To have called in to work when child

[CheeseAndBeans]

Mum of two, youngest is 3 and goes to nursery 3 days a week. I have recently returned to work part time on her nursery days after a few years out so am doubting myself and unsure of what's right....

DD was sick all through the night Saturday night, as per 48 hour rule she couldn't go to nursery yesterday and couldn't get anyone else to have her. She still wasn't right in herself. Called work 1.5 hours before shift was due to start and explained I couldn't come in as had to look after sick child. They were not happy and tried to guilt me into coming in, apologized as nothing I could do but would be in tomorrow as she is on the mend. This morning, she seems ok and no more sick so we all get ready to go, as we walk out the door she throws up! Obviously can't send her again today so had to call work. Again, they made it clear they weren't happy, it's busy today and short staffed as it is. Apologized and explained I couldn't do anything else.

I work in a minimum wage job, 4 hours a day, it's a pain when someone can't come in as others have to pick up the slack and I feel terrible but what can I do?
OH works 12 hour shifts and is much better paid. We would be so much worse off if he didn't go in, my thoughts are we have to put our family income first and so it's me that should take the time off. Neither of us would get paid for the time we didn't work. A friend this morning mentioned she would have shared the days with her OH but they are both in similar paid jobs.

What would you have done? What do others do if their kids are sick? As I said, am new to being a working parent!

People lie because. paid or unpaid, if you take time off to meet your child's needs, you are badly thought of in the workplace.

And that's never going to change when it's always women who take on the brunt of it! Men need to step up and do 50% of the sick days - it's the only way to make it fair.

Children are the responsibility of BOTH parents. If both parents work, then they should both be taking the hit of unpaid leave/last minute time off/cancelling meetings to mop up toddler vomit.

@wildorchidz The employment Rights Act says employees are allowed time off for dependants in an emergency

I think you did the right thing however I’m a single mum and no friends or family or partner to rely on and I work full time (5 days a week, 8 hours a day).

Times my son is obviously unwell - if I can I keep him home, but I’m not going to lie; there have been times when he possibly could have done with another day at home but the reality is he has to go to school so I can go to work to pay the bills.

His school have the same policy that if he is vomiting, he would need to stay home for 48 hours; however I have had to send him in anyway and his been fine.

Worst case scenario they will call me to pick him up and I will have to leave early to collect him, but I have to admit if u were only doing a short shift; I think I would have gone in and hoped for the best. That’s me though and like I said; my situation is different.

If one of us needs to take time off we decide who does it based on whose work it is least likely to impact that day. If I have a day of meetings and my husband has a day without any, he'll take the day off. It helps that we can both work from home to make time up and both work for reasonable employers. We have no family help whatsoever and no other options available - if someone has to cover sickness it has to be one of us. My husband is the higher earner but either way we just have to take it out of annual leave if we can't make it up elsewhere. If she's sick enough that she'll just sleep most of the day, we can feasibly work from home and not lose a day's leave.

Obviously it's harder when one of you works shifts and if neither can work from home.

It's also not your employer's fault you haven't arranged any emergency cover, whether it is paid for or not.

If you were you I'd get something sorted ASAP

Thanks all for your comments. Pretty mixed bag of opinions...

I am happy in the decision i made, whether that be unreasonable or not. It was right for us as a family, which of course is my priority! Was interested to know what others would do/have done.

But judging by the comments I am preparing myself for that fact that I may not be keeping my job. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost it, we can manage on OH wage (just!) it would just be a real shame.

I work part time and my husband works full time and his take home pay is well over double what mine is.

However, we have always taken it in turns when either of our children are sick to take the day off work.

The children are the responsibility of both parents, the mother should not be the expected default to call work and not go in.

All that does is strengthen the stereotype that some employers have, that mothers don’t make attractive employees because they’re always calling in when the children get sick. Perhaps if the fathers stepped up and did their share of looking after the poorly children then equality in the workplace would be much more forthcoming.

As another said - this thread is like something from the Twilight Zone.

@CheeseAndBeans

"Thanks all for your comments. Pretty mixed bag of opinions...

I am happy in the decision i made, whether that be unreasonable or not. It was right for us as a family, which of course is my priority! Was interested to know what others would do/have done.

But judging by the comments I am preparing myself for that fact that I may not be keeping my job. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost it, we can manage on OH wage (just!) it would just be a real shame."

