Work being difficult about covering child illness

[Dontnic]

Help. Tell me I am not unreasonable. I am part time, earn a lot less than my DH and have a far junior job. We have 2 children at nursery at the moment and between them I have needed to take off 12 days since July when I went back to work (I work 3 days a week) to cover illness.

They both had chicken pox, which lasted over 5 of my working days. Also, they keep getting S&D that does the rounds in the nursery. This means if they get it on my 1st day of the week, they can't go back in at all that week due to the 48 hour rule.

DH has had some days off to cover illness, but it just doesn't make sense for him to take equal time off when he has targets to hit, meetings to attend for clients/prospects etc. If his job is affected we are financially buggered. So he does take time off but I do the lions share.

Work have now had enough and said that I can no longer take my holiday at last minute notice to cover child sickness and I have to take unpaid time off for dependants.

However, the BIG sticking point is that they deem a 'reasonable' amount of time for this as up to 24 hours. So I can leave at 2pm but need to be back in the office for 9 the next day. That is the exact example they gave.

I've called my union and they said that this was correct! Apparently the law says 'reasonable' time off but various other places deem reasonable to be up to 24 hours as it is only to arrange alternative care - not to give that care yourself.

I have no family in the area and friends/neighbours are not going to want a sick child... that is if they are free as most of them work too.

What on earth do working parents do during sickness? Apparently even child minders don't take sick children so it isn't as though I can change to a child minder.

If you've no family to help then you wait to get fired and get an evening and weekend job outside your dh's hours.

It's proper crap.

Or hire a nanny

The emergency dependants leave is for the sole purpose of you finding alternative childcare. That's all.

To be honest I can understand why they are not allowing you to take holiday at the last minute- it leaves the company/department short staffed with no time to arrange suitable cover.

At the end of the day, they are a business. I understand how bloody difficult it is when your Dcs are sick but to out it bluntly your employers don't care. All they care about is that you are at your place of work at the start of your shift v

It is crap for you but unfortunately to your company it's not their problem either. If you are taking a lot of time off then off course they will take an issue with that.

I've used sitters.co.uk to get emergency nanny for my toddler. Seemed to work ok.

FAOD I don't work for them or have any financial incentive here!

Yes your office are right and very much so.

Whilst I understand the financial impact to you, why should your compan always take the hit and not dhs? That puts companies off employing woman.

Can you find someone nearby to help? Can you discuss any work from home type changes? Coming in other days?
Basically can you be more flexible with work. I've found it's a bit of give and take both ways to get more time off. But they are within the law and you have been taking the piss in many eyes.
Have your kids just started nursery when they seem to get all going? Hopefully that stage is over!

Are you serious? Is there nothing to protect working parents in this instance. I can't be the only one or in the minority. It seems all the children I know who are in child care keep getting catching illnesses like S&D, impetigo, conjunctivitis etc. You can't take them in when they are like that, so who on earth is supposed to look after them? Of course it should be the parents, but you aren't protected.

There must be a law?!

A nanny would cost me a lot more than a nursery, even for 2 children.

It is a nightmare. DH and I ended up calling in sick ourselves on occasion, but normally we split it as best we could. It was a bloody nightmare. Our organisation now has carers leave which can be used, so it's not as bad. I really feel for you.

That's a good point. Ok your dhs job may be (to him) more important.

But they are his children also, aren't they?
We have been in the same position and we split the time we had to take off. Ok if one of us had an urgent meeting or deadline the other would pick up the slack that day but it has to be an equal split, you can't do it all yourself otherwise you will lose your job

That is the law OP

You are entitled to x amount of days unpaid emergency dependents leave. But that is there for you to make alternative arrangements for the next day.

Yep, unfortunately they are technically in the right.

Would work let you change days some weeks? So say you work MTW, and get a D&V bug, can you offer to work WTF, with DH taking off the W?

DH and I split it by who has the easiest day to rearange. At times, I have also been OK'd to work from home - so even though I may have needed 3 days off, if I managed 12 hrs work, I only needed to put in 1.5 days holiday.

We are both fortunate that last minute holidays are OK'd.

When we had chicken pox, my Mum came up for the week (at one days notice) to cover things.

I think you covering all the kids illnesses is a bit unfair on your company tho - it should be shared. Probably 1 day off for you, 2 for DH - less than half your working week each time.

I also know people who phone in sick when the kids are sick, but that is recipe for a summons to HR in this company.

But the company employs you and pays you to do a job which you often can't fulfill. I can understand why they say it can't continue.

This is why nurseries are so full of contagious illnesses! Parents without family help are buggered so take their kids into nursery regardless...

