How are mothers supposed to go back to work??

[ArtichokeAardvark]

I've just had the dreaded call from nursery to come and collect DS. 'Hello Mrs X, I'm afraid your son is unwell, please could you come and pick him up asap'.

My son is teething. Yes, he's a bit grumpy, but he's teething. Yes, he has a temperature but it's only 38.0 so not exactly an emergency. They admitted themselves he's running around happily with the other children, just being a little bit whingier than normal.

But no, I have to collect him. No they can't even give Teetha homeopathic stuff without a doctor's prescription. And please could I keep him home for 24 hours after his temp goes back to normal.

I am slammed at work. I'm the only person in my department this week and I'm desperately trying to tie up everything this month before I go on mat leave. I would drop everything if my son was genuinely unwell, but for god's sake he's TEETHING.

How the hell are mothers meant to be able to go back to work? This happens with depressingly regularity and my employer is luckily understanding but their patience is beginning to wear thin...

@57mama as a GP you will also know it’s a myth that causes teething and for you to place other children at risk is pretty barbaric.

I work in a nursery and it really annoys me when parents send in sick children by dosing them up on calpol which always wears of by lunchtime anyway.
It means staff are always catching their bugs and as you dont get paid if your of sick a potential loss of earnings.
Hence the reason why I'm looking for a new job! Just fed up with constantly catching all the children's bugs!

There are some jobs where it’s just really really hard. Mainly emergency services- police of all ranks, HCP of all kinds. The nursery must realise a police officer can’t leave the second they get a call. People in these roles often also marry people with a similar job

In fact, I have none of these issues but if I’m working away or even in a meeting they might find it an hour or two before I collect. It’s just life. I don’t know why some posters are so surprised

Where I live in the SE (London fringes) it is extremely easy for both parents to be an hour away, given the traffic and the fact the vast majority of the jobs are in central minutes. No reasonable childcare provider is going to expect pick up under an hour (emergencies excepted).

Central London. Not minutes!

I notice the wellbeing of the children takes backstage in these threads.

Any toddler with a fever needs to be picked up by a carer, mum, dad, granddad/mum whoever. Not left in a busy class with loads of other children and busy (often teens) staff how miserable for the poor mites.

We need to be putting more onus on business and the government to ensure parents aren't left having to risk their jobs by doing something mandatory like picking up a sick child.

Not putting all the responsibility on the nursery. They're not a surrogate parenting agency.

What surprises me is the amount of people who think parents should be available to get their kids immediately. Why do you think nurseries are there? We can't be with the DC, that's why they're at nursery

I notice the wellbeing of the children takes backstage in these threads

I think the opposite...the child's wellbeing may depend on their parent earning money to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

I notice the wellbeing of the children takes backstage in these threads

I see the career development of women taking a backseat in these threads.

No reasonable childcare provider is going to expect pick up under an hour (emergencies excepted).

When I lived in SE London it was definitely the case that no one expected pick-up immediately at the baby & preschool childcare stage. But school was a WHOLE different kettle of fish. They expected you to be contactable and within 30 minutes at all times! It stated it as a policy. We ended up putting our old childminder as an emergency contact just to fulfil the requirement. Madness.

Here's a novel idea
Put your children first, choose which one of you will work close to school, Jobs that allow you time off to collect your ill child.
Or find someone able to do this for you.

It's disgusting the way some parents priority is career before their children, whether man or woman.

57

A perfect example, career before the well being of your child.
Your dh too, he works an hour a way.
It isn't the job of nurseries to mind your ill child, that responsibility is yours and your husbands.

Why parents choose to neglect their duty baffles me.
we'd all love the dream job but some don't take it because their kids actually come first.

&Why do you think nurseries are there?*

Not to look after your sick children

Drabarni that's a really naive silly statement. It's not as simple as putting a career on the back burner.

We need xxx amount of money to keep a roof over the dc head and the lights on so to speak.

In my industry (for which I am not trained for much else after 22 years) themail jobs that pay the right amount come at a price.

It's totally unacceptable for you to accuse posters of sidelining their children's wellbeing for career prospects when it isn't that simple.

Dp and I changed to the most flexible parts of the industry we could so we could be there for dc but there are still days that we both have to be somewhere or risk losing our jobs and the dc school call us.

I would seriously think about why you honestly feel you have any right to make those comments , it paints you as an astoundingly unpleasant person.

