To think that he should look after her sometimes?

[Dolwar]

I work in a mainly female team and there are 2 who have young children under the age of 2. With it being winter obviously they have caught bugs from nursery and need to stay home. Fair enough. Both these women are married with working husbands and we are often only staffed enough for 1 person per area in what can be a very demanding and stressful job. My issue is that every time the child is ill it is ALWAYS one of these women who stays at home never their OH. One of the husbands does the exact same job as us but in a different department so is just as essential in work the other I'm not entirely sure but it's office based. AIBU to think that maybe they should share the sick days? So that we are not always the ones struggling with lack of staff?

It’s tough shit. It’s life. People get sick. Work is a means to an end, my family, that’s my life. Not my job.

But surely work is what enables you to support your family and for them to have a decent life? If you didn't have that, then your family wouldn't have the life they have? I'm not saying people shouldn't have time off for sick children, but I can't really understand how you can be so dismissive of your work responsibilities when it is such a fundamental thing to allowing you to have 'your life'.

@Needadvicetoleave but in these ladies cases they don’t need to as they are allowed time off work to care for them.

But surely work is what enables you to support your family and for them to have a decent life? If you didn't have that, then your family wouldn't have the life they have? I'm not saying people shouldn't have time off for sick children, but I can't really understand how you can be so dismissive of your work responsibilities when it is such a fundamental thing to allowing you to have 'your life'.

It’s quite simple really. I don’t have work responsibilities. I have a job and if I can’t go I can’t go. The responsibility for dealing with what happens when I am off lies with management. That’s why they get paid more than I do. If that means missing a few days pay because we have a sick child then so be it. I don’t quite follow your point because regardless of who takes the time off, the pay is potentially missing anyway. My whole stance is that the decision on WHO takes he time off is not based on work. It’s based on what’s best for us and the DC one that particular day.

Great you can think like that. Not everyone can. As paying the bills is pretty important to us.

But if someone has to be off the wage is lost either way? This isn’t about should people stay off, it’s which person it should be. Now if you get paid a million pounds and your DH only a pound then it makes sense he would stay off. My point is it’s the family circumstances that decide, not whether work are short that day. That’s works problem.

Sounds like your organisation should have better emergency cover!

Migraleve actually, I get paid time off to be with DC and DH doesn't, he still has to take time off though as if I did all the days it would reflect poorly on me and if there were redundancies etc then it would be a risk to my job. It isn't about the short term loss of pay, but the longer term risk of loss of employment. But I have a career, not a job, so it may be different if you only have a 'job' (as you have written it) which may be easily replaceable.

saying the kids prefer their mum to their dad when they are ill is not really a valid excuse

That's what I was thinking, why are the children getting to choose who stays home?

Its not clear if the employee is asking for additional leave here or if its within her authorised number of days of parental leave (or whatever its called) or annual leave that she has kept back for emergencies. Is this extra leave, OP?

OP I think you're in a difficult position, and it might be worth a conversation with HR to work out how best tackle the short-handedness.

I hate that it's still assumed the working-Mum will be the one to sacrifice her job rather than the working-Dad (if one is a SAHP, that's different). My job is no less important than his. OH and I share the picking-up-sick-children days and it's normally dependent on who doesn't have a vital task/meeting that day. And because he's always done this, he's just as capable of looking after a sick child as I am, and the kids are just as happy with him as with me.

If it's always the Mum who picks up the kids and looks after the kids, then of course the kids are always going to want Mum, especially when they're ill. Dads need to be encouraged to do more of the day-to-day childcare in general, imo.

The idea that the parent to stay at home with a sick child is decided on minimising impact at work is quite frankly ludicrous

I disagree. I am pretty sure that the reason it's usually the mother who takes the time off is often because the mother's job is considered less important. Maybe it does pay less. Maybe the dad has less than 2 years' service. Or maybe the mum works much closer to home.

But normally it will be the first reason.

Yanbu at all op. But unfortunately a lot of men refuse to take time off and women aren’t going to just neglect their children.

No, I'm aware you get leave to cover emergencies, I'm referring to the posters comment about using up her and her husband quota

My company does it, everybody gets 5 days paid to cover these types of issues, it tends to hugely reduce sick day piss takes and fosters a nicer environment to work in

Well DH by nature of his profession earns x5 what I do and is self employed I will gladly do the childcare. If we earned the same we’d share it. A boss did suggest I asked him to say Home with DD once but why would I sacrifice £800 for my family to go and earn £90? Doesn’t make sense