DH went to work when we're all sick

[yellowgecko]

The baby (9 months) has had diarrhoea since Friday. DH reluctantly agreed to stay home with her Monday while I went to work. (It's my 2nd week back after mat leave and I said I would stay home if needed the other days.)

Just after dinner, I started vomiting. Between us we put DD and DS5 to bed. I tried to sleep on the sofa bed, but didn't really. DD kept waking up, DH popped in and out but I went in to her at 1am, she'd pooed. I then had D&V

DS started being sick at 4.30. I cleaned him up, put him in bed with DH. Baby woke up at 5, managed to get her down for another hour. DS was sick again at breakfast so he can't go to school today.

DH was dressed for work. I said, you're not going in today? He got cross, said yes he should have gone in yesterday and I should have stayed home, especially as I'm sick today. I just burst into tears and said that kids get sick, it's not right to be cross about it.
He then said do you want me to stay and I said well yes I did! But just go cos you don't really want to be here. So he packed up and left.

YABU - he Should he have gone to work
YANBU - he should have stayed at home

I know being a martyr wasn't the right thing to do, I should have stuck to my guns. I just really wanted him to choose his sick family over work

YANBU

Some husbands - and it’s nearly always husbands - are more worried about being seen at work than looking after their family. I see it so much - even when their managers would have no issue with them staying at home in such situations.

Working mums have to suck this up much more.

YABU, the well one goes to work and the sick one stays home to look after the child.

@ChristmasWithDC

I think it’s just something you’re going to have to get used to, unfortunately. Kids get sick and inevitably pass it to their parents. You can’t have both parents off work every time this happens, as nice as that would be.

This. I’ve been there a number of times, this won’t be the only time. Your DH will possibly come down with it too in a couple of days and he’ll need time off then.

YABU.

I wouldn't have a choice if the roles were reversed and my husband and kids had D+V but I didn't I would still have to go to work. Likewise I wouldn't expect my husband to be off either if I was ill. I'm not sure why you would expect him to go sick if he's well. And I certainly wouldn't be happy if my work colleagues rung up sick if they were actually well. It's different if there's no one to look after the kids and sometimes as a couple you have to juggle but you were at home, yes it's hard but you can muddle on through for a day or 2.

@Beautiful3

YABU, the well one goes to work and the sick one stays home to look after the child.

What??

I realise you are probably not thinking logically as you are unwell, but he has done exactly what you agreed yesterday so I don't really understand what the tantrum is about.

If you can WFH surely by your own logic you should have stayed home yesterday too.

If your intention was to work the 4 days you offered to be home you're even more unreasonable because you were expecting him to take yesterday off when he didn't need to.

[quote yellowgecko]@Bagamoyo1 and others re the breakfast sick, I didn't word that very well. As soon as DS was sick the first time, I knew he would not be going to school today. Absolutely would not send a sick child to school!!![/quote]
I don't believe you. You said "he was sick again at breakfast so he couldn't go to school today". It was very clear.

You're just backtracking now. Who even gets a child up for breakfast at that time if they're not intending to send them to school?

He can’t just contact his work and ask for a day’s leave like that

OP managed to.

You've put it as 'chosen work over us' which is an over exaggeration. You've got sickness and diarrhoea, you will survive.

Although he may have just taken it in to work which is a bit shit for everyone else

I can't believe these replies. YANBU, OP.

I've been ill with D&V. It's miserable. I was sat on the toilet with a bowl and feeling so weak I didn't want to stand up. Luckily I had a husband who could deal with the two kids, I wouldn't have been able to parent safely - certainly couldn't have dealt with a crawling baby.

If you're a single parent, I guess you beg a family member or neighbour to help, or you shut the kids in the bathroom with you and ignore the crying for as long as it takes to feel better. That would be completely miserable for all.

What if your DH was a single parent? He would have had to take the day off school because DS is ill. Why does that hypothetical never seem to apply to men?

What happened on Monday is in no way equivalent. You and he both work FT (AFAIK?). So someone had to stay home with the baby - you offered to take 4 days and him just 1. I can't believe a PP who suggested you were being unreasonable expecting him to take a day off when you're taking 4 days off. Such a low bar for men.

Today is totally different because you're ill too. If you weren't ill, of course he would be going into work and you'd be looking after the kids as you'd arranged. But you're ill. And the children have a second parent who should now be looking after them.

You shouldn't have martyred yourself by telling him to go into work.

@PowerNap you can believe what you like. DS woke up on his own and went down for breakfast. He absolutely wasn't going to go to school. He was sick again at breakfast after being sick earlier in the night. Not that it's the point of the thread

He was a bit of a dick about it but also not wrong. Unless you are so sick that you cannot look after the children, he needs to work.

It's shit, but honestly it's doable. Put the tv on, lots of fluids to sip and try and distract them as much as possible.

I did it with flu when we both had a 40c fever and were throwing up, I've done it with a migraine and with what feels like a million colds. You'll be fine.

Just make sure you get some rest as soon as he gets home.

@LannieDuck

I can't believe these replies. YANBU, OP.

I've been ill with D&V. It's miserable. I was sat on the toilet with a bowl and feeling so weak I didn't want to stand up. Luckily I had a husband who could deal with the two kids, I wouldn't have been able to parent safely - certainly couldn't have dealt with a crawling baby.

