To think that time off with ill DC should still be split even though I WFH?

[HardbackWriter]

I have a 3 year old and an 11 month old and have just returned to work after my second maternity leave. DH and I both work four days a week - he's a teacher, I work in an office job but I've been working from home since March 2020 and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon (I have actually requested to have some time in the office but my employer is reluctant and my request has dragged on with no resolution). Pre-covid, when we both worked out of the home, we split days off when DC1 was ill pretty rigidly 50-50, with some flexibility if one or the other of us had something particularly big on when it was 'our turn'. This morning DH made a comment that made it clear that he thought that from now on he'd only take time off work for ill DC if I had one of those 'notable/big' things on, as otherwise I could just do a bit of work around the DC and then make up the time later (I control my own diary and my job is more of a 'get the tasks done' than a clock-watching type one), whereas for him he has to have the day fully off. I was a bit taken aback/cross at this, but now I'm not sure if he's being the reasonable one? He's right that this is possible for me (though it ends up with me working until midnight, and potentially having to rearrange or drop out of meetings last minute) and not for him, but I also really don't think it'll make me look professional and engaged at work and it feels inherently a bit unjust (but is this petty of me?). It's inevitably going to be a pressing issue because both children have spent this entire winter being ill, and I'm sure there's loads more to come. AIBU? How do other people arrange this?

I am in a kind of similar position where DH locums so doesn’t get paid for a day off, and is a higher earner than me. My work is also more flexible and less likely to let people down than him. So it is a bit of a no brainer that I take the time but it still feels unfair as it does inconvenience me, and like you say, they are ill a lot, and I’ve no choice. I’ve said to DH I accept this is the situation but ask that he accept it feels a bit unfair and make sure to recognise and support what I’m doing. He mostly does…

YANBU, this is the thin edge of the wedge, OP.

Males have a very strong tendency to see themselves as main bread winners, and consider their work to be more important than yours after kids.
If the shoe was on the other foot, he'd find another way to argue why you should look after the kids still.

It's his responsibility to arrange 50% time off for sick kids. If he can't do it himself, he should arrange cover, like a babysitter. Or maybe he should find a job more compatible with his role as a parent?
Don't give in, OP.
Or if you do, make sure you're largely compensated through holiday care arrangements.

I agree, I do think it has something to do with flexibility and ability to work from home (rather than actually regularly doing it). Our set up is similar ish. I do most of the sick days, unless I have something big happening or to prepare for, or I need to be in the office that day.

Dh is self-employed, so a day off means making no (or less) money. I'm employed in a very flexible role that involves lots of wfh (including pre-COVID). I always tell my employer that I have sick kids home with me and it's never been an issue. We all do it. My line manager wfh doing sick days with her dog! But we are in an industry where it's not 9-5 and as long as the work is done, then it doesn't really matter unless I missed a big meeting or deadline. I take those days as paid like a normal working day. I often work in the evenings anyway so the time is always made up in the long run.

Dh absolutely steps in as needed though. Even when he had COVID, he would drag himself from bed to the couch and keep the dc alive for a few hours so I could catch up on work. And he would take on more in evenings and weekends as needed if I needed to work. But I think I would want to be transparent with my employer and I would definitely expect support when I really needed it (big presentation coming up, travel, etc.)

I get that office workers can take annual leave when their children are sick but how do teachers get time off teaching? Do they take annual leave and then go in during the holidays? Or is there some sort of compassionate leave? Who funds the cover of their leave? Does it come out of the school budget or do LAs pay for it?

DH and I always split time off for sick kids - alternate days

We were lucky to have our kids in Sweden where time off for sick kids is a legal right

Males have a very strong tendency to see themselves as main bread winners, and consider their work to be more important than yours after kids.
If the shoe was on the other foot, he'd find another way to argue why you should look after the kids still.

Why do you assume that? He did 50:50 until recently, and it's only Covid meaning that OP is at home, and his school is (presumably) in dire straits for staffing like most are, that has changed the arrangement.

I maintain that it's unfair to instantly jump to sexism, when there are clear practical reasons why, at least in the short term, one partner is in a better position to look after the children, than the other.

Apart from anything else, OP can get that day's work done (eventually) if she has the kids. Her DP can't

@LividLaVidaLoca

I’m a bit torn here.

