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.

What cover arrangements is the OP supposed to put in place? My nearest family, bar a senile elderly relative, are 12 thousand miles away and my friends all work. Who is supposed to look after a sick child if I can't do it?

The children's father, EpicBlue.

No I am not missing the point.
In more hand to mouth lives,there may be sound financial reasons for this.
You need to look at the part of my statement you have quoted in context of the rest of my statement.

Or pay someone. sitters have been talked about above.
Or barter with other working parents who are in a similar position.

There may well be on the surface sound financial reasons eg. risk the smaller income, I presume? However, when you scratch deeper - splitting the load across two employers might actually make you less likely to jeopardise your income at all?

I agree that there is a lack of affordable childcare but I get the impression from the OP that even if it was available she wouldn't use it as she believes ill children need their mother.

The current working environment in the UK is not set up to allow working mothers to take unlimited time off to care for ill children. Sometimes someone else needs to stand in. In the absence of grandparents that will have to be a paid for carer.

If there is no basic acknowledgement that some families cannot afford nannies,or for the higher earning partner to lose pay,I'm pissing in the wind here.
We need to somehow address that issue rather than telling the lower earning partner what they should do in an ideal world.
I understand all the operational needs of companies.But I think it needs to be seen that an uneven division of time off for childrens illness isn't always wilful,selfish nor taking the piss.

I'm not saying that there may not be sound financial reasons for it. I have already acknowledged that it may be a calculated risk that people rationally choose to take. That's fair enough.

Where I take issue with the OP is with her expectation that her employer should suck it up and that there should be some sort of law to protect her, when she and her DH have chosen to prioritise his career over hers. That kind of attitude does set women back in the workplace.

I thought the ops children went to a nursery in which case I don't think its fair to suggest she thinks her children need their mother.

I wouldn't expect my children,nor anyone else's children to be looked after by someone unknown when they're ill.There's a difference if they're ill and the person is unknown I think.

I simply wouldn't do it.

Yes,I get what you're saying there Snapes.
I don't think the op understood the law relating to this and is a little bit bewildered as to what she is supposed to do,given so few options.
The law is,indeed,clear,and there can be no expectation to take time off willy nilly to cover childrens illness within those provisions.

I don't think that true choice exists in some situations when it comes to prioritising one career over the other though....

Maybe not, but as a manager, I get far fewer requests from male employees for time off to care for dependants, despite the majority of men in my team having young children and partners who work.

Perhaps their children never get sick, or perhaps they are telling their wives that they could not possibly take time off because their jobs are more important. In reality, they could take time out just as easily as the female staff do - and I never give people a hard time about this unless they're really taking the piss.

To be fair, the reality for most men is that they face an uncomprehending employer when they do step up to do emergency childcare. My husband's boss is flabbergasted [has SAHWife] as do most of his somewhat older colleagues.

My nanny's husband got threatened with the sack if it happened again for taking an emergency day's holiday to cover the second day of their child's illness. When he explained that his wife had a job to go to too, his boss actually said it is the wife's job to look after the children and then point blank refused to discuss it further.

Absolutely agree with other posters-take your career seriously and get dh to step up.

I've found its hard enough convincing your female boss that you have no family on tap for emergency childcare, if dh told them that I think they just wouldnt believe him

To be fair, the reality for most men is that they face an uncomprehending employer when they do step up to do emergency childcare. My husband's boss is flabbergasted [has SAHWife] as do most of his somewhat older colleagues.

That may well be, but if men don't start challenging these perceptions, things will never change.

Male parents have the same rights with regard to time off to care for dependants as female parents. If only women exercise these rights, we will never have equality in the workplace.

I agree snape 100%

You have options other than giving up work.

You have probably had the main childhood illnesses by now. Children usually get sick when they start some kind of group session then level off (it'll happen again when they start school). The worst of the winter bugs should be over now.

I have 3 DC. Over the years we have used nursery, nanny, childminder. I have no family available for childcare and never have had.

DC caught more illnesses at nursery. Especially in the first 3 months. Nothing like the number of illnesses your DC have had though. Especially not D&V which is a simple matter of hygiene. I would be seriously concerned about hygiene in the nursery.