Family just doesn't have to be a priority for your husband it seems. If you could afford on his wage alone, I'm sure you could have managed 1 day without his wages. What he should be doing is speaking to his employer about where he stands taking days off for child sickness. I've never worked anywhere that has actually deducted salary, TOIL, WFM or annual leave all possibilities. But if men never feel the need to press these options, I guess they won't be offered.

My hubby has been a particular arse when it comes to sick days with kids, and the nursery run for that matter, however regardless of him being the higher earner I told him the next time the kids get sick he can use his holiday to cover it as it's not remotely acceptable that all my annual leave has to be consumed caring for our children if they are sick when I contribute 50% of all household finances and ensure our children are taken and collected from childcare. This from a man who purposely wanted his wife to have a good career as he didn't want to be the sole financier .

It's a nightmare juggling young kids with a full time job and you did do the right thing however down the line I would look at ways you can split the load in emergencies. It might not be a big deal in a stop gap job but it matters when you do get back on the career ladder you want xxx

OP you did nothing wrong so don’t feel guilty for a second. It’s the kind of ‘guilting’ that mums get everyday and it’s NOT ok!

If you have to call in again and they guilt you I’d try ‘Ok no problem, I’ll just abandon my vomiting 3 year old in the house alone shall I? Or shall I bring her in with me? Which would you prefer?’ And just leave it there 😂

I’m about to be a mum and dread this although my employer is wonderful and my manager is a mum who totally ‘gets it’. I remember once during uni I was working for a hotel chain (bargain basement) PT and wasn’t scheduled to work so had my 4yo god daughter for the night as her parents were away. My colleague rang me asking where I was- turned out manager had changed the rota a few days before and assumed it was ok as no one raised an issue (I only worked weekends so hadn’t seen the change and no one had told me) 😂
Colleague was waiting to leave a 10 hour shift and got shirty with me asking ‘when I could be there’ - I was very clear that I would not be coming in and why. He even ended the call with a sly ‘enjoy your night out’ obvs assumed I was lying about having a child to take care of!

I would consider a different job OP- you don’t need this stress and it will keep happening

It's also not your employer's fault you haven't arranged any emergency cover, whether it is paid for or not.

What emeregency cover are people talking about? Fine if you’ve got lots of family around, but what if you haven’t? If they’re sick then nursery won’t take them because they could pass whatever they have on to someone else- so why is another random family or any other childcare provider going to be able to help? Genuinely interested to know if people have found something that works, other than one or the other parent or relatives, to help when their child is sick?

My DH can’t take days off when the kids are sick (operations would be cancelled etc), so it has to be me. I feel absolutely no guilt about that, I would never let work down if i didn’t have to (and thankfully it’s only been a couple of days in as many years so far), but have no family nearly so that’s that. I’d always then work in the evenings to catch up on things etc, so guess I’m lucky I have a job where I can do that.

Plus it’s rubbish anyway- if your child needed 4 days off, and you took two and your other half took 2, do you think your employer would pat you on the back, or still be annoyed at those 2 days you took?

Family just doesn't have to be a priority for your husband it seems.
But it is. We are a team. All money goes into the family pot. He does his fair share of school/nursery runs, childcare, kids parties, housework etc. I am not questioning his commitment to the family at all. If he was to call in he would get the day off, unpaid, his managers would be as equally hacked off as mine. Neither of us are management but both in roles where one down can cause an issue.

My question was AIBU in putting our needs as a family first. Some say I was, some say not. If the consequences are I lose my job, that sucks but I get it.

@adaline unfortunately I've grown up learning that you have to tell men that they are looking after their sick child and don't give them the opportunity to get out of it. (I actually don't have to do that with my partner.)

Over the past 5 years I've worked in lots of offices where men do take leave to look after their sick children. Funnily enough they aren't always the lower earner in their relationship but they ensured when they took on the job the employer knew they required that flexibility.

It would be ridiculous for your partner to look after your sick child if he’s higher paid .
When you are at work there must be other days when you have to pick up the slack when someone else is off sick ?
Don’t worry too much about losing your job. I think they would be on a sticky wicket to sack you for having an ill child . They would have to give a verbal warning then a written one before just sacking you even during a probationary period . This sort of thing happens to everyone and I assume your own sickness record is good ? Whatever you do don’t phone in sick yourself . Just be truthful .

OP you should working on building your career up now in an area that has that flexibility.

If your husband got hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow how would your family survive? (Though it is more likely you will split up.)

So if it is better for you to be studying now then do it while your child is young.

No it's real life.