If you're a single parent, I guess you beg a family member or neighbour to help, or you shut the kids in the bathroom with you and ignore the crying for as long as it takes to feel better. That would be completely miserable for all.

What if your DH was a single parent? He would have had to take the day off school because DS is ill. Why does that hypothetical never seem to apply to men?

What happened on Monday is in no way equivalent. You and he both work FT (AFAIK?). So someone had to stay home with the baby - you offered to take 4 days and him just 1. I can't believe a PP who suggested you were being unreasonable expecting him to take a day off when you're taking 4 days off. Such a low bar for men.

Today is totally different because you're ill too. If you weren't ill, of course he would be going into work and you'd be looking after the kids as you'd arranged. But you're ill. And the children have a second parent who should now be looking after them.

You shouldn't have martyred yourself by telling him to go into work.

Thank you

...the baby has been asleep, DS is watching telly so I'm wallowing on the sofa in my self-misery talking to you wonderful people. Do you want to check my posting times against my bowel movements?

That sounds to me like you are coping fine. It's utterly miserable, and you have my sympathy, but this does not sound like an emergency situation where your DH would be justified to take a day of for emergency childcare. He doesn't need to be at home, because you are at home and capable of doing the childcare.

Obviously leave all the housework, preparing dinner etc for DH to pick up when he gets home tonight. Hope you feel better soon.

If you're well you go to work. If you're sick you stay at home. If the kids are sick too then the sick parent stays home and looks after the sick kids. If both parents are well and the kids are sick then you decide who is least inconvenienced by not going to work that day.
Why does everything need to be such a drama?

(Mistyping - "he would have had to take the day off because DS is off school ill")

It’s not great I know. I’ve felt like hell many a time and had 4 kids to look after, some ill some who still needed to go to school. It’s not great at all. My ex was police so most times he was either up and out before anyone woke up or in late on back shift/night shift so useless anyway as knackered and needing to go back in for nights etc so it was all left to me. Then when I was better and his days off I went to work 12 hour shifts looking after other people’s sick kids. It could be exhausting!! Funnily enough when he was sick off he’d go to bed for a few days and ‘rest’ his mother told me he needed to be looked after, yep well you can look after him then was my response.

It’s hard, I’m now a single parent, so if I’m ill I do have to suck it up and just get on with it. I’d just make sure once he gets home he takes over with the kids and you get to bed. He can deal with them so you can sleep and hopefully feel better tomorrow. Hopefully your day won’t be too bad today, drink plenty I wouldn’t worry too much about eating though. Hope you are all feeling better soon

YABU.

You have two young children, they are going to get ill, a lot! You are going to have to accept that this is part of normal life for you and if you are both going to continue working you need to come to terms with how you will deal with this as a family.

Unless you physically cannot look after the children then your husband should be going to work…there aren’t many jobs that would take kindly to anything else. DS was very poorly last week with HFM, high temp, sickness. I also thought I might have Covid but LFT and PCR all negative so it must be that nasty cold that’s going around. Did I really feel up to looking after DS? Not really, I’d much rather have been in bed but I would never have asked DH to stay at home.
I am back at work tomorrow after mat leave and DH is coming down with what I had but he’ll be looking after DS on his own (he’d booked the day off weeks ago for a daddy son day). I will be at work…I’ll try to leave a bit earlier but if I can’t then that’s that. We’ll both have had a few less than nice days but that’s how it goes!

I’ve had 3 kids close together who are now in juniors. There have been many many times where one or more have been ill and so have I. DH has had one day off in all of those years to help. One! He never seems to get sick when we did.
He has a very stressful job and I am a SAHM. He needs to go in unless it’s a dire emergency. If I’m able to get up and talk then he goes in.
I do remember that once he had to call my MIL and once I called my dad to help because I couldn’t get out of bed except to
Puke and the kids were very little. Trouble is, MIL caught the bug too so it’s not really a great option. His work keeps the roof over our heads and us all fed so it comes at an extremely high level of importance and it would have to be very very serious to warrant him not going in. I think he’s only taken 1 or 2 sick days the entire 11 years he’s been at the company!
So yeah, with small children bring home bugs (settles usually at the age of 6 or so) you are going to face this many times. It’s one of the complexly shit parts of being a parent- looking after an ill child whilst being ill yourself

@starfishmummy

I realise you are probably not thinking logically as you are unwell, but he has done exactly what you agreed yesterday so I don't really understand what the tantrum is about.

I'm not having a tantrum. I'm feeling upset because I am ill, my children are ill, and it feels like DH chose work over us. Not only that, he was angry that we are all ill, like it's a choice.

Maybe I am being melodramatic, which is why I posted here. And most of the replies think I am, so I will take that on board.

@ufucoffee

He should've gone to work. No point in him being off if you're at home even if you are ill. I'm possibly unsympathetic because I was a single parent and had to look after my sick children when I was also sick and didn't have an option of having someone there to help. Sorry.

Right because you had it hard, no one should get help. What a bitter, nasty post. OP has a husband, he should’ve stayed home to help.

I’d be furious OP. What a shitty husband. I’d be remembering this.

Me and the kids had norovirus a few months ago and my husband took time off without even mentioning it to me and looked after all of us. He sent me back to bed and managed the kids alone. As I would’ve done if he was ill.

Have you got any family who can help out? I’d be tempted to tell him not to come home!

YANBU. I would be fucking furious with him if he did that to me.

Yabu. He isn't sick and you are at home with the children.