in being upset (pissed off) with parents who bring their obviuosly sick children to the nursery?

[QuintessentialShadowOfSnowball]

Shouldnt a child that is coughing his guts out be home? Or with rosy red feverish cheeks? Why do some parents think it is ok to lumber nursery staff with children so ill they need carrying around all the time? Why do they think it ok to keep passing on the germs to other peoples children?

daphne.. i doubt there are many mothers sending poorly children to nursery thinking 'f you',they are more likely to be thinking, ;shit , if i don;t go in again, because my child is poorly, i will lose out on a chance of promotion/pay rise, i will get bollocked for lack of commitment, i don;t want to leave my child but i have to.....' until a lot of employers are more family friendly, it will always be a battle for a lot of women..

if you write off your annual leave as leave to look after poorly children..when do you ever get a break??

you are showing a distinct lack of empathy to working mums

Where are these nurseries that don't send the child home again immediately they show any symptoms? My dd was sent home three times with chickenpox before she actually got it

Friend of mine was asked to pick up her child from school this week because she had head lice! And I can't help but wonder if they would have done that had they known she was at work.

Not all jobs have flexibility when you take your leave. It also depends on responsiblities of a job. Some people have have nicer employers than others. I have a very good employer.

For example, if a teacher does not turn up for work then the class is set cover work. In affect the children miss a lesson.

I have a support job in a school, and although I have nowhere near as much responsiblity as a teacher, I don't get paid if I don't turn up. I have to take my annual leave in school holidays. What happens in an intensive care unit if a nurse does not turn up for work?

I am not in favour of ill children going to nursery. However I can understand stand why parents under extreme pressure do so.

they would DH, they would.... i know a couple of mums who've been called out of work to collect children with headlice.

you cant keep children at home if they have a common cold, small children get several colds a year and would never leave the house if you kept them at home..however, illness such as severely raised temps, sickness etc, should result in you keeping your child at home, its not fair to openly expose other children to bugs like that..yes they are routinely exposed to all manner of bugs, but to deliberately take a child to nursery who is for example, vomiting..is not only selfish but not exactly fair on the child who really needs to be at home

But what about a job like mine, where there are patients booked in to see me, and locums at short notice are hard to find? If I ring in sick myself it causes a crisis, so much so that I have to be dead on my feet before I will ring in sick.For the record, I do not sent my sick children in to the creche as I am lucky enough to have MIL in case of emergencies and also dh can occasionally work from home. But there must be some people who are lone parents and don't have back-up. For these people, ringing in at short notice to say they can't come in, does have repercussions and they should have legal rights to protect them, exactly the same as if they themselves were sick. BTW when I have had to take time off for sick children ( dh and MIL both away) it has come out of my annual leave.

am i right in assuming those posters who are annoyed at the parents who send ill children to nursery have only one child?

and whoever said immunity is genetic-what utter bullshit.

the nursery my son went to had a policy on illness and i was given a list of illnesses and the length of time a child should stay off for each(eg,D+V-24 hours after last puke/loose stool,chickenpox-7-10 days etc etc).nobody was expected to keep children with colds at home.ds2 would never had gone to nursery if that was the case.

funnily enough he's only had one day off sick since starting school in september

OK only read the first few posts but I think its ridiculous to suggest that every child with a cough should avoid the nursery!!! For heavens sake all children have colds all the time and you would never get to go to work if you had to keep them off for a blooming cold!

Diarrhoea and vomiting a diffferent matter or a temperature that doesn't respond to calpol. But other than these (and other contagious illnesses that the nursery will have a policy on like chicken pox etc) it's being super precious to expect people to keep their children at home because of a cold.

So yes, YABU. Although judging by the first few posts I'm now going to get a heap of abuse! Here's hoping there are more sensible mums out there who have agreed with me!!!

I agree with what others have said, most things are at their most contagious BEFORE the symptoms start to show. The symptoms are a sign that the body is fighting back and already on the mend.

Regarding the "take your employer to a tribunal" comment, there are ways and ways - you don't need to sack someone but you can withold all prospects of promotion, payrises, bonuses, career progression, basically demean someone into resigning or leaving the company. Very hard if not impossible to prove that kind of thing.

Anyway I'm lucky, my work is very good about that kind of thing and my DP is in a career where it's easy for him to take flexible hours. I have friends who are not so lucky, and it's all very well to say "they should have a contingency plan" in a smug tone - what do you do if you don't have any family living near by and all your friends are working mums?

