How do you survive and keep your job with childhood sickness

[posha]

I'm in the fortunate position that I mostly work from home. But my children are young, 3 and 1. At nursery.
No family help nearby and no DH help either really.

I've not got much annual leave left either. It's going to be a struggle. They've not been able to go in most of the week and I have somehow managed to be in a few calls during nap times, but definitely haven't been able to put in my hours as I usually would. At night I'm too exhausted because of course, they keep me up most of the night when they're ill too.

Any advice how you cope ?

What if you were both self-employed in jobs that would make it difficult for others if you couldn't work? Or if you earned more? Who would take the time off then?

It is hard. I completely understand why women give up trying to work when they have small children, because dealing with illness every other week while showing up to work is almost impossible. But allowing the man with the better paid/less flexible job to never take time off just means your job isn't seen as important. You're the carer, your work doesn't matter, your boss doesn't matter, so long as the man's Big Job or trade isn't affected. It has to be equal (or at least a sensible split but he has to do some of the days) otherwise you will never be seen as an equal.

Why is your husband’s job more important than yours?

I'm not sure why DH 'helping' is always suggested. He is the parent too and should be taking equal responsibility. It's not 'helping'....

Yeah, DH not doing his fair share is a problem here!

I'm not sure why DH 'helping' is always suggested. He is the parent too and should be taking equal responsibility. It's not 'helping'...
Totally agree with this. Men aren't 'helping' when they do basic parenting and domestic chores.

👏👏👏

Things is though that is what happens when you have children isn't it. Is not fair on you or you employer having to shoulder the full burden of sick kids. Does he do the nights so that you can rest?
My son is in school as much as possible but with D and V there is no answer, I'm sorry its all on you OP that is tough especially with two little ones.

Does your work have the option for unpaid leave to look after dependants? If so, either you start using that when your AL runs out or your DH takes time off. Preferably your DH takes time - it's not easy for you to take time either, I can see why you might be doing more than half especially while you have AL and he doesn't but I don't see why he never does it. It depends a bit on the attitude of your workplace too, but unless they are very sympathetic you covering all the sickness periods of 2 kids when their father is present could mean your career takes a hit, which is not great for any of you long term.

find a way to split with dh.

when dc were small on those sick days we both reduced our hours.
one of us worked very early until lunchtime when we swapped over.
this way we both did around 6h at work and both employers were understanding.

I work nights for precisely this reason.

So according to some - the man can't take time off because he wouldn't be paid, and its not fair for the family to lose the income.

So the solution is the woman takes unpaid leave, which has the same effect on the family income.

Obviously it's better because it doesn't disrupt the life of the man with his almighty 'get out of any chore' penis though.

We have a long way to go in society.

Start with the assumption that you will not have any actual holiday that year and all 20something holiday days will be used on sick care. Anything left over is a bonus.

The advantage you have of WFH is that because you'll be in the house you can hire ad hoc childcare in from an agency without being too fussed about leaving your babies and your home with a stranger. There are agencies who will provide you with emergency nannies/babysitters. Not cheap, but if it's that or your job, or your DH's professional reputation... Try and budget for a couple of days worth of that sort of cover.

Mysleepisbroken
It's usually because when children come on the scene women end up being the lower earner, either because they've gone part time or because they've stepped back in their career so the man can work full time and build his career. This means that the woman taking unpaid leave is less of a financial drop than if the man does.

Add in that women often earn less than men anyway either due to the gender pay gap or that women, through socialisation, are more likely to be in lower paying lines of work, and the problem continues.

It's an awfully convenient way of men (as a class) preserving their status as too busy and important to do childcare and domestic responsibilities.

We must be an outlier, I know, but I had the higher earning job (just!) and the job with more flexibility regarding hours, the ability to work from home if needed or occasionally I took DS in with me for an hour until my DP could pick him up. DH was full time in retail, very little flexibility allowed, and he was a supervisor so needed to be there at 9 or at end of day if that's what he was down on the rota to do.

We are lucky to be able to work compressed hours, plus have grandparent help so only 2 days a week of nursery need covered. Then I have flexi time and can buy annual leave. Then we have some grandparent availability on nursery days and can wfh. The main issue is DH and I keep getting sick too, I was off sick 3 times in the first 6 months after coming back from maternity leave- and those were just the DV/ flu illnesses I really couldn’t work with, I’ve had countless colds and worked through with them. So I have to hope I won’t get sick again until next year now!

I don't think the people who're saying that it may be undesirable (for the OP) for the man to take time off, are the same people who're suggesting the woman takes unpaid leave.

I've said the OP should consider whether the lack of support is worth the financial benefits. It may be that it'd be better for her DH to not be self-employed, it may be that it'd be better for him to not take on as much work, so he can take time off and then make up the workload later. But only the OP (and her DH) can decide if doing so is worth it, or even feasible financially.

Unpaid parental leave is of no use when a child is sick. For a start you have to give 21 days notice so unless you have a crystal ball it isn’t possible. Secondly, it has to be taken in blocks of full weeks. You can’t just take one or two days.

Yes but if you use unpaid parental for 2 weeks in summer not annual leave (for your hols) then you have 10 days annual leave freed up to use on sick days here and there.
Some companies offer buy additional leave schemes too.

What does he do? We’ve never taken time off for child sickness, we’ve just rearranged: like during covid when there was no childcare at all, so we started at 5am and just swapped every 2-3 hours, childcare or work, til we’d done our hours or our work (my job is a “meet your hours”, his is a “do your work”).

Currently to deal with sickness we will both wfh and do the same thing, starting early and working into the evening. When WFH isn’t an option, we boot our work to the evening and weekends. Obviously not workable for all jobs and needs employer sign-off!

But what he does as self employed is relevant: eg wfh copywriter, he needs to tell his clients to wait and he needs to work in the evenings and get up early to meet those commitments and do his share of sick days; whereas self-employed tree surgeon he probably can’t push his tree surgery to midnight. But he can presumably support you otherwise: eg you do the sick day, but then he takes over all housework and dinner and the extra laundry in the evening so you catch up on work.

@newbie202020 I'm not sure why DH 'helping' is always suggested. He is the parent too and should be taking equal responsibility. It's not 'helping'....

I never said the DH should be helping the OP though... they should both be helping with the running of the house and the childcare equally considering they both work full time.

Me and DP take it in turns. We both work full time and manage.