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?

Good, although in your shoes I would be totally unimpressed that he argued it so much. You clearly needed to be in work and he was not particularly supportive. Did he not realise before having a child that sometimes they would be ill and need him?

That comes up a lot but it's not a universal truth, in all my years having children in nursery and primary school I wouldn't even need 5 fingers to count the days they were sick. Good to have a plan but it's not all doom and gloom where illness is concerned

Actually thinking about when I was a primary school governor the attendance rate was in the high 90s % and loads of children got 100% attendance certificates, the majority of children were hardly ever sick, it was more than those that were generally were off a lot

When you're on day 2 of employment you have no idea though what the employers attitude is. Ime you should do everything you can not to miss your induction process in an industry where jobs are hard to come by

If I was her husband I’d be filing for divorce asap. It’s unacceptable to expect a GP to give up work for a sick child.

She’s the mum.

I'm glad to hear he is at home - I remember your thread when you weren't sure whether to take this rare-as-hen's-teeth job

You've got to be married to get divorced. OP hasn't clarified, but she's only referred to a DP.

A person in any job who expects their co-parent to take on all emergency childcare needs to ensure they have the financial and legal protections of marriage.

Well, then, he would definitely have to cover 50% of the sick days, i.e. the ones that fell on his time, so it would be rather counter-productive, no?

And if I was married to the kind of person who would file for divorce over me wanting equal consideration of my career vs theirs, damn straight I would be doing everything I could to keep up a good impression at my new job so I could support myself financially post-split. So again, rather counter-productive as a "threat"

Logic: it's a good thing...

Is it the superpower of the vagina that enables mums to type "emergency babysitters" into google, but not dads?

Another stunning piece of logic.

Exactly this. It's not asking a friend to pop over of an evening one week to do a toddler tea and cuddles, so you can take some chocolates to your brother in hospital for an hour.

If a "mum-friend" is at home and not in work, then presumably they have their own child/children at home and aren't going to want to catch the lurgy from OP's child.

If a grandparent is local, good chance they are also working, with a retirement age of 68 - they might be OK to take the lurgy risk but also might not be able to take a short notice day off without issues.

Teenagers doing a childcare course (???!!!) are likely to be in class/on placement on any given termtime Tuesday, so you might get lucky, but you would presumably want to take time for them to meet DD e.g. with some evening non emergency babysitting, before leaving her all day and poorly with them.

Once you have dc you work on backup plans. I bet you were popular having your first day off as a child was poorly!

Obviously if dc are very ill yes we take leave, carers leave whatever. But this thing on mn where run of the mill colds and coughs have people take the day off is very unusual. Where I worked it was expected you had these things covered.

Who covered your child having a cold for you? Do you have local non-working close relatives?

Why would you judge it negatively when you have 3 children of your own for goodness sake?

Life happens and this sort of attitude is why people take sick kids to school and childcare or go to work when ill.

As the child's dad is around, it would become apparent immediately that, if he wouldn't take the hit on OP's second day of work, it would always or almost always be her taking the hit. It wouldn't be 50/50 or anything close.

That simply doesn't happen anymore. Those 30 people will have been triaged and will have needed to have been seen.

The time-wasters don't get near a GP! Unless they are very good at manipulating the "care navigators" at reception.

Well presumably it depends if it's a day when he was 30 face to face appointments, or is manning the online triage which presumably can be done from home.

I am telling you the impression it would give as her employer.

As her employer, I would have no idea if his day was typically an in person day or an online day, that wouldn't be my concern. My concern would be that his job would be put ahead of that of my new employee the vast majority of the time.

Oh family, friends. We'd all help each other out as needed. So say my dc had a cold one week I'd go to work and sil would watch. Vice versa 2 months later if hers were ill.
We have to have a network. Having the day off because a dc has a very routine and common illness should not be the contingency plan.

To add... if you are saying "depending on his day" - well, you also have to say "depending on her day" - and her day, in this instance, is the second day at a new job, not the 52nd. This is an important day.

I agree with this. Seems to happen quite a lot on mn. Where mum is default for collection with sickness even if she works full time. After the first day in a new job that would show the employer the intended pattern going forward.

You are lucky that SIL lives close enough - would she have to take a day off work to watch your child?

But what if you are needed while your child is awake? Would you say you can't work because you're looking after your child?

I think that’s what OP is saying - she would explain that although she was WFH, child was sick so she would do what she could in nap times but wouldn’t be fully available for work.

OP’s work is copywriting so - depending on meetings - it may well be that it can be caught up in the evening by quite a bit.

I'd love to see the risk assessment and insurance policy for a professional childminder/ nanny/ babysitter knowingly and intentionally taking on sick children into their care.

Very different to market that as a service than to have a reasonable SOP in place to deal with a child that becomes unwell whilst already in your care.

I get that. But an employer may ask for a conference call or need to bring forward a deadline and would probably not like to be told it can't happen because of childcare issues.