I’m a teacher and it’s REALLY hard to be off. Huge impacts on lots of people.

Though it seems like you would also be disadvantaged, and would bear the brunt of this.

I think you need to talk about this honestly and openly. Could he eg take on the brunt of childcare over the weekend if you had to work evenings or something?

As a teacher I’d agree it’s really tough to take time off, but that should be ‘evened out’ somehow. When my kids are sick I come home as soon as school finishes (Head teacher is fine with this and appreciates my husband taking the brunt of care) and then look after the kids from 3.45ish, cook dinner and put them to bed etc (normally we share this). So that he can have a decent stretch of work time. I also have the kids at the weekend if he needs to catch up/regain sanity.

@madisonbridges

I get that office workers can take annual leave when their children are sick but how do teachers get time off teaching? Do they take annual leave and then go in during the holidays? Or is there some sort of compassionate leave? Who funds the cover of their leave? Does it come out of the school budget or do LAs pay for it?

Unpaid leave often or they lie and say they are sick. It’s rubbish. One of many reasons that teaching isn’t particularly family friendly!

50/50. Simple.

@DirtyDancing

50/50. Simple.

It’s not always that simple when it comes to one specific task.

Overall the split of the load should be around 50/50 but there are always going to be other factors - such as job flexibity - at play when it comes to individual tasks. I think the 50/50 no matter what mindset risks making life much more difficult for everyone.

We have a similar set up OP and I do most sick cover as I wfh in a pretty flexible role. I usually give my line manager the choice of me taking annual leave or working around the DC and she always says work around DC if I can. With an 11 month old it's tough but the older they get the easier it is. I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old DC and don't think it's too bad caring for them whilst working, if they are too ill to be in nursery or school it usually means they are quite lethargic, sleep a lot and spend a lot of time watching TV. School closures and covid burst bubbles was tricker though trying to do both whilst they were full of energy so Dp split that evenly.

I think it’s fair that you have them if you’re able to make up the time. However, he should be contributing by leaving work on time and looking after them all evening and at the weekend to allow you to work

My DB and his wife are both teachers. From what I've seen they both take equal days off when dc are sick. They have no other choice 🤷‍♀️. I don't think teacher couples is that unusual- I know at least 4. My Friend is a teacher, she's the one the takes the majority of kids sick days even though her dh worked ft at home during pandemic.

I was a teacher so get that it's not flexible in term time, however I still think op's dh should pick up some of the slack, especially if op has deadlines. It's not fair otherwise.

Thank you again. I've been thinking about it more and I think the people who have suggested there should be a distinction between the odd day and longer stints of sickness have a point. I think I've probably overstated in my OP - and perhaps DH overestimates - how 'well' I can make up my work flexibly. I basically spend my time doing three things:
a) writing reports and preparing paperwork for regulators, gathering information for this from internal systems, reviewing policies and processes, things like that - this is 'what my job is'
b) having (virtual) meetings where I give advice to other people in my organisation - this is a lot of my time, I would normally have meetings like this most days. We also have loads (ridiculously loads) of internal team meetings.
c) answering email queries and doing the normal sort of admin that comes with a lot of office jobs

I can't do a) while caring for children to any real extent, but it can be done out of normal hours. I can try and muddle through b), depending on how formal the meeting is/how senior the person it's with is, but not always and it can't be made up out of normal hours (I can ask to rearrange the meeting, but not to 9pm!). I can do c) fairly easily on my phone and that makes me look available (which is where it feels a bit dishonest). So I can 'get through' a day in a way that DH can't - he's either there or he isn't - but it isn't sustainable or even really ok.

And I get the point about how hard staff absence is for schools currently, but I'm also very aware that I'm just back from mat leave and being very flaky now is going to have a long-term impact on how I'm seen. I saw the disappointment cross my boss's face just after I was first appointed when she discovered I had a very young child, and I saw how relieved she was the first time I casually mentioned that he was ill but DH was at home with him. I don't think I'll get sacked if my work suffers because I'm doing all the illness cover but I don't think it'll be consequence free, either. I know that might be selfish but it is a consideration.

Definitely prolonged periods of sickness should be shared. Your DH would have the benefit then of being able to tell the school in advance that say “Bobby has hand foot and mouth and OH is covering Monday, but I need to cover half the isolation period - which days are least disruptive” for example.

