“Not only are children having their rights violated, but then those who are the carers who advocate for those children and who know them best are also invalidated… it’s trauma upon trauma, and it’s dangerous.”
Join Eloise and Caro for a conversation on writing, navigating inflexible systems as a single mother and full-time carer, and what it means to live a life on the edge.
I was delighted to catch up with Caro on the day her luminous memoir Twelve Moons: A Year Under A Shared Sky was published in paperback. Whilst chatting we went deep into our frustrations with the mainstream approach to ‘tackling’ school attendance, which can be deeply harmful for families like Caro’s where children - through no fault of their own - cannot access the school system because their needs aren’t being met.
It’s not all doom and gloom though! Caro’s book is a love letter to her daughters, to the Northumberland coast, and - I think - to herself too. I loved hearing about her writing process as a mother and full-time carer, particularly how she navigated her daughters’ right to privacy whilst still telling a story that needs to be told, and how she embraced memoir as an opportunity to write herself - woman, mother, carer, swimmer, runner, writer - back onto the page, where stories of people like her are still largely absent.
I hope you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation as much as I loved recording it.
You can read a transcript of this interview here (though please note this is automatically generated by Substack so there may be some errors!)
You can find Caro on Instagram here and read her wonderful newsletter here.
You can buy Twelve Moons in hardback and in paperback from all good bookshops, including here and here. There is also an audiobook and eBook if that’s your preferred medium!
And of course, if you’re not subscribed to Small Places yet then you can do that here to get all future conversations straight to your inbox!
Small Places relies entirely on readers like you, and every subscriber makes a difference. If you can, please consider supporting my work - and gaining access to exclusive posts as well as the full archive - by paying just £5 a month.
"Is it possible to unravel the woman from the mother?" Caro Giles on writing herself back onto the page