‘To help the mum I was’: How Charlie Beswick has channelled her own experience into a force for good

Published: 3 Oct 2024

Prior to having children, by her own admission, Charlie Beswick was a perfectionist. And so, having had a healthy pregnancy and feeling prepared, she wasn’t expecting the birth of her twins to be anything other than perfect. Born prematurely at 32 weeks, the babies were whisked away to the special care unit. A few hours later, Charlie’s world came crashing down with the words ‘Twin one is fine’. The doctors explained that her other newborn son, Harry, had Goldenhar syndrome, a rare congenital condition that meant his eye and ear on one side hadn’t developed normally. ‘I was blindsided’ explains Charlie, as she had to quickly start processing the complex emotions that come with the sudden news that your child has a cranio-facial condition and is going to need a lot of care. ‘I had the initial shock, then the fear set in. The fear that I couldn’t care for a disabled child, what if I couldn’t look at him, let alone love him?’. I instantly wondered what life would look like for me and my family and how we would navigate such a different future to the one I had imagined.’

Harry is 19 now, and thriving. He was diagnosed with severe autism aged 3 and has significant language and communication delay as well as care needs that mean he will never live independently. But his diagnoses have not held back his enthusiasm for life, his mischievous sense of humour or his love of cuddles. It may have been a rocky start, but Charlie’s willingness to talk about the extremely tough, and often taboo, emotions that she felt 19 years ago, as well as the rest of her parenting journey is what led her to have the bestselling book ‘Our Altered Life’. In it, she speaks candidly about the rollercoaster of being a parent-carer, in particular the guilt that she carried for the first decade of Harry’s life. The causes of Goldenhar Syndrome aren’t fully understood which meant that Charlie’s search for answers always led her back to blame herself, ‘As humans we need to make sense of things and find reason, and it was easier to punish myself than accept that this was just an upside-down lottery’.

It was this doubting of herself that led her to focus on her career as an educator, ‘I thought if I was a terrible mother that couldn’t even produce a perfect baby, then at least I’d be a great teacher’. She qualified when the babies were just 18 months old, and dedicated herself to her career. Having worked flexibly both part-time and as a job share, Charlie was then forced to give up teaching when Harry’s wraparound care fell through. She found alternative, more flexible work, as a network marketer, which suited her caring needs but didn’t give her the same fulfilment as teaching.

Charlie had presumed she’d have to give up on her vocation because of the rigidity of teaching. But then she was approached by a school who were willing to make reasonable adjustments that accommodated her dual role as a carer, ‘It meant meeting me where I needed to be. It made for a beautiful partnership because I returned their trust of me to do the job with loyalty and giving it my all’. An initial six-week contract turned into 7 happy years, leaving only to focus her energies on her passion projects – improving the lives of parent-carers and raising awareness amongst communities to see beyond appearance with her project ‘More than a Face’.

When asked what drives her, Charlie’s answer comes without hesitation, ‘To help the mum I was’. The sense of being lost, of guilt and loss of identity has propelled Charlie to act to help other parent-carers. She advocates for these parents, who so often doubt themselves due to the enormous challenge of being a carer, so they can see their own strengths, as well as working with employers to recognise the transferable skills that are developed in caring roles and help them start to see parents as an asset to their teams. Charlie has transformed her drive into action, with her work as a trusted partner to help employers get the best out of employees who are carers, as well as her Send Gin and Cheese CIC social enterprise, that supports maternal mental wellbeing.

It is Charlie’s holistic approach, that makes her a perfect fit for a Working Families Ambassador, ‘We speak the same language, we have the same passion – to get better outcomes for carers by working with them on the ground and at a national level’. And, as such a passionate champion of parents and of carers, we’re so pleased she’s come on board.