Reasonable to expect a surgeon to do this?

[Beeturpot]

ex dh is a surgeon. He became a consultant after we separated. I did all drop offs etc and was called in all emergencies and if dc needed collecting etc. He said he couldn’t leave if in work as it wasn’t the sort of job that allowed it.

I have recently been promoted. I’m feeling resentful that I am doing all the running around for dc. They live with me. Is he right that this is too difficult for him? He claims to start work by 8am and often leaves late. I don’t know anyone in his area of work and i don’t know if he’s taking the piss. He does do his share at weekends. Just feeling fed up.

Precisely and they’re paid handsomely for their skills.

I was a Consultant Anaesthetist for the majority of my children's school years. It's difficult, but not impossible to get away from that kind of job in an emergency. Obviously you can't just down tools and walk out in the middle of an operation but nobody is indispensable and nobody is doing urgent work all the time. It's unlikely that your ex would never be able to respond to a childcare emergency but the difficulty will be that knowing when he could and couldn't won't be that easy. Though if for instance he is always in theatre all day on a Monday but goes to a departmental meeting most Thursday mornings it's fairly safe to say that he'd be more likely to be able to leave on Thursdays than Mondays.
It also depends on the nature of the emergency. I was the Consultant on call for ICU when I got a call that my Dad had died. Obviously I couldn't just walk out the second I put the phone down but it didn't take too long for one of my colleagues to come into relieve me. I also once left theatre when I was told my son was in A&E having been knocked unconscious at school. Nobody expects their colleagues to continue to work in really serious circumstances and, in my experience at least, people will rally round in a genuine emergency. However, I think I would have got short shrift if I'd asked a colleague to take over my work because one of my children had a cold or something.
It's not black and white and will always be a balance of what is happening at work vs what is happening at home.

She married a surgeon. She should have known the realities of that and not had children with him if that was going to be a problem for her. I'm sure she benefited long enough from his surgeon's salary while they were married and is still benefiting from his maintenance now they're not. Now she wonders if he's "taking the piss" because he can't cancel consultations and surgery to pick up their child.

Come on. Don't be so ridiculous. Of course he can't. Yes, perhaps he could arrange to pay for someone else to do it, a nanny or au-pair, on his days, but that's not what the OP wanted; she wants him to drop everything to pick their child up.

It’s about being a responsible parent though.
If he can’t up and leave then he needs to arrange for someone else to take over.
Consultants share work, patients and even swap ops.

Yanbu at all but I guess the nature of his job means he literally cannot leave at the drop of a hat

I was going to come on to say this, but not as a consultant. If a woman is a consultant surgeon, I bet that she still has to do loads of the pick ups/drop offs.

Your issue is that your EX doesn't consider day to day childcare his responsibility. Sadly, you can't force him too. I just hope he pays generously towards costs, including emergency childcare?

This.

not surprised you’re getting divorced if after marriage and kids you apparently are clueless about his jobs responsibilities.

you’ve taken so little interest you honestly don’t know what his working week looks like? You haven’t discussed how many days he’s in theatre, when his clinics are?

I am in an allied field and my “non negotiable” days are in the calendar. Dh knows I can’t leave and childcare is on him. Other days are flexi so I’ll do pick up or drop offs so he gen get extra hours in.

there’s a massive communication fail somewhere.

To be fair she does say that he became a consultant after they separated. But even so, how can a grown adult not know what a surgeon/consultant does or why they can't just leave work at the drop of a hat?

DH and I are both drs( not surgeons but have done surgical jobs) parents.

Routine school run - not a chance. We pay for extensive wrap around care, holiday care etc. DD7 doesn’t get to have people over for play dates or out of school clubs on school nights etc because there is no way either of us is leaving work at 3pm. We have care from 7am to 6pm and the 6pm is a real struggle some nights. We both work weekends and nights and she’s very used to spending weeks of her holidays at grandparents and relatives.

Emergency when DD is sick - we call the grandparents and friends and if that’s not going to work we both have an “firm” phone call with each other and the one that’s got the less time critical patients cancels them and goes and gets her. She and the childcare know we’re only coming if she really really is ill.

Patents evening, sports days, performances etc - well we do our best between us and grandparents and use annual leave if we can - we both need to give 6 weeks notice to have a day off and it needs to be a full day (no half days or work from homes) so if told in advance about it we have always managed to get someone there to support her but if we find out a few days in advance that it’s an class assembly etc she knows we can’t make it.

We try and make it up to her at weekends!

