Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

As his parents age, the sibling of a severely autistic adult juggles feelings of devotion, incompetence, and fear

The author, right, with his younger brother Jack, who has severe autism.

By Tom Clements

There’s a question I never ask my parents out of a fear of opening the sluice gates, namely, “What exactly happens when you’re no longer around?” Since I was a young child, I’ve avoided broaching this rather forbidding subject, but every now and then, often in the early hours, it pops up uninvited in my conscience. Am I to assume the role of carer to Jack, my severely autistic brother, or is he to go into residential care? The answer to this question is complicated by the fact that I myself have a mild form of autism which, though often imperceptible to the lay public, affects almost every aspect of my life.

Given how much I struggle on a daily basis to put my own life in order, would I, when the time comes, really be able to assume my parents’ mantle of full-time caregivers? I’d imagine such painfully hard questions bedevil all autism families, as though the reality of autism weren’t difficult enough. Do parents allow their non-autistic or mildly autistic children to lead a ‘normal’ life unencumbered by life-limiting care duties or do they pass onto them their responsibilities?

My parents have always insisted that I have nothing to worry about as far as Jack’s future care is concerned. They…