The family contexts described by young people might usefully be thought of as characterised by multiple difficulties and challenges. Issues such as family
homelessness, parental substance use, domestic violence and parental mental health issues were common across the sample. Rather than one or two discrete issues appearing, it was more often the case that young people reported a variety of substantive difficulties within the family situations, which were experienced together and which were closely linked35. As one example, Jade B’s father was left physically disabled following an accident, following which her family dealt with his physical impairment, problematic mental health and substance misuse:
My Dad’s got mental depression which we’ve only just found out now, but he used to like try to kill himself, commit suicide, you name it he just wanted to do it. He used to hear voices, he was in the psychiatric unit for quite a long time, saw people in there that was, oh they were horrible. He used to drink because he thought it was the only option he could do, stuff like that. (Jade A, F,17)
Many interviewees indicated that they had grown up in an environment where there had been a problematic lack of access to material resources. Hayley (F, 16) had been responsible for feeding her sister and taking her to school for a number of years, but was not given money to do this. She lived with her father at that time:
“he wouldn’t leave me no money for food, so I’d be lending money off of people. It were ‘orrible”.
Often there would be one ‘primary’ issue present in the narrative, which would be experienced against a backdrop of more complex issues. For Mercedez, her central
‘problem’ was related to her parents’ use of alcohol. Colourful descriptions of incidents of her mother’s behaviour featured very heavily in her narrative, such as this one where her mother had been drinking and had been discovered:
Flaked out on the bed, fat stomach out, fanny hanging out, just like that [mimes action], asleep. So my grandma's gone and got a big glass of water, and just gone [actions throwing water] in her face, and my Mum's gone
‘ugh, ugh’. And she's walked out of the bed, not even noticing we were
35 The inter-relatedness and complexity of problems within family contexts is highlighted also through the ‘pen portraits’ of young people included as Appendix F.
there, and like ‘do you think I'm a bit drunk do you’ … And she'd walked out of there to go into there and the door wouldn’t open, so Darren *Mercedez’s boyfriend] seen her, and she had all everything hanging out, tits and
everything, and I just felt proper disgusting. Not me disgusting but disgusted in her.
Although she saw her parents’ use of alcohol as the primary focus of her difficulties, other family concerns she described were that her father had been raped when he was young, and that her mother had severe mental health problems and struggled to cope with the behaviour of her children.
Homelessness was referenced as a point of difficulty in ten of the accounts.
Experiences associated with homelessness were sometimes described as especially difficult to cope with. Scott (18), who had lived in various hostels with his family whilst growing up, described events at one of the hostels he had lived in with his mother and sister as follows:
… [A couple have] moved in and he's killed her. Like, killed his girlfriend. And that's actually not a lie. It was in the thing [media] and the hostel got shut down and everything for it. Then the hostel got set on fire. There were smackheads [Heroin users] that were leaving like needles int’ toilets and stuff like that, syringes in toilets and everything. I don't know. It was horrible. Some stuff that you don't even want to see in there.
Five young people had experienced homelessness with their parents (rather than as homeless single adults), and experiences of this ‘type’ of homelessness were mixed.
Whilst some young people who had lived in hostels experienced this environment as relatively safe, others felt very threatened within these environments, depending often on who other residents were. Sam (M, 14) indicated that sharing could be difficult: “in here you’ve got like *bad+ people or summat”.