I earn more but as a result have significantly more flexibility and work life balance than my DH.

So if the kids are sick it's me who unless dh is already of work, rearranged my day or takes the day off.

The reality is my DH works in an industry with shit pay even worse benefits and he is significantly more risk of being sacked.

So while it's great in theory being so idealistic that isnt going to pay my mortgage or look after my children.

If you want to keep the job, you really need to arrange some sort of fallback option that isn't you taking time off work. It might be sensible to start looking for an alternative, e.g. an evening job so that your DH can cover childcare.

I think it's pretty poor of them to try and guilt you into going in! What were you supposed to do - take your sick child to work with you? Leave them home alone?!

Check your contract/with HR but normally with most jobs you'd be entitled to a certain amount of parental leave anyway (although this is usually unpaid). Luckily my work are pretty understanding (most colleagues are also parents) - I'm quite lucky that I can work from home (obviously if my child isnt TOO sick) - but if I cant work at all then they dont guilt me at all. They're usually quite happy for me to take it as annual leave too, if I don't want to lose pay.

I can sympathise as my DH earns double what I do and so if he took the time off we'd be a lot worse off financially so it's just a no brainer that it's me that takes the time off if needed.

*At the end of the day it's your choice. But just think about the long-term impact of that choice. Will you still be happy to be doing all the sick days/INSET days/sports days in five or ten years time? What if you have another child, will you be the one responsible for both lots of sick days while your OH just carries on as before?

Why should he be able to progress in his career with no disruptions while you're constantly having to stay off work to deal with vomiting toddlers?*

This. It's really tough when they are young but the effort should be shared. You will never increase your earning potential if you don't develop and sustain your own career. I've also lost count of the threads on here where women took on the bulk of the child care, let the DP career flourish then find themselves up shit creek when the relationship breaks down. And most of them probably felt they were a team/it would never happen to them. And hopefully you wont be one of them but part of being a team is that your DH supports you to develop a career, even if it means losing money short term.

It's also not your employer's fault you haven't arranged any emergency cover, whether it is paid for or not

But what 'emergency cover' do you suggest for a sick child? If they're actually vomiting then school/nursery won't take them. It's all very well if you've got family/friends around to help - I'm very lucky that we get a lot of help from family, they're happy to look after my child if they're poorly with a cold or something but I'd never expect them to look after my vomiting child and risk catching the same bug, it's just not fair.

His school have the same policy that if he is vomiting, he would need to stay home for 48 hours; however I have had to send him in anyway and his been fine.

@CTRL This is exactly why nurseries and schools are a hotbed of germs. The 48 hour rule might be inconvenient in terms of employment but it's to stop other kids getting ill off the back of your child. The reason these things spread like wildfire is because certain parents will send their child in anyway just to benefit themselves - screw the rest of us and whether we then have to take leave because our own children get sick. I find this to be quite a selfish attitude, I'm afraid.

This thread is a useful illustration of why it's so difficult (for women, but also for some men) to pick up or continue their careers after babies. I'm at a point now (and DD is only just two) where I do not think a marriage can contain two full-time jobs with work dependencies alongside young children, unless there's family nearby or their income is high enough to afford a nanny and account for a backup.

Your child obviously comes first, they’re only young for a short time and need you right now so fuck the min wage job. It’s only a few hours a week anyway, I’m sure you could find another easily enough.

They can fire you fwiw, you’re in a probationary period.

@0startahollow

I don’t care about your opinion I was giving the OP a reply...

If you read properly you would see I said I send him in and he is usually fine and I’m not required to pick him up early.

Anyway OP

Schools are full of bugs and viruses and germs anyway and in my sons school we are encouraged to send our children in even if they have colds and runny noses.

His school have the same policy that if he is vomiting, he would need to stay home for 48 hours; however I have had to send him in anyway and his been fine

Sorry but people who do this give me rage. The 48 hour rule is there for a reason. How fucking selfish to just send your child in anyway to spread their germs around and make other children (and staff!) sick. Like your job/career/whatever you need to do that day is more important than preventing other people getting sick?

It's not even just the risk of it spreading to other kids. Those other kids who are being exposed to your child's sickness bug because of your selfishness could live with someone who has existing health issues, you could be putting them at massive risk of getting REALLY ill or worse. I'm sorry but single mum, full time job or not, there is absolutely no excuse. I work full time too but I'd never dream of sending my sick kid into school because I can't be arsed to take a day off work to look after them.