If your child came down with a vomiting bug today, would it cross your DH's mind to think about emergency childcare arrangements for tomorrow?

[confusedlots]

So our child has come down with a vomiting bug today, vomiting quite a few times this afternoon and this evening. Both me and DH are working tomorrow. Child would normally be at school and then picked up by a relative who keeps them for the afternoon until we are home from work.

I've just realised that DH hasn't even considered the fact that she won't be going to school tomorrow and we are both working. It hasn't even crossed his mind that we might need to sort out some emergency childcare or one of us might need to take the morning/day off work.

Would this happen in your house? I'm really tempted to get ready for work and leave as normal just to prove a point. Just to tell him that it never crossed my mind, but oh well I need to get to work, see you this evening. Because that's effectively what he's doing to me by deciding not to engage his brain.

But of course I won't, I've sorted out some childcare arrangements assuming she is feeling a bit better in the morning. If she's still really sick then I'll stay off with her.

Does this happen in your house? Or would your DH actually notice a potential issue with this situation and engage his brain without being told exactly what to do??

Honestly no, mine would say he'd try and look after DS (he WFH) and I'd offer to come home from work at lunchtime and finish off in the evening.

If you wanted to make a point, I'd have made eye contact and said "Right, what are we going to do about school and work?" and, the key, not volunteered a solution.

You should go with your plan A and go to work as normal

Of course it would.

It would be second conversation. The first would be to establish how unwell the child actually is. Eg. Is it serious or is it just the bug doing the rounds.

Then there would be a conversation about how to manage the day. Who has something unmovable. Can either of us work from home. Is it better to take a whole day, or do half each.

That's simply what adults do.

The only reason there wouldn't be a conversation would be if one parent wasn't working, or didn't work on the day concerned and then they would automatically cover it.

Yes he would, when DS was sick about a week ago he took the day off to look after him.

Yes, he would and if it was tomorrow he could care for DS as he has compressed his hours to take Fridays off with younger DS although I am still on mat leave at the moment. When we are both working we discuss who has things on that can/can’t be cancelled and DH has done more sick days as DS always seemed to be sick on the days I was travelling for work!

Yes because if DS is too ill for nursery then he stays at home with DH (wf

And if you want to make a point then simply say, what are we going to do about tomorrow?

Or even be blunter. I need to go into work tomorrow so you will have to wfh/ take the day off

No DH would immediately realise that we needed a plan and want to discuss what the plan was. He can be an arse but this is one area he would be on top of.

No, we would have made arrangements or one of us would stay home if we were both working.

Oops.

DH is WFH but flexible so he deals with DS and I come home as early as I can manage to take over. So he always thinks about it because he's the one that does it.

We'd have immediately discussed our plan once we realised that something needed to be done.

In your case why didn't you just bring it up? And then ask him why you always have to think about these things?

Yeah. We would talk about it and due to him having more job security he is more likely to be the one to take time off.

Yes. 100%. As soon as one gets sick he gets his diary out and we plan who can do what.

Absolutely - and normally it would be DH who would wfh.
However, I am significantly more senior than DH and have a very very busy externally facing job.

Yes in our house both would think about it, on different days it would have a different impact depending on what was happening with work. Our work is equally important in our house.

No..
He lacks forward thinking skills completely

Yes.

I wouldn't have had kids with him if he'd been the type to expect me to do all the thinking regarding his home and offspring. He did have his moments when we were dating but I trained it out of him by playing dumb or whatever you'd call it (for example I would never mention if the dog's food was getting low, it was coming up to her vaccine time, she was ill and needed to go to the vet, something in the house needed fixed etc)

Yes he would but he wfh. Well we both do tomorrow anyway. He would just wfh and split his meetings. If we were both having to go then I think he would still help sort it.

I clearly do need to be the one who needs to bring it up and start that conversation. And yes I'm sure if I had brought up the conversation he would have helped to find a solution. But that's sort of my point. If I didn't bring it up, DH wouldn't have realised there was a potential issue, the mental load falls to me again as usual.

We would both discuss it and decide. He has took the hit more than me.

i get your point though. One DC needs care every Friday and we juggle it between relatives. It doesn’t occur to him to ask the relatives on his end unless I remind him. I think he thinks if I don’t raise it I must have it sorted

We would look at each other in horror and start frantically bartering over our calendars 😅DH always offers to get up early and work 6am to lunchtime and then we do a swap. Sometimes we do that, sometimes we take a half day each, sometimes one of us says actually it's fine I'm okay to have the whole day.

Sorry OP, I'm with everyone else. That wouldn't happen in our house, and whoever's work day it's least inconvenient for picks up from school in the event of illness during the day, it's not me by default

the mental load falls to me again as usual.

And the actual load, given you are saying you will take the morning off.

The instant a childcare issue crops up make it your joint issue to discuss and solve. Otherwise nothing will change.

We parented 50/50 and shared out sick days.

My dh is exactly like yours @confusedlots . If I ask him to take a day off, he probably would, but it wouldn't occur to him otherwise.

Of course dh would realise the problem. We'd work out contingency plans together.

May I ask why you don't carry out that plan? Swan off to work and leave him to sort it out. It's a very good situation to start with.

You are rightly pissed off that you are carrying the mental load alone. So stop doing it. If you keep picking up the pieces, he'll keep dropping them.