I can work from home but kind of need to 'plan' for it and only the odd day here and there a month. But when children are ill you don't get notice really.

But I can't work from home with my children at home as they would keep pestering me. One is 3 and the other 15 months, both seem to get ill a lot. Nothing specifically wrong with them. A lot of the time it is S&D.

I knew they were getting pissy about it, I have been living in dread of the telephone call from nursery.

I can't work other days and be flexible - ie come in on Friday rather than Wednesday etc because I would need childcare but childcare needs to be booked in. They are quite full at my nursery so there is no guarantee of a place.

Also, youngest is in the under 2 section so the ratios are smaller. I may get a place for the elder one but not the younger.

I don't know if I am being unreasonable or not to expect more help and support of working parents. Seriously, what happens to others?

I am a lawyer and deal with these issues on a very frequent basis. As others have said, the law permits you to take unpaid time off to arrange for emergency care for your children, NOT to look after them yourself. If you get a call from nursery to fetch your child you should fetch them arrange for childcare and get back to work. You then won't get paid for the time you were out of work.

It is definitely you being unreasonable here and not your employer. You need to have back up emergency are arranged.

in six months you have missed a full month of work

and you think your employers are the unreasonable ones?

yabvu

As others have said, you need a back up plan that's not "Dontnic doesn't go to work" as that's not really fair on your employer. Sitters.co.uk or contacting other local nanny agencies to get on their books for emergancy cover is a good plan, while a nanny would cost more than nursery full time (although check that carefully, there might not be much in it), as a day here or there emergancy care, then it makes more sense.

Plus you need to talk to your DH about doing more, it's really not on that your job is sacrificed for his, if he really can't take any time off when the DCs are sick,then you need to throw money at the problem, or be a SAHM.

While you have no family in the area, do you have family who'd come to stay? No good for the 2pm phone call from nursery, but fine to be with you for 8am the next morning so you can leave for work...

There is a law. The law says that employers must offer reasonable accommodation. Yours have allowed you to use your holidays and are only now saying you will have to take unpaid leave. They have allowed spur of the moment absences for months.

www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights

There is no 'apparently' about it... they must be reasonable but do not have to pay you.

My husband does a job where he travels into London (from Cardiff) and often stays up there a few days a week.

My mum lives in Surrey and is elderly. No dad. PIL are non starter.

I can see me having to give up work. I don't want to give up work.

We ahve 4 dc's and got around this problem by working around each other so one of us was always home. My colleauges with young children seem to get around it by calling in sick for themselves even when it's the kids that are ill. We have a very generous sickness policy and people don't see why they should take unpaid parentel leave when they can abuse the system and get paid for it.

12 days off since July and you only work 3 days a week?! That's loads and I'm not surprised work are annoyed. There is protection in place but it doesn't extend to taking the piss.

Your employer has an employment contract with you so however you choose to prioritise your jobs your employer doesn't care. They see your job as important or you wouldn't have it.

Your options are to work flexibly, get a nanny, one or other of you stop work, your husband works flexibly too, one or both of you change jobs, or your dh does more.

We all have to put up with the hassle that having children brings and it is rubbish but it's fairly short lived. Do try not to let the side down by behaving in such a way that makes working parents look entitled/unreliable/a pita.

Other than Sitters, what other companies are there? I have tried Sitters in the past and they didn't have anybody. I think I would need a few. Also Sitters were going to charge me over £20/hour for emergency cover plus a regular fee.

You originally work 3 days a week, and missed 1 month in 6 months. It's sad, but nobody would want somebody like you on their team, because they could not rely on you about anything.
It's nothing personal, but you are what team leader and employers dread.

Sadly, lots of companies allow paid time off but only for 24hrs to source alternative childcare arrangements. As awful as it is, it's not their problem to solve either. Where I used to work it was one day paid dependents leave up to a max of 5 in a year. Further time off had to be annual leave or unpaid.

According to your OP you've had 12 (presuming working) days off since last July due to your DCs being sick, that's 4 weeks (working 3 days a week) in 7 months, that's quite a bit of additional time off that someone in your company needs to cover, or if not, work that simply isn't being done.

DH and I often took a half day off each to cover sickness with DD. So I would go in in the morning and come home at lunch time, DH would then go into work and work late into the evening. I found that my boss was much more accommodating of our childcare issues when it wasn't just me being the one off work and also it meant I could deal with anything urgent etc before heading home. I was lucky in that I could use flexi time to make up the hours so no work was missed.

Sickness is one of the reasons I'm now a SAHM, and also the time off needed for school holidays and inset days!