to lie to work

[cherrycakesparkle]

I go back to work in 3 weeks - 8 till 2 daily. Wish I didn't have to, but I do. A conference has been planned for 2 weeks after that, for the whole team from around the UK. I will have to get up at 3am to leave and would not be back till 11pm that night.

DS is breastfed and pretty full on still. He will be ok at nursery I think with expressed milk but very dependent on me to be fed to sleep and fed through the night. I think he would be distraught to wake up in the night and for me not to be there, also to go to bed with me not there. Sorry if I sound precious, I'm not trying to be.

If I explain this to work I think they will just say, tough, you need to come.

Would IBU to tell a lie and say that I have a hospital appointment on that day that can't be moved? I don't like lying (who does) but to me it's better than leaving DS all day and thinking of him crying and needing me. The conference is just a get together and I can do my job without attending.

Might anyone from your workplace be on MN to read this thread?

Breastmilk, I doubt it, mainly male workforce. So hopefully not.

These things don't come up that often, maybe twice a year.

lie

Now that I've read more posts, I don't think you should lie. I come from a place where they would be completely not understanding about this situation. It seems that there are certain laws around bf here, so you should just explain it to them, IMO.
I don't think you're being "precious" at all. Btw is there any way you could bring a babysitter/temp nanny along with you for the day and just slip out and feed ds when necessary? Might be pricey but worth it?

Well, since the company have a duty to accomodate the bfeeding, I would talk to them about it.

They might find it easier for you not to go!

Neither of my 2 children slept until 10 months without being BF to sleep. I would definitely have lied if in the same situation.

OP YABU.

You should tell them the truth. My job involves a small amount of overseas travel, and before I went back to work (when DD was 8mo) I discussed with my manager the fact that I would be very grateful if he could arrange that I wouldn't have to travel overseas until DD was 12mo (she was bf).

He agreed, but I did have to go on the odd conference in the interim. DH had to take the time off to look after DD, and we had to ensure (in the weeks leading up to me being away) that she would take a bottle (not easy!).

I felt that it was important that I compromise (given that my boss had already done so), and also that DH realised that he had equal responsibility (although obv he couldn't bf!).

I know you want to put your DC first, but as unpalatable as it may seem, there is no way going back to work is going to work (IYSWIM!) if you don't at least try to find a solution to the many issues that make being a WOHM stressful!

This thread makes me a bit cross TBH, no wonder working mothers have a bad name and dont get ahead in the workplace. Lying and making excuses just is so not good in a workplace.
Honestly if I lied in my line of work, I could be struck off, and I really cant imagine doing so!
And as an employer of a small business, I would be gutted and mightily pissed off if my staff felt that lying to me as a way of dealing with an issue was either acceptable or reasonable. But I would be more han happy to compromise and make an effort to accomodate if things discussed openly and honestly.
Am saddened by how many people thing lying is reasonable, and using putting your child first as an excuse. I have always put my children first, it has taken effort and compromise and some difficult times, it has never needing lying and making up stories :(

Another one who thinks you shouldn't lie for a whole heap of reasons.

I think you should speak about this with your line manager. Having been a line manager, rightly or wrongly how you approached me would affect how I felt about it.

If you said that this one would be difficult for me, can I bow out and I expect to be fully on board for the next one then I would agree if it were in my power. If you said you didn't want to go because of bfing baby and puttign them to bed yourself and nothing else I'd be a bit mainly because other people (like undercovamutha) manage even though it's hard and I know I would have had a whole team of blokes rolling their eyes and going on about mothers in the workplace and I would have to deal with that situation (which I would have done but can do without it).

It's also highly likely there are other people in the team that would find things difficult that you don't know about and they are coping e.g. carers or people suffering ongoing illness.

macdoodle, bear in mind the OP technically speaking isn't a "working mother" yet (in the WOHM sense). She hasn't yet gone back to work and gone through all the mental adjustments and readjustments that accompany that process, and works for a company that is not terribly sympathetic to it. Not every employer is happy to compromise, particularly when Fred doesn't ask to be let off a conference to breastfeed, why should Frederica?

I entirely agree that lying is the wrong tactic - I can't think of a work situation where it is the right one, to be honest. But it's not as if lying is the sole province of the working mother, you've never known anyone chuck a sickie for having a hangover? C'mon.

The thing is, I'm not saying that I don't want to go to work or avoid something that is important. I am saying I do not wish to travel to something that I feel is unnecessary at the expense of my child and to no real advantage to my employer.

I can either tell a small lie and everyone's happy - and nobody will be any the wiser because I know they definitely won't ask to see the hospital card - or get into a long protracted discussion about it, and end up with some far fetched and unnecessary pantomime involving babysitters and the like, when I could save everyone a lot of bother and tell a small untruth which is highly unlikely to be discovered.Or they might tell me I have to go anyway, I will likely refuse, and there will be huge ill feeling.

Macdoodle, putting my child first is not an excuse, but the premise of my whole dilemma.

