

I even had to take care of her toilet needs.
It was hard.

The feeling that she’d be in real trouble
without me gave me a sense of mission.

Five years ago, when Kazuya was 38, his mother passed away.

Kazuya was released from his caregiving role, but he was left feeling unable to leave the house.

For so long it had been just the two of us
helping each other to live.

Left behind alone, I felt guilty to still be alive.

In despair, I even seriously considered
the right thing to do might be suicide.

Even now, Kazuya remains unable to find a sense of meaning or purpose in his life.

Every day, he rereads a comic book series he used to read by his mother's bedside.

The main character withdraws into the
mountains for a long time.

The story has echoes of his own life, and the study and career he's given up on.

There’s a chapter called "Lost adolescence."

The character imagines what
his life might have been like, going to university, partying,
getting a job, getting married...

He ends up in tears, mourning what
might have been.

I can identify with him. It’s my favorite scene.

In our survey, 36.2% responded that being a young carer made it difficult to go on to higher education.

Many also replied that their situation had affected their employment and marriage prospects.

Is the plight of young carers something
you were aware of?

Kazuya, who we just met, said the time spent
caring for his loved ones was "difficult but precious."

Even if their situation appears
miserable and requiring support, the act of caregiving itself might
mean the world to them.

Starting this year, the government is launching
a 3-year pilot project to support young carers, appointing coordinators to connect government
agencies with existing support groups.

But in our own nationwide
survey of local governments, it became clear over 60% didn’t even have
anywhere young carers could get in touch.

Further research revealed an unexpected
hurdle especially for carers of a young age.

In 2021, the city of Kobe in western Japan launched a consultation service dedicated to young carers, the first of its kind in Japan.

We’ll see what we can do.

Eight departments including the nursing-care insurance division and the Board of Education collaborated across organizational boundaries to create the one-stop service.

Also, employing an extended network of schools, hospitals, clinics, and welfare officers in each community, the service is designed to be able to offer personalized support to those who need it.

Until now we’ve failed to address the needs
of young carers.

We essentially overlooked their existence.

During the fiscal year ending March 2021, there were 62 reported cases in the city requiring support.

Only in a third of these did officials manage to communicate directly with the young carers or their families.

One of the greatest barriers encountered is the refusal by many families to accept support.

This young carer is the only child,
and the mother’s situation is quite tough.

We need to intervene,
but the mother is refusing help.

In this case, the mother has paralysis in her lower body, but has declined nursing care services.

The child is feared to be overburdened.

The mother wouldn’t even let the
care manager in.

She’s also very sensitive to having any vehicle
parked outside that looks like a care provider.

We asked 155 local governments nationwide about the challenges they encountered in supporting young carers.

76.1% reported support being either outright refused or simply not sought by the carer, with an even higher 77.4% citing that support was refused by the carer's family.

In high-schooler Kento's household too, his mother Hiroko at one point was refusing any outside help.

What time will you be back?

See you. Work hard!

When she was young, Hiroko's symptoms were only mild.

She could even ride a bicycle and was easily able to take care of herself.

From her mid-twenties on though, she began to experience body pains, and it began to affect her parenting.

She was finding it harder to pick up and hold her children.

But she didn't seek help out of fear that doing so might prompt authorities to judge her unfit to be a parent.

I felt desperate.

If I admitted I was having difficulty,
welfare officials might take my children away.

That’s what I was terrified of.

But as Hiroko's symptoms of numbness gradually worsened, she was able to do less and less as a mother.

Hiroki is Kento's elder brother.

He cared for his mother Hiroko for more than 10 years.

These days Hiroki lives away from home due to his work, but he witnessed his mother's most challenging times up-close.

My mother was having the toughest time.

She grew reclusive and lost
her motivation.

I think she was struggling hard to
play the role of mother.

Hiroko was eventually left with no choice but to accept the help of a housekeeping service four times a week.

She made the decision after discussing it with a welfare officer, but still has mixed feelings about it.

She says, "The burden on my children has decreased, but so has my role as their mother."

I receive support from various departments.

But this isn’t what I hoped for.

When he started his final year of high school in April, Kento began thinking more seriously about his life after graduation.

He says he's very worried about his mother's future.

I want her to do whatever she wants to.

She hardly moves other than going to the bathroom.
That’s not good for her health.

I hope she can give physical therapy a try,
for her own sake.

While assistance is always welcome, some worry it
could further deprive parents of their self-worth.

Recently ever greater numbers of young carers
have been using our service.

