To stay home w sick teenager

[lizzieoak]

My teenage son has a bacterial infection (diagnosed this evening) & will have to miss school today (Friday). He was worried he had meningitis and as soon as I got in from work he asked if I could take him to the dr's, so off we went & sat around the clinic for an hour till it was his turn.

Anyway, he would really appreciate it if I stayed home tomorrow. My union contract gives us quite a bit of "family time" off to care for sick kids and parents and spouses and even siblings & to take family members to Drs appointments.

While a lot of people in my office don't have kids or older parents, I do have a kid and am a divorced parent (& his dad has always flat-out refused to take time off when either of our kids was sick). I feel guilty as I know the supervisor will give me the stink eye, but I find it really stressful to not be there for my kids when they need me (one is now an adult).

As it's in our contract it's reasonable, right?

I do hear you but at 16 ... no! My DS is 7 and regularly has a fever of 41+ and seizures... of cours CP stay with him ... he's 7 and functions like a 2 year old. DS 9 wouldn't need all the extra support but would love a cuddle.
At 16 I'd stop feeding his anxiety and providing him with confidence ! Tell work he is poorly and you need to have your phone at hand !
Offer him support, love and confidence in his own ability... he will never leave home in less than 2 years if you don't start putting the building blocks in place !
This is the voice of experience!!!
Feel better soon..., YABU!!!!

Thanks ladydepp - the colleagues are nice/not bothered. It's the supervisor who is always all judgemental about people. She "caught" me in the staff room the other day (when there was absolutely nothing to do & I would have been staring at a blank screen, having already tidied my emails and my desk). I was standing up, checking the holiday rota so I could submit my request for the summer as we'd been asked to do. She actually said "a-ha!!" When she saw me =:-0

he will never leave home in less than 2 years

Erm.. wtaf? Leave home? At 18?

Just wow.

Steppingontoes, the contract says for "illness of a family member". There is a limit of one week's worth of hours, to be chipped away at as the employee requires. The time can also be used to go to school events, provide care in the case of sudden school closures, for family's medical and dental appts & for attending legal thingies involving family.

If the contract includes spouses, parents, step-parents and siblings I'm not sure why some posters feel 16 year olds are excluded from what the contract provides for?

Occadodo, he has just over a year left in school before uni. If he goes away to school (which is what he's hoping for, to go to another city & have new experiences) then I don't think it will weigh into his choice that his mum once stayed at home w him when he had a high temperature.

Before this job & family illness being allowed, if had to use my sick time & holiday time for things like "11 year old is throwing up @ school w a migraine & I have to fetch him". Got very dark looks and rumblings over that. So really there's always people who feel that your only duty is to your job. I feel that if people hire people with families then this is going to happen. The world would grind to a halt if we only hired single, childless orphans (which is actually my supervisor).

But your son is perfectly old enough to look after himself - he's got a bacterial infection (and presumably antibiotics). It's about work ethic - to take time off to look after someone who is capable of looking after themselves is madness. Even if they are feeling rough.

There is another thread where someone is complaining their DP won't take time off to look after their 15yo - the consensus was that at 15 there is not actually any need.

Well, steppingontoes, it looks like you're in the minority!

You actually know that your supervisor is childless and has no living parents?

Yes, Sooty, why wouldn't I? That's an odd question if you don't mind me saying so. She's said to me "I don't have kids" (+ it's common knowledge at work who does and doesn't have kids as we talk about our kids or not at break times). She's near retirement age and when I said my parents were dead she said "so are mine, a long time now".

We haven't taken a vow of silence and do talk to each other.

Yanbu. My two are 17 and 15 and if they were feeling poorly enough to want me at home them I'd stay off with them.

Occadodo, he has just over a year left in school before uni.
So he's a 6th form student! He can't be 15 and have 1 year left before uni unless he's skipped years.

If he cant deal with feeling a little poorly without claiming he things he has meningitis how the hell is he going to manage at uni!?
Serious question here.

