How do you not get fired as a parent

[Blueysdadisamazing]

Worked full time all my life, had Dd later on, was able to stay at home with her during her younger years.
She started Pre school in September and has been sick practically every week (as have many others)
There have also been some teacher strikes.
I started a new job in September and have had to take so much time off, it really doesn’t look good. We don’t have family nearby and I wouldn’t want my parents to catch things anyway as they’re in their 70’s
How do you all fit working around being a parent, I feel like my workplace will let me go if this carries on.

Even if you are not a single parent, even if you are splitting the time off 50/50 with your child’s father, sometimes, it’s a lot of time off.

It's hard if you are the only person who can watch your child when sick. DH and I try to take it in turns and if we were desperate my parents would help. I'm not sure how single mothers with no family to help manage to be honest!

I took turns with DH and only kept them off if they had a temperature or were sick (ie sent them in with colds etc).
The preschool year was probably the worst, I was perpetually ill that year.
Ive been in the same job for a lot of years, before and after having the kids, which probably helps as they knew me so when i did have a bad year they knew this wasnt my "normal".

It's not always as simple as saying split the childcare equally. Regardless of gender, if Partner A earns far less than Partner B, even splitting the burden equally can mean you don't make it financially to the end of the month. Partner A missing out on 2-3 days pay might mean you have to make cutbacks while Partner B missing missing the same could mean not being able to pay the mortgage.

I am (now) disabled. I had had my 2nd child (ASD, high care & mobility) before my 1st was diagnosed (ditto). My exH walked as ot was 'too hard'. NONE of this was foreseeable. It has massively affected my ability to WOH (for years).

I am happy for those who've had a better experience but, like much of life, its more due to luck than intelligence / moral worthiness. (none of us really wish to accept this as it means life is rather random / fragile/ scary however)

Women get left with rhe bulk of childcare / responsibilities in most cases, whether they work or not: it's hard !

DH was never able to step in. (Surgeon/pilot genre). I went back to work when dd was in Y1. I covered it by always going the extra mile outside the sick periods. Always taking on an extra bit of work, staying a bit later to finish something, always being 15 minutes early. It gave a bit of grace when they were ill.

In answer to OP's headline question, although I appreciate it doesn't help her particular circumstances - the answer is that you build up goodwill in your job before you have children. I had a huge amount of time off when DS was small (even with DH taking his share) but they already knew I was a good employee who went above and beyond in other situations. Plus I'd been there over 2 years so harder to fire (if it had come near that).

I was coming on to say something similar. I'd had my job for 6 years (US Civil Service) before I had my first child. That meant I was 'career tenure' and like PP above, had built up a reputation with management as reliable and earned the goodwill of my coworkers by being supportive of their time off for family needs. So when my time came for mat leave and childhood illnesses, and later during the 'elder care' years, they were flexible and pretty much non-resentful. It's one of the 'upsides' of continuing to be a working mum, having that work 'support system'.

If someone decides to be a SAHM one of the downsides is usually 'starting all over' in the work-a-day world if/when they decide to return to work. They may think it's well worth it, that's up to them. But it certainly is a disadvantage if one suddenly finds oneself working as a single parent or with an 'unhelpful' partner.

You know, when I was in the 'what career do I want' stages my parents advised me to choose a career path that would facilitate family life; Mon-Fri 9-5, major holidays off, good benefits, etc. I am so glad I listened to them.

This is the reason I've only just gone back to working now my kids are both at primary and hopefully over the worst of the bugs 🤞 no family to help and husband working away/long hours. I took the brunt of it as the stay at home parent. Husband now in slightly more flexible job so can share the load and he can work from home but I can't ( but working in school hours locally so that helps). It was tough and is tough in general when they get Ill, I have terrible health anxiety 🤦 but get the immune system built up now so they hopefully will grow out of the rough patch, within a few years 🙏🤞

Could you elaborate more on the nature of your role? Thing is it's all so circumstantial - in some jobs I could 'make up the time' elsewhere but in others there was absolutely no flexibility to the point I had to leave.

I went down to 3 days & both of us can wfm & cover sickness. it's the only way we could manage with working & 3 kids. I feel for face to face roles though nurses doctors cleaners shop assistants teachers etc must be practically impossible without help!

My spidey senses says journo.

No history at all aside from this.

And the thread title strikes me as a DM type article title

Has she actually been sick or just a bit under the weather?

Are you together with her father?

Is he doing at least 50% of the time off? If not why not? Being the main earner is not a reason.