The issue of young carers isn’t only
one of assisting children, we must also consider the position of parents,
and support the family as a whole.

Yet how can we assist children and
their families if they don’t ask for help?

I spoke to Okuda Tomoshi, who’s been
helping the vulnerable for over three decades, and runs his own nonprofit organization.

Young carers refrain from asking for help
due to the widespread belief, that they’re supposed to solve their problems
by themselves.

They are bound by an overinflated
sense of self-responsibility.

We have to remember not only young carers,
but also their parents live in social isolation.

People turn a blind eye to "family matters".

The ideal of "self-responsibility" becomes
an excuse for our inaction as a society.

It’s implied people get what they deserve,
but in truth we just don’t want to get involved.

How can we make asking for help
something totally natural?

I want to create a society where people can
say "Help me!" as casually as "Hello!"

We need to create more places people can turn
to help them stand on their own feet.

People feel that it’s somehow shameful
to ask for help. But that’s not true at all.

To me, asking for help is the most
natural of human responses.

A support group in Yamanashi Prefecture is trying to help not just young carers themselves, but their whole families.

If we hear about a young carer,
what do we do next?

Kato Kaori is one of the founding members.

She's concerned about a mother and daughter who've come today.

Midori, the daughter, is a high school senior.

Kaori is her mother.

Kaori suffers from a number of mental health challenges, including an eating disorder, and her daughter Midori has been caring for her for nearly a decade.

I used to blame her for giving birth to me
in these circumstances.

Even these days I sometimes still get
flashbacks and feel tormented.

Midori didn't only have to care for her mother but also for her younger siblings.

She had no time left to herself, but there was nothing she felt she could do about it.

I would wake Mom up and help
dress my siblings.

I felt responsible for everyone and everything.
It was so tough.

I wanted my mother to say, "Thank you."
I wanted her to acknowledge me.

But her mother, Kaori, also felt she was failing as a parent to her three children.

She had no one to share her feelings with and became depressed.

People told me, "You’re their mother.
They’re your responsibility."

Or "You’re not trying hard enough."

So I decided I would never ask for help.

Kato from the support group proposed that Kaori simply start out helping with what she can.

Her first suggestion was making lunch boxes.

She hoped Kaori might find a role she could feel good about, like planning the menu for someone or even selling the lunches herself.

- We have cabbage.
- So, no need to add lettuce.

Kaori is especially keen to help deliver the lunches to mothers who are busy taking care of their children.

From her own experience of not being able to take care of her daughter, she feels she wants to help in whatever way she can to lessen mothers' burdens.

- Should I add spinach?
- She actually asked for less vegetables.

For the Hamburg steak...

- Is it okay?
- Yes. Thank you.

Kato hosts meetings so people who share similar worries can pour out their true feelings to each other.

Today Midori and Kaori are taking part.

Looking back, I can see that everyone
was just trying their best to live.

She might not be good at expressing it,
but I know how much Kaori loves Midori.

I’m so glad there’s someone who
understands me.

From now on, I’m determined not to
be a burden to Midori anymore.

I’ll support her so she can pursue
whatever she wants to.

Midori has been quietly listening to the conversation.

In spite of everything, I can see that
my mom was trying her best.

I hope the experience can
help us both move on.

Before I knew it, I found myself surrounded
by friends, and I felt much better.

Even when you’re going through
a rough patch, you can reach out.

Things will change if you take action.
Your whole perspective can transform.

We can’t simply erase their pain.

But we can help them feel better, just like
a mother gently rubbing her crying child’s back.

Kazuya lost his purpose in life when his mother, whom he'd taken care of for over 30 years, passed away.

This year, a big change came to his life.

He was invited to Fusen-no-kai, a group consisting largely of former young carers.

I cared for my mother for 24 years,
from the time I was in fourth grade.

It was always the two of us together, so when she died it felt like I had
lost half of myself.

Kazuya is gradually connecting with other people who've had similar experiences to his own.

On this day, he spoke about his experiences as a young carer for the first time.

I got sick and my weight dropped
down from 60 kilograms to just 35.

I was diagnosed with stomach ulcers
and an eating disorder.

Things were tight financially, and my mother’s
medical bills soared once she was bedridden.

Your experience is so similar to my own,
I could relate to everything you say.

Thank you for sharing.

And there was another first for Kazuya that day...

He took the initiative to sign on as a staff member for the support group.

I don’t really do all that much, I just
help move chairs and the like.

But this is like opening a door to a new world.
A big first step.