7 month baby or not I think it is utterly ridiculous that they expect you to put in a 19 hour day when you are contracted for 6 hours. I would struggle to cope for the next few days after doing this and I don't have a young baby.

I wouldn't lie to them, but I would express concerns about being away for your baby for so long, actually I would lie on the childcare count and say that you don't have any. You could offer to stay back to make sure phones etc are covered.

I think macdoodle raises a good point. Lots of people said lie. And working mothers have a tough enough time as it is without us making it worse for ourselves by acting in an immoral way that validates the negative stereotypes.

We all need to be sensible and reasonable whether employer, employee, working mum or not.

OP - I feel for you, as like I say I have been in a similar situation. However, do you propose lying everytime a work issue conflicts with a family issue?

If the conference is really SO pointless, than why would they mind you not attending? Surely it is not up to you to decide that something is unnecessary.

Plus, do you really think your employer will be so stupid as to not realise that you are lying. It doesn;t take Einstein to work out that an employee with a small baby, who has just returned from maternity leave, suddenly has a hospital appt on the one day that there is a conference on, they may be lying.

It sounds to me like you have made your mind up, but if I were you I would be very careful.

Rookiematar - as far as I understand, it is only such a long working day because the OP can't/wont stay overnight the night before.

cherry you are making a lot of assumption in your last post which if I was your boss would really annoy me.

You say the conference is "unnecessary". That's massively disrespectful to your employer who obviously do think it's important.

From what you've written you don't seem to even by prepared to discuss it or compromise. You've decided it's a waste of your time and you're not going.

I am quite pissed off now that you would act so unprofessionally and use motherhood as an excuse. Lame.

Please credit me with the intelligence and experience of differentiating between an important conference and something that I do not feel is crucial to me doing my job well.

I think what you are failing to grasp Manic is that I do not wish to go to the conference because it would not be the right thing for my Ds - if I didn't have him, I'd happily go, stay the night before and after, and enjoy catching up with some colleagues! I'm afraid it's your lack of understanding of my motives and dilemma though I have explained them clearly that's lame.

Of course I do not propose lying every time there is a work/baby conflict. I actually have a much older child and do not remember an occasion when I have lied to work for him.

And for those of you judging, I refuse to believe none of you have ever pulled a sickie or lied to your employer, so don't be so self righteous!

When DS was 6 months, I had to do a training course in London (live 2 hours away by train). DS was having a bit of food, but mainly b/f. Found a nursery that would take him, made plans to come and feed him over lunch, run back etc.

In the end, it all went horribly wrong, and it took them about 2 hours to calm him down, we decided it would be best if I didn't visit at lunch time and they gave him the ebm (although one of the bags split ). The whole supply that was supposed to last for 4 days lasted a day.

Anyway, he was absolutely fine. I gave him a feed in the morning, he ate a bit of banana, had some water and then a huge feed when I came and got him in the afternoon.

Your DS will be fine. Really. Maybe you could arrange to spend the night near where the conference is, and take him with you so you could feed at break times?

But even if this doesn't work out, he will be OK.

You on the other hand may be a bit sore...

Just read your post again Manic - really cannot believe you would turn this from a genuine concern of a mother who doesn't want to leave her baby into a lazy employee using her baby as an excuse to not attend something...says a lot more about you than it does about me!

And finally Manic don't berate other posters for being bolshy and unfair, you're just as bad as them.

YABU, you want the job (and presumably the money) but don't appear to want the obligations that go with it.

OP, I agree that you shouldn't lie. I also think you need to really consider how you are going to cope with being at work. Please remember that, whatever your reasons, and however much it doesn't feel like a choice, you are choosing to go back to work, and therefore must be in a position to undertake your work in as full a way as you did before having the baby.

I suspect that this will be just the first of an enormous number of dilemmas - the guilt of being a working mother is not exactly new or secret, and it well-known for a reason. You have five weeks. I really think you should spend those weeks working on getting DS to take EBM from a bottle, otherwise this may well come up again and again. Discuss it with your DP - he needs to be given the opportunity to learn to cope with DS without you. If you don't give him that chance, and don't learn to step back a little, then you will have this problem over and over.

Don't lie - it really is the worst option.

Norwegian - this is a fairly extreme obligation of an 8-2 job, though.

Is there a an anonymous number for your HR? Mybe ring them find out what the policy is? As you are breast feeding I would have thought they had to let you? Hope you don't have to lie, but if they wont let you i think you should.

ok I see this is another AIBU when the OP is not prepared to admit she is BU at all !
OP, I have plenty of sympathy for your predicament, and actually think your work would be pretty unreasonable to expect you to attend with a small BF baby.
And I admit that a lot of workplaces are not sympathetic to BF working mothers. Unfortunately thats life.

What I think is totally unreasonable, is your first instinct/way out of this dilemma is to lie, as someone else mentioned, is this going to be the way you deal with all future childcare issues??

FWIW, I have never "pulled a sickie" or lied at work, would not be a good idea in my profession.