Oh well. Given the way you talk about her she might have been better off not sharing that information with you. You do rather imply that she's unable to empathise with your situation as a direct result.

Ignore my last post!!!
I thought id clicked into the thread about the 15 year old one.
Ooops. (Please dont hate me!)

YABU.
He's 16.
He'll most likely sleep through most of the day anyway. I don't know how you can even think it's reasonable to have a day off because you 16 yr old is poorly.

Backforgood - what do you think the provision in the contract is for? Serious question. It doesn't say it has to be hospital-worthy, just "to care for a sick family member". He has a high temperature & is "disassociated" & not eating. It's not a case of the sniffles and as I've said repeatedly he's had many sick days alone but this seems bad enough to me to stay in + my union condones time off for sick family.

Lizzie
Just do it. Follow your instinct. Your contract provides for it and he is your son. He has said he needs you and he has a high temp. I don't get these people who would prioritise one day of work over helping your child. He is still your child even if he is 16. Also when he goes to Uni he will still be your child even if he is no longer a minor. Best of luck

Stay with him. When I was 17 I contracted mononucleosis (glandular fever) and bacterial tonsillitis. I was horrendously ill, got a whole host of secondary infections and was admitted into hospital and stayed for a week.
When I came out of hospital I moved back in with my mum for another week (I lived on my own from 16) and she took the week off work. I am still so, so thankful and so glad she did that. I don't know how I'd have got through it without her.
I know it's different because your son isn't as poorly as I was, but ultimately there is no reason for him to be alone and IMO it is not a big ask. There is plenty of time left for him to be alone and ill, right now he wants his Mum.

YANBU. I am usually the first one to decry helicopter parents and their tendency to foster prolonged dependence in their children. But in this case I don't see any of that. Your son sounds like a mature, independent 16-year-old who is not well and would prefer to have his mother at home for a day. Since this is a one-off rather than a pattern of behaviour, and your contract specifically covers such eventualities, you shouldn't think twice about taking the day off IMO.

And you shouldn't feel the slightest bit of guilt either. Unless you are the only neurosurgeon in the country who can perform a delicate, lifesaving operation (or something like that), any workplace can get along without one employee for one day.

I hope your son is feeling better.

"I don't get those people who would prioritise one day of work over helping your child". Thanks, that exactly. I feel it's work ethic gone mad. I've been at work all week with an off-on migraine. I'd have preferred to be at home but dragged myself in (taking supplements to turn down the symptoms and prescription pills when it was too bad). So I think I go to work when I shouldn't, but am tired of going to work when my son needs me (I was a SAHM for longer w his sister so she didn't have a working mum as long as he had). It's one day, he's on antibiotics and thankfully doesn't have meningitis (he was feeling very light sensitive and the back of his neck hurt so Dr google got him worried). I never normally go to the dr with flu (had walking pneumonia for weeks once as I thought drs would pooh-pooh me), but I think w teens and meningitis it's best to be safe and get it checked out. (& we did tell reception his symptoms so it was their choice not to quarantine him).

Oh for friff's sake! The kid's sick and anxious. Stay home with him. I would. Kid needs you, you can be there, be there. Sod everything else.

I'm glad you stayed home

When I was 16, I had bad glandular fever along with a horribly infected throat. We were dirt poor at the time and nobody could afford to miss work, so my dad carried me downstairs to the sofa each morning and left me there with a drink, some sandwiches, a stack of books and the TV remote. I was off school ill and alone for eight weeks, and it was utterly miserable.

When your son is an independent adult, he will remember the care you gave him today.

Relentlessly, and that's why unions fight for benefits like family leave.

8 weeks is a long time to be ill and alone all day :(

I was sick w strep throat in my last year of school and my dad had retired and so took care of me. I still remember him bringing me soup on a tray along with the pickle octopuses he liked to make

Glad you stayed home with him 🙂

Me too! Trying to out thoughts of pissy supervisor out of my head. He lay down w the cat for a long time then had a bit of soup. His fever is down a bit now, though it comes and goes.