It was Kazuya's neighbors, the Uemuras, who introduced him to the outside world.

They stepped in to help when he fell ill after his mother's death and took him to the hospital.

It was someone he met there who introduced him to the support group.

We were taken aback when
he told us how he’d been living.

We wondered if he had anyone to turn to.

We couldn’t simply turn a blind eye.

This spring, Kazuya received some wonderful news.

Check what’s inside.

Whoa!

Someone who'd heard about the group had gifted them bullet train tickets to Tokyo.

Kazuya had never been able to go on school trips as a child, so this would be the first travel experience of his life.

Are there any places you’d like to visit?

Well... I’d like to see Tokyo Tower.

The day before departure...

I can’t eat solid food however hard I try,
so I’ll need my blender to prepare meals.

I’m not trying to make up for lost years.

I’m simply glad to have new experiences,
and to make new memories.

Everything Kazuya sees is new to him.

Look, you can see Mount Fuji.

Let me take some pictures.

Finally!

As a kid, I could never go on school trips
however much I wanted to.

This is really like a dream come true.

It’s quite something.

I feel alive.

Up until recently, my whole world
was just my home.

Looking down below, I can see people
simply living their lives.

I know it’s just everyday life,
but I’m still awed by it.

A little past 11 at night...

One of the group invites Kazuya to his room.

We did so much today!

- Cheers!
- I’m very happy.

How was your first day in Tokyo?

It’s been a day of firsts right from the start.
I’m so glad I could come.

After a while Kazuya asks a question...

This may not be an appropriate time...

but have you come to terms with your past
as a young carer?

Well... I guess I’ve yet to really
come to terms with it myself.

I’m still trying to figure out
how to see things in a different light.

One of Kazuya's fellow support group members had a message for him.

You always accept people with an open heart.
I admire your broad-mindedness.

I’m so happy to hear that,
I feel tears coming.

Towards the end of the trip, Kazuya was recalling his elementary school days.

Of my six years at this school,
I have little recollection of the first three.

For the last three, things were
very tough though.

Life was so unbelievably hard that
each day went by very slowly.

I hadn’t expected that, so I told myself and
my mom there must have been some mistake.

But there was no mistake.

I really wanted to attend sports day this year.

And most of all I want to join the school trip.

But Kazuya has now begun to see these years in a different light.

The time I spent as a carer wasn’t wasted.

I suppose I should give myself some credit.

I might not have made a big difference,
but I’ve worked hard.

In Tokyo, Kazuya looked down from above and
saw everyone just leading their lives.

Despite having had a very tough life,
through his interactions with various people, Kazuya has begun to connect with society.

He’s now trying to redefine his past,
including the years spent caring for his mother.

Kato’s support group helped both mother
and daughter connect with others.

By connecting people with different needs,
we can help them find a role to play in society.

That group was doing a superb job.

They gave the mother the safe place she
needed to prove her worth to herself.

She’s using them to propel herself forward.
As the mother steps into her new role, in turn that gives her caregiver daughter
time to reflect on what she wants to do.

That’s very important.

More than specialists, what they need most
is to connect to ordinary people around them.

Each of us needs to lend an ear to young carers,
and willingly support and interact with them.

But how best to do that?

The most important thing is to never
try to solve their problems.

People who’ve been hurt are sensitive,
so a pushy attitude can easily put them off.

All you need to do is let them know
you’re watching out for them.

Don’t pressure them by suggesting you’re keen
to find solutions to their problems.

Simply connecting with them is what counts.

Survey respondents were asked about what words or gestures from those around them had given them hope or encouragement.

They included simple things like being told they were understood, being invited out for a meal, or having someone just listen to them.

How did young carers’ cry from the
heart resonate with you?

As a society, I believe it’s important for us
to listen to young carers and their families, and also to interact more with them,
even casually whenever we can.

Simply asking, "How are you doing?"

might help both young carers and their
families feel they have a place in society.

Kento attended an open day at a vocational school with a friend this spring.

He's decided to pursue a career as a chef, something he's been doing at home already for years now.

He hopes to be able to chase his dream while continuing to care for his mother.

He's taking his first important steps into the wider world.

I want to start working and be a part of society
as soon as possible.

Kazuya has started to work part-time, four days a week at a supermarket.

- You go ahead.
- OK.

He feels he's finally becoming a part of society.

I had given up on so many things in life.

But I started to think if I gave it a try,
I might surprise myself.

I can now look forward happily
to each tomorrow.