My ds gets a cold every month so yes I send him to nursery. I keep him off if he has a bad cough, a fever or if he seems miserable with it. Dh and I take it in turns to take time off work. I do think that a lot of the people who judge about these things either don't work or have a job where there is no pressure put on them to return to work. A cold can last 2 weeks. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to keep their child away from nursery that long unless they are really sick.

I really don't understand this thread. In our experience, if a child is ill the nursery calls you and you come and get them immediately. DH has been called in the middle of giving a lecture to pick her up before now.

Are there really nurseries that don't do this?

if you took an average school and then kept children off when they had a cold, the school would be permantly half empty

My DD has had what feels like an almost permanent cold since starting nursery 3 months ago and two stomach bugs.

It tears my heart out to send her when she's not fully well as none of us want to be away from home when under the weather but life isn't so black and white.

My DH has been ill and not able to care for her (nothing infectious I may add) we are (hopefully irrationally) worried that this is a chronic condition and therefore I have to do my best to keep my job as someone has to pay the mortgage. I work part time and whilst it's my legal right to take time off, we are having a restructure at work and I cannot afford to be made redundant and so don't want to give them any reason to.

Yes if my DD was very ill then of course I'd take time off but a cough or cold? I can't. Life is not that bloody simple. I wish for godsake it was.

Reallytired and Camilla - you won't believe me when I say I have tons of sympathy with WOHMs.

But your counter-argument to mine (if we have to put it that way) is that nurseries and all the other children they look after just have to put up with the illnesses your (not making this personal) dcs bring in to nursery, whether we like it or not. Most of those others will be WOHMs like you.

I'm just saying that I think the "I have to send my sick child to nursery, never mind the fact that all those other children will probably get sick, but I need to keep my job" is unreasonable. The employers are at fault but why should other families/children/nursery staff suffer just because you work in a job where your employers are still in the dark ages?

You cannot argue that it isn't wrong to send a very sick child in to nursery, IMHO, you just cannot.

it is unreasonable, Daphne, but until we live in an ideal world, it is a decision that working parents will have to keep making, and it might be at the expense of other children , to keep their own jobs secure...

yes, it is absolutely wrong for a poorly child to be sent to nursery, but it is absolutely wrong that parents have to worry about their job security if they stay at home with their sick children.

I am a SAHM, but was a WOHM, so i have seen it from both sides.

This is a difficult thread to post on it's so rediculous to suggest that parents who send their dc to nursery with a cold don't care for their child is outrageous, I can only assume from what the same poster said later on (I think it was the same) they work in a parallel universe!
There are no intelligent comments on here about nursery infection policies!!
To comment to the poster whose child has cystic fibrosis, nurseries really are hotbeds of germs, I'm not sure I would send a child with CF to one but would prefer childminder/nanny for that reason alone.

The working parents of this world (including nursery workers) do not owe other working parents a break in terms of holiday, as far as I know.

sorry, daphne, I don't understand what you mean by that last post?

Daphne, don't really know what you mean but this attitude of 'well how does it affect me' is why this society is so f@cked up. We all deserve to give each other a break and start looking out for one another. Life isn't simple for the majority of people.

for the record,i'm a SAHM,but i still wouln't keep a child at home just because they had a cough/cold.

and yes,where are these nurseries that don't phone and ask parents to pick up their very sick children?IME nurseries and schools will phone if they think your child has a temerature or if they vomit/have a dodgey poo.

With a temp they need to be at home, but also remember that many illnesses are contagious before the person even knows they've got them, including flu.

That's life!

Just found out chickenpox is rife now in DD1's nursery.

Well, there's not much to be done about that now.

Unfortunately, even into adulthood, ill people are all about and make you sick, too.

Most illnesses are at their most contagious before symptoms appear, so keeping a child off once symptoms appear does nothing to curb the spread of disease.

Also a lot of the stomach bugs that are doing the rounds come on very very suddenly, so the child could go off to nursery/school in the morning feeling fine, and by lunch time could be puking everywhere, thus infecting others, but you can't keep a child off on the off chance that they might get ill.

There is whooping cough doing the rounds at my DD's school just now, which is at it's most infectious 2 to 3 weeks before symptoms appear, so some children that have it just now, might get it next week or the week after, while being contagious just now!

It was my DD's school concert today, out of the whole school there were less than 50 children in today, the rest were off sick! These things happen.

Children get ill, germs get passed round and immune systems get built up!

And I think it is madness to say that working parents should plan 3 weeks annual leave to illness!!! Not a chance!!!

And presumably my DD didn't catch a cold from the carers who were going to work because they couldn't afford to take time off work?

Just read down/up (however you look at it) the thread a little bit. There was a post arguing that if you take up all your annual leave on looking after sick LOs then "when do you ever get a break?".