Nanny was the best for illness. She could look after them at home no matter how ill they were. They caught fewer bugs with her. She was rarely ill herself. Damn expensive though, not just salary and tax but also food, heating, petrol, day trips etc.

Childminder is pretty good about illness. She doesn't want anything horrendously contagious bringing into her house of course but the less contagious stuff she is fine with. DC very rarely get ill with her. She is my favourite childcare option of all. Lovely sensible women with grown-up DC of her own, she is flexible, good value, funny.

My friends swear by au-pairs for value and convenience. Personally I don't want someone else a teenager living in my house so it is not for me. It might work for you though.

Giving up your job is not necessary. Lots of us manage OK. You probably can too. Your employer is being reasonable btw.

TheFallenMadonna that only works if he's not working away from home, my husband can be away for 3-6 months at a time so simply is not available and childminders and nurseries (quite rightly) won't take a sick child.

My DH earns more and works more hours. He works in a deeply misogynist environment. He still takes his fair share of time off with sick children. If he didn't my earnings would have stagnated or shrunk after we had DC while his would have increased even more. I refused to accept giving up my career and future earning potential. He didn't want me to give up my career or future earning potential either.

I think a lot of the employment sexism you think you are seeing is actually worse in your own head than in reality.

You seem scared of behaving like an equal.

And that's where the negotiation around careers comes in. My DH used to work away a lot. That was incompatible both with my own career and with our preferred domestic arrangements. So he changed his job.

I can of course see that a husband working away for months at a time makes caring for ill children problematic. But that is not an issue for an employer. It is for the couple who have planned that arrangement.

Epic but in that case, presumably DH is around for 3-6 months of the year? So he does ANY illness that crops up then, and you do the rest of the year. Yes, you cop for more of it, but you are splitting it where possible?!

I never knew this.
At my old job they allowed unlimited days for dependent leave but it was unpaid.
Just checked my current employer's handbook and it says 2 days paid for emergency things eg childcare or burglary.
But I can't find any info about having to take extra days due to children being poorly.
If my babies were poorly I wouldn't leave them a stranger I'd found off a nannying website, they may be perfectly capable of looking after children but kids need their mummies when they're poorly.
Luckily I work evenings and weekends so I've never had this problem.

Can I also just say that there's all this talk about husband's jobs and it being equal etc..
But what about single mothers? I was a single mother with a baby, all my family work so if DS was poorly it was only me who could look after him, his 'father' wasn't interested. I was pretty broke so to pay for childcare twice (nursery which wouldn't take him + a nanny/babysitter) was just out of the question.
I'm so lucky that he didn't have anything more than snuffles and his nursery were quite happy for him to be there unless he had D&V.
However, DD's nursery is soooo fussy about taking poorly kids. They even wont accept them for 48 hours after they've been prescribed antibiotics, so if they were prescribed them at 11am on Monday they won't accept the child until 11am on Wednesday. They're always turning people away because ''that's the policy''.
Sooooo difficult for working parents.

Why does everyone keep suggesting a nanny?! Of course a nanny would be the best solution but the OP said she was not in a high earning job. How on earth is she supposed to afford a nanny?

I would also not want a stranger looking after my child whilst they were ill so sitters is really not a good option.

OP you have my sympathies, I went through similar when my youngest were in nursery, I had no family nearby and a partner who worked away a lot. I could hardly tell him to get a plane home and look after his children. Everyone's situation is different.

I would go back to your manager and explain the dilemma. You have young children who have had a more than average amount of illness since starting nursery. Offer to make up time and do extra days when other people have holiday to build up some TOIL entitlement, and think about a backup plan. You say you have no family close by, but do you have family who could take a poorly child for a day or two or come and stay in a emergency? If they are a decent firm you should be able to negotiate some flexibility both ways, but yes, in a lot of places taking holiday at no notice because your kids are sick is regarded as unreasonable.

It is really hard.

YY That Bloody Woman.. and there in your posts is why many working class women cant relate or identify with feminism.