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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to want DH to look after me when I'm ill?

121 replies

Discopanda · 19/09/2014 14:56

I'm ten weeks pregnant and we have a 2 and a half year old, I'm a SAHM and started to get ill yesterday. I'm really struggling to look after both myself and DD today who I've had to stick in front of the TV with some Peppa Pig toys all day and occasionally throw food at. DH has been at his current job about a year so has passed probation but still won't take a day off work when I'm ill to look after DD so I can rest. I've checked on the government's website and it would classify as parental leave but his father has convinced him that taking time off work to look after your family is 'career suicide'. I'm really dreading the thought of having two children but not being able to rely on DH for help. AIBU?

OP posts:

niddy · 20/09/2014 22:44

Bulb

Feel sad that it's seen as a positive thing that will children can sleep on office floors and is accepted as okay in our society. (No slur intended on you personally).
Ill children should be not have to be dragged around at all.
No alternative to offer. Just sad. What a miserable state of affairs when society doesn't value children's and adults well-being

4boys78 · 20/09/2014 23:07

daisy sick days can't always be as lazy as you want. not with multiple children with school runs and inquisitive and boistorous toddlers.

MintyChops · 21/09/2014 07:13

Fuck that, if you are sick you need help. YANBU.

Snapespotions · 21/09/2014 07:42

FWIW, on the odd occasions I've had time off sick from my job, I usually try to keep on top of emails and do a bit of work from home just to keep things ticking over. Most of my colleagues do the same. In some ways, perhaps that's the equivalent of sticking dc in front of peppa pig and chucking food at them every now and then?

Of course, there are times when you're genuinely too ill to do anything, whether it be sending an email or giving your toddler something to eat. On those occasions, a sahp really needs the wohp to take time off or someone else to come in and help.

combust22 · 21/09/2014 07:54

"Fuck that, if you are sick you need help. YANBU."

Help may be ideal, but not always there minty. I have family, can't afford a nanny, and my OH would be sacked of he took days off to atttend to me. He doesn't take all his holiday entitlement or get a lunch break during a 9 hour working day. either.

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 08:16

When our children were small, and Dp was working in a very high pressure job, we regarded my SAHP role in the same way that I regarded the job I had been in before.

We decided how we wanted out children to be cared for, decided which one was going to do it, and went from there. I wouldn't have expected him to sort out "staffing problems" in my previous job- so unless it was a dire emergency, I didn't expect him to step in if I couldn't, for whatever reason,do this one.

Writerwannabe83 · 21/09/2014 10:34

@ dad's seeing taking care of their children whilst their mum is ill as being "staffing problems" !!!

MintyChops · 21/09/2014 17:47

Not always possible perhaps combust but the attitude of some here of "you have the luxury (wtf?) of being a sahm and now you must always do everything at home even if you are sick" really pisses me off.

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 20:19

If he was ill would you go in and do his job? I know that sounds ridiculous- but it is something to think about..........

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 20:21

" @ dad's seeing taking care of their children whilst their mum is ill as being "staffing problems" !!!"

Why is that a ? If my job is looking after the children, and his is making the family money, then surely I need to arrange cover for my job if I can't do it?

Writerwannabe83 · 21/09/2014 20:23

It is ridiculous.

Looking after the children is not a 'job'. The home is not a workplace and the SAHP is not an employee.

Reading done of the replies on here makes he thankful my husband doesn't see me as someone who should just 'suck it up' because looking after the children isn't his job.

Writerwannabe83 · 21/09/2014 20:24

Excuse all the typos

Writerwannabe83 · 21/09/2014 20:24

Excuse all the typos

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 20:42

Why isn't it a job? If you paid a nanny to do it, it would be a job.

WooWooOwl · 21/09/2014 20:48

A nanny doesn't look after children that came out of her own body, or that she adopted. A mother does.

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 20:51

But if I went out to work rather than look after my children, then someone else would have to look after them. So I am doing the same job that person would do. And my contribution to the family economy, if you want to think of it like that, is child care.

Writerwannabe83 · 21/09/2014 20:53

And the Nanny would be allowed sick leave.

Or would she also be told that unless she needed to go to hospital then she must look after the children because God Forbid the father had to commit career suicide to look after his children in her absence...

MintyChops · 21/09/2014 20:54

Hakuylt, beyond ridiculous. If he was ill he wouldn't go in and no-one would die/fail to be fed/ sit in a dirty nappy etc etc. Get a grip.

Hakluyt · 21/09/2014 20:59

Happy to get a grip. If I was too ill to look after the children then of course the other parent would have to do something about it. But I would not expect the other parent to take time off to "look after me" as the OP puts it.

thatniceperson · 21/09/2014 21:00

Yanbu.
I am also a sahm and my dp has taken days off to look after our son. We have recently had another baby and when I was pregnant he took a day off, maybe just one or two for when I was feeling extremely sick.
I wasn't so unwell I needed to be in hospital but it wasn't like i was just feeling a bit rough with a cold either. I needed help and he stayed home and helped me.
My dp works in a high pressure job in London, big firm, important stuff etc. It's not considered career suicide there.

PowderMum · 21/09/2014 21:17

I'm not a SAHP and never have been, if I'm under the weather I go to work and was always able to look after my DC when they were small, with the help of Cbeebies.
However I have also suffered from some more major health issues and remember for instance having a gallbladder attack on the day of the summer fair when down to help, I was in too much pain to function on any level DH had to leave work extra early to take over the childcare and go to the fair. If the attack had happened earlier in the day he wouldn't have been able to go into work until he found someone else to look after the children. I could look after myself but no one else.
OP I think your level of expectation on your DH is unrealistic, but only you know how bad you are.

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