I'm lucky that my kids seem to have been healthier than average as small children (I think because they weren't thrown into full on childcare with very immature immune systems but were able to socialise with other children most days in their first three years so they had a manageable level of exposure to germs and built up their immune systems slowly - obviously not everyone has this luxury, especially those children born during the pandemic).

However we have never had day to day family support and juggled between us. I swapped shifts instead of just not working whenever possible and DH (office job) did his 50% - even easier now so many are allowed to work from home.

Now our kids are teenagers DH works from home if they're ill and I never take time off my job because it's incredibly disruptive to be off and my job absolutely cannot be done remotely.

DH and I share the time off to take care of sick child burden. So I'd WFH in the morning, take care of DD in the afternoon, and catch up on work in the evening. He has her in the morning.

So it’s now 100% DH?

You ask Is he doing at least 50% of the time off? If not why not?

perhaps same situation as in your family?

He can work from home and I can't and the children are old enough to look after themselves but if I'll it's obviously vastly preferable to have an adult in the house.

Neither of us takes time off for child illness.

If called to an emergency by school (which luckily for us has only ever happened twice between three children over 12 years of having school aged children) whoever can get there fastest would go - as it happens this was me once as it was before my shift started, and I ended up in hospital with the child for a week. The other time he was working from home 20 minutes drive from school and I was at work almost an hour's drive from the school (and in a context where it's dangerous if I just leave without finding cover) so obviously he went.

So yes it's 100% DH now if they're home with a bad cold or flu but neither of us takes time off - it's purely because his job is 80% from home anyway and he can choose when to go in, and my job cannot in any way be done anywhere but on site and if I leave someone else has to cover.

Had this been the situation re your work when the children were pre schoolers and primary… I wonder whether still would have been 100% dh?

Its essential to take turns with the children's father if they are on the scene.

It also helps to have back ups, and back ups for your back ups (childminders, family & friends you can trade favours with). I do think both parents working 35- 40 hour weeks doesnt leave much slack, it helps if one parent can reduce to 30 hours or so.

Schools don't send children home very often ime, because attendance matters.

School hours/community run preschools are, in my experience, the worst for seeing themselves as education not childcare, and basically setting themselves up on an old fashioned model offering 15 -20 hours a week with the expectation there'll be a SAHM. They tend to have low tolerance for minor coughs and colds and send home at a drop of a hat.

I'd prioritise office hours for critical work and face to face meetings but I'd probably need to go home early say 3pm and stay online via MS Teams and then only actually return for other smaller task completion once kids are in bed.

It's not impossible but you would have to have a frank conversation if your managers will accommodate. If not then maybe consider another role that will fit into your personal life. Agencies like Ten2Two might be a help. What's your field/role?

Hope you can make it work. You're doing great x

No - 50/50 when they were all 3+ but small enough to need looking after (once I was back to full time - as we have 3 quite close together I obviously did all of it when on maternity leave with a younger sibling. I also did one long day and three long evenings for two years when the youngest was 1-2 and he did condensed full time in four office hours days, so neither of us had to take time off while we had children under 3).

We did about 7 years of 50/50 until the children didn't need anyone to take time off for non critical illness, just someone working from home.

I was genuinely curious what you would do now that you are in a completely inflexible job?

We've always taken turns to take time off with sick children.
For those saying it doesn't make sense for the higher earner to take time off unpaid, if the lower earner ends up losing their job because they've had to take all the time off then the family is a lot worse off than a few unpaid days🤷🏼‍♀️

It wouldn't have been a good choice of specific role when the children were tiny but my large employer has a lot of more compatible roles and moving sideways is fairly easy- I've done it twice. My current role is inflexible but there are no weekends or nights or bank holidays and a lot of the school holidays off. Previous roles required weekends and nights and evenings and bank holidays but shifts could always be swapped and to some extent chosen, within reason and as long as everyone on the team was happy/ equally and fairly unhappy!

We've juggled around the children - DH also chose only jobs with a degree of flexibility and a 35 hour week. Neither of us wanted to do 50+ hour weeks with children.

It’s really hard and this year has been awful for sickness. I find I work through my own sickness and try to squeeze in hours when they are sick, because I feel like it would be taking the piss because it’s just so frequent. Probably not smart as I don’t get rest, so I am even more likely to pick up whatever crap the kids brought home. Again. People with supportive families nearby are so so lucky. I think I’ve aged a lot in the last 2 years.