to be riled by this comment from a colleague?

[dancingwithmyselfandthecat]

Someone I manage has requested emergency leave (unpaid - for the next couple of weeks) because her childcare arrangement for the holidays has fallen through.

I said that I would bring it up with my manager as soon as I could today, but explained that it is unlikely we will be able to accommodate the request because we are low staffed anyway (what with it being August and having accommodated other people's planned leave requests) and have some big deadlines coming up. I said that we may be able to meet her halfway, but she may need to make other arrangements, and if she needed some time today to ring around that would be fine.

To which she replied "Well, there's no way I can ask my husband because he earns more than me and has the more important job".

Now, I won't take this comment into consideration one way or another, but AIBU to be annoyed by it? From our perspective, she is a well-paid, full time employee with responsibilities. It is neither here nor there as to whether in a private context she and her DH consider him to be the "dominant" worker. And from a women-in-the-workplace/feminist perspective, what hope do we have of gaining greater equality when women treat their professional responsibilities in this way?

Actually you could use it in a work context. It wasn't a private conversation but a work one. Shows lack of commitment etc....

Can't licence for stupidity.

PramQueen - of course I would never consider only hiring men. And I do my best to "empower the sisterhood" by mentoring female (as well as male) employees and being as flexible as I can be with requests. But that doesn't mean I can give people carte blanche just because they are women with family commitments.

Or, PramQueen, BOTH parents could step up? Novel, I know.

Unsure why kids are a female only hiring question.

My DH has always earned more than me partly because I went pt of couse but I would have cut my tongue out rather than made that sort of a comment to my employer.

In fact, DH and I would have already had a conversation about who could ask for extra leave, etc and it would be based on whose diary was deemed to be most flexible that week, eg if he was mostly on calls/vs if I was at meetings or had deadlines, etc.

Also agree - emergency leave is to sort out cover, not to do the cover, especially at a business critical time.

I think she probably said it in a panic. If she looks around she'll find holiday clubs or childminders with places. It will just be expensive if she maybe had a relative lined up and now she doesn't.

I think it was a stupid thing to say to your employer. However between me and DH I've taken more time off to look after DS as I still get paid, he doesn't.

And PramQueen - why should family only come first for women? (Which is the issue here)

Dacky - I don't think it's fair to bring it up. While it might not be a "private" conversation, I think that, as so many here have said, it was probably ill thought out and no more.

Woodhead - thank you. I/we try to be. In a more equal world, of course, I wouldn't have less of this type of stress, but it would be more evenly split between the men and the women...

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the lower paid parent must be the one who takes time off

Really ? So you think it would be reasonable to expect a parent on £1000k a month to take unpaid leave over a parent on £450 ? Clearly you don't have any issues with making ends meet !!

Interesting - my husband has the more senior job and is the breadwinner, so he's usually the one to take the day off/work from home. Because he can get away with it, and I usually can't.

..because women generally earn less than their husbands (as in this case) and you, OP, are clearly rich and have no idea what it is like to have to choose how best to cut your cloth.

As a manager I have come across this attitude a few times in the past, partly viewing husbands job as more important but also what niggles me is getting the impression that everyone should bend to accomodate their childcare issues!

In organisations I have worked for, emergency leave in such situations would be a day at most. It is quite possible to make last minute arrangements for childcare for school age children, I have had to do it in the past myself. Play schemes, holiday clubs, childminders, begging favours from friends and relatives or a combination of all of them. What I have found is that people who get 'free' childcare from relatives often have no idea how much childcare costs and/or are unwilling to pay for it. Hence expecting to get unpaid time off - which whilst it (if they are a low-ish earner) may well mean they lose less than if they'd paid for 2 weeks childcare, does have the effect of putting their employer's back up and making them look unprofessional.

Perhaps if less people assumed that it was the womans role to neglect her career and allow their husband to nurture his at all costs there would be less disparity in pay. I apprecite financial necessity may dictate that this will be the case within some family set ups, but it apalls me that people just take this as a given.

Of course, if the wife can take the children into work with her, the husband should ask to do the same. There's no reason why you should do all the accommodating because your employee is a woman, the employers of men should do it too.

I would absolutely expect an employee to at least look at the feasibility of sharing the impact of something like this between both parents. Even if the higher earner took two days and the lower two weeks. Fathers have just as much responsibility for childcare as mothers. OK if you discuss it and it is absolutely impossible to even take one day off but at least discuss it.

i would try my best to share holiday with DH for these breaks.

I agree that it's her "his job is more important" comment that's very annoying.
fair enough, "better paid" if it's unpaid leave, but not "more important" - unless he works for the emergency services.

CommanderShepard has a really good point and one that is a lot closer to my own observation of work.

and yes, it should be discussed between the two "there's no way i can ask my husband"
like he has no parental responsibiltiy!

SJ thank you, for expressing what I would like to, and couldn't do so well.

Quenelle that's what I think, I doubt there is a legal or legitimate way in which I can express that though, so I won't.

PramQueen I'm delighted to hear that I'm rich. Could you pass the news onto my bank manager, please? As you know so much about me, I'm sure you'll know who that is

Sadly not dancing.

Good point SJ. And the solution to the challenges that employees' childcare problems pose to companies shouldn't be 'don't employ women then'. It should be 'find a way to share the childcare problems equally'.

In our case, DH earns more than I do because I am part time. But he is the one who steps up when we have a childcare emergency because he has the more flexible employer.

I kind of get where she is coming from (apart from the stupidity) and not sure it is a male/female thing. I earn significantly more than dh and both of us have always kind of assumed that he will do the majority of emergency childcare. That said, school hols etc are shared between us and I can and have worked from home when emergencies have come up and he can't possibly deal with them.

Well my DH is self employed and a considerably higher earner than me. He works away some of the time. We absolutely depend on his income but could manage without mine despite me being in a reasonably well paid job (higher rate tax payer for some context). I've not had this discussion re childcare ever but I have used it as an explanation for why I am not interested in certain opportunities at work that involve substantial travel. I really can't see what would be a better explanation than the truth here?

It was a totally inappropriate comment for her to make to a manager. Is she usually inclined to 'blurt'? or cross the line in other conversations?

It seems to me that you are accommodating as far as you can, being understanding about the issue, and cutting some slack while she finds a solution. It is not reasonable for her to expect the business to suffer because she has a childcare problem.

Subject to input from your own manager, I would say that all you can do is review any request she makes, see if it fits within an 'allowable' framework, and answer accordingly.
But I would pull her up on any further inappropriate remarks, with a simple "that would be your decision, not a insert company name issue"

MumnGran yes. I think this is the issue (for me), that I interpreted her comment slightly unfairly because she has a bit of a "this isn't important to me" careless/negative attitude anyway. Not enough at any one point to pull her up on, but just enough to find irritating.

anyway, the answer to your original query, you have given yourself.

you can be flexible with her hours - you can ask her to discuss the possibility of her DH changing his hours, you can let her go part-time for a few days, you can allow the children to come into the office, you can give her time in the office to arrange new childcare.
you shouldn't give her 2 weeks off to be childcare - if childcare falls through, she can have a couple of days to organise new childcare.
that's what emergency leave is for, not to stay with the kids without finding cover.

also, the fact she can't discuss it with her H sounds a little bit like he doesn't know the childcare's fallen through.