Well.... does he do the majority of childcare out of term time? Usually I would say share 50/50.. and let him catch up on your maternity leave time away from work first before making changes as your career has preset taken a bartering from that, it doesn’t also need to be hampered by being unavailable due to ill children on top of that right now.

I get the ‘his job affects more people’ argument but your career will suffer more long term damage if you are not seen as available. There are many pieces of reflection that are concerned that working from home and lack of available childcare, coupled with repeated quarantines will disproportionate affect women. For that reason alone, you should share the time off. Your husbands career is less likely to suffer as much as yours .... even if he has time off.

Teachers are key workers and need to be in the classroom, but I'm sorry you are bearing the brunt. It would be nice if your DH was more understanding and supportive when he is not at work of course.

It depends on the school policy. We can have parental leave, which is paid, or we take unpaid leave. Pretending to be sick yourself is a mug's game- chances are you will be ill later and then your sickness absence gets looked at. I am a teacher and my husband would always aim to be off with the kids as his job is more flexible. My Head is very hot on parents sharing leave as there can be a tendency for women to carry more of the burden and, in a primary school, the vast majority of staff are usually female. I always make a point of letting her know that my husband is taking time off, casually in conversation, so if it turns out I need to, she knows it's been shared. But, as pp have said, teaching is not very Family friendly in term time. Also, with elderly grand parents, who else will look after sick children but their own parents? Certainly, with a longer illness we would try to share it more.

Following your update, I reckon that it's maybe fair for you to do the first day of illness. Then if DP takes over later, he has time to plan for his absence and his SMT has time to find cover.

If both bosses know that the other parent is taking a share, they tend (in my experience) to be more understanding about it.

We are both teachers, how we split things like this has varied over the years- depending on the roles we had.

When DS was young, I worked PT. Obviously I did the data when I was at home and we split the days we both worked evenly. The exception was when DS was admitted as an emergency to hospital. I stayed there all week, partly for consistency of parental consent, understanding and partly because you would have had to prise me away from his bed (being brutally honest).

Later on, DH moved in to management roles and therefore stayed at home more than me when DS was ill as his paperwork could be done at home and he taught far fewer classes.

Now, DS doesn’t need anyone and I don’t think either of us would be given time off unless it was a real emergency. We are both in schools which are very short staffed at the moment.

People have mentioned whether DH gets paid - this is a weird thing (and maybe part of the problem). The school policy is it should be unpaid leave if caring for dependents but they have never actually docked his pay when he's done it and other people have found the same. We think they have an unwritten policy of only docking it if they feel the absence is unreasonable, but we have no idea when and how that would be triggered!

In your situation, as you have flexibility I'd go with it for this academic year.

I'm a TA and DH works 3 days in an office. Neither of us get paid dependents leave.

But, DH can swap his days and make up the time so we won't be worse off financially. He has flexibility so he is first port of call.

I agree with most. It is nothing to do with him being a man and you a woman, but everything to do with the impact on the job and colleagues, and of course all the dc in his class of taking time off. I speak as having been a class teacher for all the years my dc were little, and I know how hard it can be.
Of course, a couple with one teacher does have the advantage of the teacher being able to cover ALL the sickness / appointments etc in school holidays.
Like most, I'm not saying that you should always cover, by default, if you have something that is particularly important, or if there is a longer period of illness, but the '48 hour bugs' does make sense for you to cover and he can look after them perhaps on Saturday when you catch up ?
It is hard when your dc are little, but YABU in this case. Working as a Team together as a couple doesn't always mean splitting everything 50:50 - it means doing what makes most sense on each occasion.

Female teacher here with a DP who works from home. If DD was ill, DP would pick up the care every time. Previously when he was in an office we shared it 50/50. Even to the point when he went in early (at 6 am) did a few hours, came home at 10.30 then I went in and taught until early afternoon and then returned home for him to return to work. We did this when DD had chickenpox and there was no one to help out. It wasn’t great but luckily our employers were good and allowed us this flexibility.

In holiday time I pick up most of the housework and childcare so it evens out.

I can see I’m going against the grain here but I don’t think YABU at all.

‘Flexible’ and ‘working from home’ don’t mean ‘available to spend unlimited time providing ad hoc childcare when required’. You’re still contracted to work in return for money. And, in my experience, women often have the ‘more flexible’ job. Until they don’t.