I see the career development of women taking a backseat in these threads.

This illustrates the problem. The defensive attitude instead of doing what I suggested...Looking at ways in which businesses and the government can improve things for working parents so that both mum and dads can do mandatory tasks like picking up their sick children without fear of penalty. Instead of having to take the inevitable gamble that the child isn't coming down with something serious and leaving a miserable toddler to cope until pick up time. And putting the parenting duties on nursery staff.

Catherine what do you suggest individual posters do to encourage businesses and the government to make it easier for parents to meet their childcare obligations?!

This illustrates the problem. The defensive attitude instead of doing what I suggested...Looking at ways in which businesses and the government can improve things for working parents so that both mum and dads can do mandatory tasks like picking up their sick children without fear of penalty. Instead of having to take the inevitable gamble that the child isn't coming down with something serious and leaving a miserable toddler to cope until pick up time. And putting the parenting duties on nursery staff

Firstly, we should be ensuring that both parents are fulfilling their duties before asking businesses and government to change. Research shows that men just aren't taking up the flexible working options available to them. This needs to be addressed first.....i've spoken to businesses who do offer decent shared parent leave options and flexible working options but men just aren't taking these up.

And it's not a defensive attitude....it's knowledge gleaned from years of research.

Write to their M.P.s. Make women's career advancement a key political talking point. At the moment it's concentrated on simply enabling women to be in work. Not about sustainability, hence we get all these unworkable promises about more free nursery hours. However every working woman knows that it's not just returning or attaining a job that is a challenge, it's maintaining competency and progression while still being available to actually parent at key times - like sickness.

Complain about bad management and HR practices. Change the culture of work. Look at ways of retraining while on maternity leave/subsidising training so women can take more flexible jobs. I was pursuing a tech training course recently and it was striking the amount of women who wanted to work, but couldn't work in their previous sector because of the lack of flexibility, so were willing to take on study to work in a completely different profession so they could minimise nursery time. The problem was the course was limited in what it woukd enable them to do.

Frequently if women have the flexibility the fees make it almost pointless. They are paying to keep in the world of work. Quality of nursery provision, needs to be looked at also - perhaps a sort of grant to grandparents or a nominated carer might be something to look at.

But the solution cannot be leaving potentially sick children in the care of nurseries so the 'lights can stay on'. It is interesting that children's interests and womens interests in terms of their total wellbeing hardly factors to the debate around work and child care I see on the news and on these sorts of threads.

And I certainly agree about men doing more. But it needs to multi-pronged. What about divorced single women or unique factors etc?

Catherine the vast majority of these issues wouldn't be as much of an issue for a large number of women if more men were willing to take a more flexible approach to work.

Ok

Write to your MP- good idea
Complain about bad management and Hr practises- to whom? What will they be able to do about it?
Change the culture of work- ummm... rather a big one that
Look at ways of retraining on maternity leave to get flexible jobs- why should I?!

Your point are all of course correct but all very low impact on an individual basis, and come down to writing to your MP and calling out your company if they’re not flexible and hoping you don’t get sacked

Realistically, that doesn’t help any of us, day to day

I am so glad that my husband has an understanding employer (more so than mine often enough!). He does most nursery sick days now.

I think that one of the ways this could be addressed is by splitting parental leave on a use it or lose it basis.

Women get the first four and a half months to recover from birth and establish breastfeeding. Then their partner has the option to take a further four and a half months to swap in, but that can't be transferred to the woman.

This would normalise men being the main carers, level the playing field on employers being "concerned" about employing women who then require maternity leave, and stop the default assumption that the man has a precious, fragile career that wouldn't allow for time off.

That’s a good idea finewords

I get your point Passthecherrycoke but my overall point is to shift the conversation - the sort of thing you see on the news when M.Ps are talking which nearly always centres around more nursery places - to a more holistic overview that also focuses on children and women's wellbeing and maintaining work sustainability. Part of that must be a change to working practices and I think my point about quality retraining so women can more easily transition to flexible work options is also pertinent. When I state (somewhat glibly I agree) about changing the culture, I refer to social attitudes. We keep putting the onus on child care providers and nurseries, teachers, youth workers etc. We keep thinking the solution is longer school hours, breakfast clubs, after school clubs, less school term holidays and when people question whether this approach is actually in children's best interests, then often there is a defensive response and nothing changes.

Great practical idea there finewords