So YaBU if you expect ExH to short notice cancel work to go and get DC for a post school play date or football match I but no reason why he can’t arrange wrap around care on his days. If it’s a sick kid it needs to be a negotiation- if you leaving work means no one looses a limb or you your job and him leaving means that a patient will have care delayed then maybe morally you do have a duty to go but doctors and surgeons can leave work if they have to - I’ve left an operating list (I wasn’t the lead) in hospital to go meet the ambulance bringing DD to the A and E with a broken bone from school when I had to.

@Beeturpot whilst he cannot make himself available during the school day, it doesn't automatically mean you have to. He can nominate an emergency contact on the days he js expected to be "on call" for the DC.

I assume his lack of availability is one of the reasons for your divorce?

The only rational response on here seems to come from the actual surgeons and other consultants. Of course he can't leave in the middle of surgery but surgeons are not always in theatre, as has been pointed out.

He could pay for wrap around childcare to deal with drop offs. And I'm sure he could also pay for an emergency nanny service via an agency like some big corporates offer as a staff "perk" to cover his share of emergencies. If he can't deal with these aspects of parenting himself he can pay someone to pick them up.

One of our surgeons, finished operating. Ran across the road to pick his two year old from nursery. Parked him behind the nurses station with cartoons on his phone, and went to see his patients.

This

He is absolutely right. He can't just walk out of a clinic or an operation, ffs. Patients always come first - did you not realise this when you married him? Being married to a surgeon was one of the (many) reasons why I chose not to have children, because I knew that I would mostly have to do everything solo. Why can't you ask him to contribute to the cost of a nanny to help you?

@Skycrawler reading your post makes me sad..... i hope you think that being a medic in UK is worth the personal sacrifice it requires as the monetary reward is not there

@viques There are 10 in commission and operational.

No, he's not available during the working day
Many people are not, and have no job flexibility. I think some people in very flexible jobs/wfh don't understand this.
However, he should have provided well for you in the divorce settlement, so I would imagine that would support your childcare.
YABU.

That's terrible, isn't it? Expecting the nurses to do unpaid childcare.
I'm guessing it was some sort of emergency. He's lucky that the nursery was across the road and not across town. Not a great situation though.

My mum was a nurse, my dad worked in the far east. If she was in shift our emergency contact was my grandparents. More than once my mum was called out of work to pick us up and she told the school we were fine to stay at school and turned around and went back to work. More than once we turned up at a and e, checked we were that badly hurt and that they had our up to date tentus records and went back to work.

Me and my partner are both lab users and we know that on lab days there is a really high bar for us being able to leave. I am more flexibility on which days I'm in the lab so I plan it for days when he isn't completely unavailable. I let nursery know in advance if there are days when we are going to struggle to come out to her.

He should be contributing to the out of hours childcare and he should be contributing to the emergency child care but he doesn't necessarily have to be the person that is giving the child care. I would be asking for details of his working week and what if any support he could give for regular care, general illness and dire emergencies. You need to talk and you need a plan.

Yes, yes everyone, of course a surgeon can’t drop everything to go and do the school run. However if he can’t be there he’s unreasonable to not have back up arrangements for someone else to do the school run etc for him. And that may mean paying someone else. It’s unreasonable to expect his ex wife to drop everything in her place of work to do it. They are two separate people now and it’s his problem to sort out. It’s so arrogant to expect her to, like her job is not important.

If the divorce is still not finalised this needs bringing up and nailing down in the agreement. Either it’s his day, and he sorts out childcare around his job or it’s not his day and he pays his ex wife more so she can sort out childcare on those days. But it’s not up for chopping and changing. Lots of people do standby and not routine 9-5 and they have to find a way to work round it. So does he…

What are your contact arrangements? Annoying though it is, on your days, you are responsible for childcare, including emergency childcare. In the ideal world, if one parent is taking on all the childcare, including emegency, the other parent would at least be offering additional financial support to cover this but sadly, that is often not the case.

If it IS his day, then it IS his problem. Which means he needs a designated proxy if he can't get away (and of course, as a surgeon, there might well be times that he genuinely can't get away, as there are with other careers). And that designated proxy shouldn't necessarily be you unless you agree to it - rather a parent, friend, sibling, nanny etc.

what I find interesting is that he can't even take that part on? I mean, even if he's in clinic, he can't find 5 minutes to call around to find someone to help him out? Probably not - he has a penis. In my experience whether the man is a surgeon or a street cleaner, his job is ALWAYS less flexible and more important.

You are kidding. Aren't you . Really!! You were married to him, as a surgeon and did he come home on time then?
Utter nonsense post😏

@Corinthiana fortunately it's children's ward. And we didn't mind!

You're great! (and I'm sorry if people take you for granted)

Why is it nonsense? What’s that got to do with her? She’s his ex. Not his partner, not the person that has to run behind him sorting things out. She might have done when married, but it’s HIS problem now..