Retrospective meaning-making of multifaceted care among Finnish former young carers

Abstract

<p>This article analyzes experiences of caring in the accounts of Finnish former young carers. The data consists of retrospective interviews (N = 23) with people aged 20–49 whose childhoods have been shadowed by a parent’s mental health disorder and/or substance abuse issues. The research questions of this article are: (1) How do former young carers describe the care they have given during childhood and adolescence? (2) How do they reframe these experiences in the present? Our interpretative analysis combines thematic and narrative methods and focuses on responsibilities embedded in caring, forms of emotional care, and the ways the research participants retrospectively constructed meaning and made sense of their experiences. Our analysis shows how emotional care expands beyond the dyadic relationship between the child and the ailing parent, to the ways in which the former young carers perform emotion work in relation to themselves, other family members, and broader social surroundings. Interviewees reframed their experiences through the epistemic dimension (characterized by limited knowledge, understanding, awareness, and language to make sense of and articulate their experiences as they were unfolding), the moral-affective dimension (including moral obligation, family loyalty, and fear), and the structural-practical dimension (marked by a care void within the family).<br></p>