Who should go to work tomorrow?

[NotSureICanDoIt]

Today was my first day at a new job - one I am very lucky to have. I probably wouldn’t find another one as good again. Not going in tomorrow will look very, very bad and potentially jeopardise my job.
DP is a GP and has a 30 patient clinic tomorrow.

DD3 is ill. Some sort of virus, fever, headache, sore throat, no appetite. There’s no way she’ll be well enough for nursery tomorrow.

DP thinks I should stay home with her and I think he should. Up until this point I’ve been a SAHM so things like this weren’t an issue. He has never ever had to cancel work before.

Who gets to go to work tomorrow?

Sounds like he should have planned better when having a child then, doesn't it?

Glad youre working today OP, and hope your child feels better soon.

I am super confused by this list. My husband and I have both always worked full time and we have no family (immigrants) and obviously no friends we could leave a poorly child with. Each time it's a conversation between us - who has a meeting, who can maybe WFH for a morning/afternoon, who was off last... whatever the conversation is, it is only between the two of us. If our child is too ill for nursery/school, they are also too ill to have paid babysitters (not that we've ever used paid babysitters anyway). Most people don't have an assortment of options with a poorly child.

I googled it before I posted and a number of very short notice agencies came up for exactly this situation. Other posters also mentioned them earlier in the thread.

Yes apparently "all" employment contracts have this written into them. No, they don't.

I did read our remote working policy the other day but it's about security and confidentiality, not whether you monitor your kid while she lies on the sofa watching Peppa Pig.

I think my workplace has an arrangement with an agency but a lot would depend on where you live and where their staff are located as to whether they could help.

Do people really leave sick children with strangers? Have never head of such a thing. Did some googling and can't find anything locally - there's loads of agencies but they won't send sitters unless your child is out of the incubation period (so 48 hours for sickness and 24 for fevers, just like school) so I can't quite see how that would help anyway, even if I was going to leave a sad and sickly child with some random person for the day.

Anyway probably a good outcome if she was sick - she may have just eaten something that doesn't agree with her but if it's a bug your DH wouldn't want to be giving it to 30 patients. Hopefully some of those appointments can be converted to telephone ones.

Not ideal for you to potentially take it into the office either, but as I did the same when I was ill on the second day of a job I can't say anything. I remember feeling ill about 5am that second day morning and thinking I just can't not go in on my second day!

Half day each if the travel allows it. You start as early as you can and leave at lunch. He starts after lunch so doesn't cancel all patients. Or vice versa.

Not on day 2 of a new job! I would judge this very negativity, and I have 3 young children so in the best position to be understanding.

This!

I have never heard of anyone leaving their sick child with a stranger and disappearing off to work! 🤣 This thread is wild. Some people really have their priorities wrong.

Even if I had those priorities I can't work out how I'd achieve this. Is this something available in London maybe? Super expensive nannies who chose to hang out with vomiting children? I guess if you pay enough you can get anything really but I don't think that exists in most places.

I'm lucky in that I have family/friends/babysitters nearby who can provide childcare every now and again. Not once would I ask them if my child had a sick bug! And if I was so cheeky I would expect the answer to be no. There is a strong likelihood they would catch it and who wants that?! Particularly a childminder who would then be unable to work themselves for a couple of days. There are certain things that fall on parents. And looking after a vomiting child is one.

You'd still need to take a day off for a sick child or arrange alternative care whilst wfh. You can't effectively do a full day's work and look after a sick nursery aged child

I live in London and have never heard of it before. I work in professional services at a senior level and from time to time colleagues take the odd day off because their kids are sick.

I don't know what you decided to do OP, but I would actually say that you take the day off if your DH will lose money. Its not as if you are off sick, its your child.

There's some emergency childcare available in some places, but I think the availability of it when a child is actually ill is one of those things that's more talked about than actually happens.

You go to work. I transitioned from SAHM to PT to FT and we had to thrash this stuff out. Sometimes we would do a split day, so both of us took half a day off and were able to do critical things. But appreciate that wouldn’t work in your scenario and your brand new job should take priority.

This

Wow!

How very ‘not in the spirit’ of this site.

Doctors are humans and have families just like everyone else. If this GP needs to prioritise his family for one day then so be it. It's for the system to decide how to manage these 30 patients not one individual doctor who is likely extremely overworked and underapppreciated by his managers and his patients. If he drops dead tomorrow his work colleagues and patients will likely barely bat an eyelid. His biggest imprint will be left on his family and to them he is irreplaceable. Doctors and nurses are doing a job just like everyone else. Granted it's an important job but it's thankless and they don't owe you their blood. As someone who's also a GP I will work hard and do my best to help my patients but you're living in la la land if you think I'm not going to prioritise my family over complete strangers, many of whom are just as rude and entitled as you are.

I have. Our babysitter didn’t get sick. They knew my child was unwell and were happy to come. We had a number of university students babysit for us.

I wouldn’t advocate it in all circumstances obviously. It does depend on the illness. A snotty 3 yr old who had a temperature but is otherwise okay (but nursery won’t have back) is different to a vomitting baby who feels horrendous and is likely to be very contagious as well as needing parental comfort.

Our babysitters also were not strangers. We used them for fun evenings out or if we wanted to do a big ikea shop for a couple of hours etc. So that our kids knew and liked them.

However it’s absolutely not cheap.We paid £20/hour. OP’s DH should just step up in this situation! So not suggesting it for this situation.

I'm glad you worked it out OP! It sounds totally fair that you've gone in and DP stayed at home. Yes he's a GP but he also decided to be a parent. This is how it is.

I'm baffled by the replies saying you should have back-up babysitters and childminders to take your sick child for the day though. Where do people live that these exist? I find it hard enough to find someone to have my child for a few hours in the evening.

Because the patient with 'potential cancer' is going to say oh well I couldn't have my appt today so I just won't bother going to the appt that the gp practice has rearranged for me. Get real.

All that will happen is they get told there are no appointments available this morning when they phone up, because it's nigh on impossible to book in advance, so they'll call again tomorrow morning instead. Get a grip. They won't even know the surgery is a doctor short.