A growing body of research has highlighted the severe emotional difficulties which can result from children living with parental domestic violence (Holt et al, 2008;
Hester et al, 2007; Mullender and Morley, 1994). The present study indicated that
exposure to parental domestic violence was a particular theme in terms of the difficult family contexts or ‘adversity packages’ experienced by vulnerable young people (see Rossman, 2001). Hayley (F, 16), who had also been in an abusive relationship herself, described that her mother had regularly fled from domestic violence for short periods, and would then return:
My Dad used to be really violent and to grow up watching that it’s… like, my first tooth came out in a hostel for Mums and babies and my brother wasn’t even ─ not eight weeks old (Hayley, F, 16)
Domestic abuse was explicitly reported in nine of the young peoples’ stories, but, in a number of other interviews, descriptions of parents “arguing” or “fighting”
seemed to imply ‘code’ for this. In each case, the violence they had witnessed was the abuse of their mother by their father/‘step-father’/and/or another partner. In some cases it involved a number of different men, as Anna (who spoke English as a second language) poignantly described:
When I was three years old, right, my Mum and Dad was, like, didn’t live together. And I just remember that thing [violence] right. I opened the door and my Mum just get my little brother and me and we go downstairs and I can’t remember nothing else. And after [months or years], my Mum was having a boyfriend, and he just hits her and my Mum didn’t like it (Anna, F, 12)
As well as first-hand experiences of domestic violence, young people told stories of it having taken place in their families. Wadren described events in his family as follows:
… my real Dad was like a complete arsehole. He beat my Mum up, he raped her and did all these horrible things to her. (Wadren, 17)
In Naz’s case, her mother had experienced a forced marriage as well as violence from her extended family, which Naz seemed to have a detailed awareness of:
… she got took to Pakistan, beaten up and stuff like that, they were gonna kill her – she were pregnant with my brother – they threw her down the stairs and everything. And then her Mum brought her back to England and then her Mum goes that it’s her fault and stuff and they put a knife to her…
(Naz, F, 14)
Awareness of domestic violence or having witnessed it was sometimes a factor linked with young people’s sense of their ‘vulnerability’ (see Chapter 7).
Particular difficulties in family functioning often seemed to appear within a more general context of volatility or precariousness in family life. Hayley was homeless and staying temporarily at her grandma’s house. As well as describing how her Aunt was in prison for killing a partner, Hayley seemed to have a difficult relationship with her parents:
My Mum’s got depression; my Dad’s just a stress head and he’s telling me that I’m not his daughter anymore; it’s like… he doesn’t call me his daughter no more. (Hayley, F, 16)
Hayley indicated that it was not easy for her to cope with her feelings during difficult times, as she felt a responsibility to play a role in supporting other members of the family.
When my Auntie got sent down it was just a bombshell for everyone and I didn’t want to speak about how I felt ‘cos I felt it would trigger them.
(Hayley, F, 16)
Contrary to ‘common sense’ understandings of young people as emotionally
‘incompetent’, Such and Walker (2005) have argued that a sense of duty and care towards others is in fact central to experiences of childhood and youth. Feelings of responsibility towards loved ones frequently featured in the narratives of the young people.
In four cases, a sense of shared responsibility in family life extended to fuller and more formal ‘caring responsibilities’ for siblings and parents. ‘2Pac’’s mother had
been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when he was aged 12, which led to him needing to “do everything” in the house, including cooking, cleaning, ironing, and washing:
My life was crap. I hated it. It was like I had to craft my personal life around my Mum because I’d never know if she would be fine of if she would just…
sometimes she can’t get out of bed… (‘2Pac’, M, 14)
Even where caring responsibilities were less formalised, young people described feelings of responsibility towards adults in their families. Mercedez was very concerned that her father might die from his alcohol use:
I keep threatening him with it, saying Dad, I want you to be there for my marriage and walk me down aisle, thinking it'd come into his head and think
‘right, I can see some sense now’. But there's still nothing… [so I] said to him
‘well, I guess you don't want to walk me down the aisle then’. And then he said ‘well I guess I fucking don't then, don't bother asking me’. But that's something that was said that probably weren't ever meant, because you know what these people are like. (Mercedez, F, 15)
Descriptions of difficult family contexts often indicated that at the same time as dealing with issues which were emotionally or practically problematic in their own lives, young people were often supporting family members and loved ones with the same issues. Narratives often gave the impression that young people were able to manage such issues with a substantial degree of independence from adults and parents.
There were a very small number of interviews in which young people gave the impression that their family contexts had been relatively free from such substantive issues. Laura (F, 16) reported that her greatest difficulties were around meeting new people during the transition to high school and incidents of bullying which her parents had supported her with. This indicated perhaps not particularly exceptional experiences of ‘youth’. John had attended a public school until he stopped going at aged 14, when he had started using drugs heavily. Although he had argued with his
parents extensively for a number of years and the relationship had eventually broken down, he indicated that difficulties in his life were related to bereavement and drug use rather than complex or disadvantaged family circumstances, saying of his childhood that “The only really significant event I can remember from around there [point on life map] is a ginger cat and being stung by a wasp” (John, M, 16).
The relative absence of difficulties in John’s family context was indicated by the more ‘everyday’ things he chose to discuss in his life story, a situation which was notable for its rarity in the interviews. For the most part, young people revealed knowledge, understanding and experience of a range of complex situations and numerous problems within their social and familial circles.