One of my colleagues is constantly off or leaving early because of childcare. Pick ups, drop offs, kids off sick, last minute issues. I do understand that children come first, that is not the issue.
The problem is that it is not shared at all in her household. From what she has said, her husband does not step up, so everything falls on her. Which in reality means it falls on the rest of us at work.
We are the ones covering her workload, staying late, reshuffling deadlines and picking up the slack. It is not occasional, it is constant and it is starting to feel like it is just expected.
What makes it worse is that our manager is fully aware but does nothing. She avoids conflict and just tells the rest of us to get on with it. There is no attempt to address the imbalance or put any proper structure in place, it is just quietly absorbed by the team.
It also makes it harder because she is HR and we are a small organisation, so it feels like there is nowhere to raise this without it becoming awkward or going nowhere.
I do not blame my colleague for needing time off when her kids are ill. But it does not feel fair that her home situation, particularly a partner who is not pulling his weight, ends up creating extra work and pressure for everyone else.