Chris Law on growing up in care: 'It’s a dirty stain of shame'
8 min read
SNP MP Chris Law says being taken into care when his disabled mother could no longer cope was a ‘godsend’ – but tells Harriet Symonds that the law needs to address the stigma that blights those with similar experience. Photography by Tom Pilston
“It’s a dirty stain of shame,” says Chris Law, Scottish National Party MP for Dundee Central, about growing up in care. “Even sitting here today, I’m uncomfortable speaking about it.”
“You keep it buried, you keep it secret because you know that people see you as different,” he adds.
His mother Jean became sick with multiple sclerosis (MS) shortly after she and her husband adopted him when he was three. “Caring was part of everyday family life,” he says. But in the years following his parents’ divorce, home life became even more difficult.
“My father really couldn’t cope with understanding that my mother was getting increasingly ill,” he says, recalling the lead-up to their divorce when he was nine. “By this point, she was unable to walk.”
“No two days feel the same. They certainly don’t feel secure when you have a mother who’s getting increasingly disabled, she has her own mental health issues to deal with, as well as physical. It really compounds on you as a young person.”
From ages 12 to 14, Law was in and out of care before eventually going into residential care full-time. “Despite what most people think, it was a godsend,” he says. But at the time he felt “incredibly guilty” leaving his mother on her own.
“You’re 14 years old, turning your back – as you see it – on your disabled mum who needs your support, but actually you’re driving each other a bit nuts because your needs are different,” he explains.
“They’re having to accept care from a young person who could be living a full childhood... That put a real strain on our relationship, without a shadow of a doubt.”
The sense of discrimination or shame still exists today – 40 years on
While he says his time in residential care was largely positive, he admits he struggled to cope with the discrimination that came with it. “You’re seen as a potential threat to other students in the class. You’re seen as a potential troublemaker,” he says.
“I had a really good friend at school, but once his parents worked out I was in a care home, I didn’t see him anymore,” Law recalls. “You have a teacher tell you, ‘Chris, you don’t seem to have too many friends. You’re always on your own. Is that because you’re in care?’ So, as a young person, you feel it.”
His mother’s illness meant he had to grow up fast. “I felt like an adult as a boy. I didn’t have the same kind of childhood experience as my age group. For example, you do the shopping, help around the house. It might be really personal care you need to deal with, and for a young boy with a disabled woman and mother, that has its own context as well,” he explains.
The instability at home made him “quite disruptive at school”, he says. “I found school increasingly difficult and found settling more difficult. I was advised to seek support in psychiatric care, which I refused to, at age 12. Can you imagine being asked these questions at that age?”
Research consistently shows that children in care tend to have significantly poorer life outcomes compared to their peers, across areas such as education, employment, housing and mental health.
One statistic shows that children in care are seven times more likely to be dead by the time they are 21, and 20 times more likely to be dead by the age of 25. “That’s really shocking,” says Law.
On housing, 25 per cent of the United Kingdom’s homeless population are care-experienced, and a third of care leavers are homeless within the first two years of leaving care. On crime, 52 per cent of children in care have a criminal conviction by the age of 24. On education, children in care are two and a half times more likely to be excluded from school by the age of 16, and three times more likely not to have a full-time job by the time they are 26.
Poor mental health is a significant driver of these statistics, Law argues. “I was lucky in life, able to get on my feet.” Yet he acknowledges things could have easily gone another way – as they did for one boy he spent time in care with. “When he left here, he got involved in drugs and became a heroin dealer. He spent 11 years in jail.”
Since leaving care, Law says he has tried to “erase what happened” because of the discrimination he received and to this day still finds it difficult to talk about: “I closed that chapter of my life.” He admits to having hidden his time in care on occasion, inventing a different past. It was only after being asked to speak in a Westminster Hall debate on foster care – by complete coincidence – that he began talking publicly about his own experience.
“The sense of discrimination or shame still exists today – 40 years on – which is shocking, really. When you start to look at the impact that care has on young people, it’s horrific. I mean, horrific and getting worse.”
“We have a system across the UK that can be improved, but first of all we need to remove the stigma, and we need to remove the discrimination,” he insists.
I had a really good friend at school, but once his parents worked out I was in a care home, I didn't see him anymore
With Labour MP Darren Paffey, Law has set up a cross-party group for care-experienced young people that is set to become an official All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) later this year. The group is campaigning to make care experience a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.
“If you don’t know much about a person, or you have in-built prejudices through no fault of your own, lack of information, ignorance, whatever, you can make assumptions about people, without knowing what it is that you’re making assumptions about. For example, you might go for a job interview and they say: ‘I saw on your CV that you had care experience. Were you ever in any trouble?’
“They’re not big, they’re subtle. But if you have different subtleties happening regularly, not only does that person have a different sense of who they are compared to other kids, but also you’re perpetuating the system.”
Making care experience a protected characteristic would go some way to tackling this, he says. “You’ll have a legal framework to challenge the discriminatory practices that happen that are faced by people like myself.” It will be a “silver bullet” giving care-experienced people lifelong support and enable policymakers to gather data about who these people are and their needs.
The group recently met with children’s minister Janet Daby, a former social worker, to discuss the proposal. “She was really good at listening and hearing some of the experiences,” says Law, but adds: “I don’t think the government’s anywhere near it yet.”
“The system we have at the moment, it would be an understatement of the century to say it’s got more room for improvement,” he says. “I think the time for change is ripe and the time for change is now.”
Law has been an advocate of legalising assisted dying “for many years” but his experience caring for his mother only entrenched his support for the move. Along with the rest of his SNP colleagues, he did not vote at the Second Reading of the Terminally Ill Adults Bill, however: “We do try to avoid voting on England and Wales bills only.”
Like many others, Law agrees that a Private Members’ Bill is “not the best” way of legislating on such a complex issue as assisted dying. “There’s a lot of lessons across the world on safeguards and where things haven’t gone as well. I think absolutely we should be concerned about any coercion. You wouldn’t want any coercion, whatsoever.”
But on plans to replace judge-led sign off with a panel of experts, he is supportive: “I think it’s a good thing. I don’t think you need a high court sign off on things like this.”
“I watched my mother’s life be stripped from her, physically that’s obvious. Mentally, the impact of having a slow degenerative condition, or the type of MS that she had, which led to chronic pain day-in day-out, that had a terrible impact on her mental wellbeing and on our relationship,” he adds.
“She would say regularly, ‘I shouldn’t have to go through this suffering. I shouldn’t have to see out my life in a way that I can’t take control of.’ We discussed it, and I remember her telling me, ‘Don’t ever let me die in a hospital’.”
Law cared for his mother up until her death in 2000, when he was 30 years old. “I had never faced death like this before,” he says. “I even remember saying [to the ambulance] ‘don’t rush’, because I just knew this is not going anywhere, and the last thing she’d want is to die on arrival at the hospital. She died in the back of the ambulance at our front door.”
“That first day, I was like, ‘Did I kill my mother? Did I grossly neglect her needs?” he recalls.
“My mum didn’t need to go through that. There are people out there who, because of their particular condition, should have the ability to have the choice.”
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