New York City, New York Aug 31, 2025 (Issuewire.com) - By the time most children are learning multiplication tables or riding bikes through the neighborhood, Omarion Calloway was memorizing seizure protocols, changing diapers, and holding his grandmother steady in the bathtub. At ten years old, he wasnt just a childhe was a caregiver. And while the world around him carried on as if nothing was different, Omarion was learning the language of survival in silence.
Now, hes taking that silence and breaking it wide open with More Than Survival: A Guideline for Young Caregivers, a raw, lived-experience guide that weaves his story with lessons, reminders, and hope for the millions of children across America who are quietly carrying adult responsibilities.
I wasnt supposed to know how to bathe my uncle or feed my grandmother at ten years old, Omarion says. But I did, because they needed me. When you love people, you do iteven when youre still a child yourself.
Growing Up Too Fast
Omarions days began and ended with responsibilities far beyond his years. While his classmates were worrying about homework or who to sit with at lunch, Omarion was scrubbing sheets, cooking meals, and learning to recognize his uncles smallest gestures because his uncle could no longer speak clearly.
I learned his code, Omarion recalls. A glance, a sigh, even the twitch of his hand became language. I had to know what he needed before he could ask.
He bathed his grandmother, folded her laundry, and memorized her medication schedule. Her laughter was his reprieve, even as her cancer deepened. But when night fell, Omarion swallowed his grief into the same pillowcase he had to straighten every morning. His mother, working two jobs to keep food on the table, never heard him cry.
The weight of it all didnt just shape Omarions body, it shaped his spirit. Everything you thought was drowning you actually taught you how to swim, his mother once told him. Those words would later carry him, even as loss hollowed out his world.
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By thirteen, his grandmother was gone. Before he reached college, his uncle passed too. Relief and grief collided in him like two storms meeting over the same sea. There is a guilt in feeling relief, Omarion admits. Because when the exhaustion ends, you realize it only ended because someone you loved is gone.
From Silent Struggle to National Spotlight
His path forward wasnt pavedit was carved. Omarion survived homelessness, bullying, and the quiet ache of watching his mother cry in the shower at night, thinking her children couldnt hear. Yet against the odds, he went on to earn over $1.3 million in scholarships, making national headlines.
But even then, he was torn. It confused me, Omarion says. The same people who laughed at me for being different, the same teachers who doubted mesuddenly they were proud. Where was that support when I was drowning? Thats when I realized I couldnt wait for the worlds approval. I had to find my own strength.
That strength carried him to New York University, where he is preparing to graduate in 2026the same year his mother, who sacrificed her own dreams to raise her children, will finally walk across the stage to receive her degree. I remember hearing her cry at night, Omarion reflects. She fought for us when the world gave up. Now its her turn to win.
Along the way, Omarion worked with the NAACP, amplifying stories of Black excellence, stood under the lights at The Sherri Show, and experienced a surreal full-circle moment: meeting Omarion, the artist he was named after. It felt like life closing a loop, he says. From the boy who once felt invisible to a man finally being seen.
A Hidden Crisis: Americas Young Caregivers
Omarions story is his own, but its also far from unique. Over 5.4 million children in the United States are young caregivers. Many are Black and Brown youth, disproportionately burdened with responsibilities that no one notices until its too late.
Young caregivers are invisible, Omarion explains. Nobody asks what it does to a child to spend their days lifting adults, managing medications, then show up to school like nothing happened. Teachers call you distracted. Friends think you dont care. But the truth is, youre holding the weight of survival every single day.
Behind the invisibility is a healthcare system that leaves families with no choice but to lean on their children. Without affordable home care, respite services, or reliable support, children like Omarion become the gap-fillersuntrained, unacknowledged, unseen.
These arent chores, Omarion says. Theyre life-or-death responsibilities. And it breaks my heart to know so many kids are still carrying what I carriedalone.
More Than Survival: A Guideline for Young Caregivers
Born from those very years of silence and sacrifice, Omarion created More Than Survival not as a textbook, but as a lifeline. The guide blends his raw story with hard-won lessons and reminders:
- Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others learning you cannot pour from an empty cup, no matter how much the world tells you to.
- Mental Health Matters a raw account of how therapy saved him, and why silence in Black and Brown households must be broken.
- Little Lifelines music, journaling, breathing spaces, grounding objects, creativity, and connectiontiny anchors that kept him human when the weight tried to erase him.
- Looking Ahead how scholarships, opportunities, and dreams are still possible, even for children who feel trapped in survival mode.
The guide closes with a deeply personal letter, To the One Still Standing, written for the reader who carries Omarions words to the final page: I am proud of you. Proud of the nights you didnt give up, the way you carried love on your shoulders, even when it was heavy. You dont have to be perfect. You just have to keep going. Because one day, youll look back and realize you didnt just surviveyou built something beautiful out of brokenness.
The full guide is free and available now at: www.MoreThanSurvivalGuide.com
Advocacy and Next Steps
The guide is only the beginning. Omarions upcoming project, WeRiseLoud, will amplify the voices of young caregivers and marginalized communities, advocating for systemic change so that no child is left to shoulder adult responsibilities alone. Through workshops, partnerships with schools, and public speaking, Omarion hopes to turn his private pain into collective action.
About Omarion Calloway
Omarion Calloway is a first-generation college student, writer, and advocate from Montgomery, Alabama. A former young caregiver, his work sheds light on the unseen struggles of millions of youth across the U.S. He uses storytelling to center dignity, empathy, and hope, reminding young caregivers everywhere that they are more than what theyve survived.
Source :WeRiseLoud
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