Parents use annual leave or take unpaid leave to care for sick children - new Mumsnet survey

[JuliaMumsnet]

Hello

This morning we released a survey of more than 1000 parents in partnership with Harriet Harman MP, and with input from Caroline Nokes MP, about how parents in paid work manage when their children are sick. It revealed that:

88% reported having taken time off work to care for a sick primary school aged child. Of these:

• 39% had taken holiday/annual leave
• 29% had taken paid leave
• 29% had taken unpaid leave
• 10% had reduced hours or dropped work
• 7% had taken sick leave
• 2% had left their job

Almost a third of parents (29%), and more than half of C2DE parents (52%), are taking unpaid leave to look after their children, with C2DE parents twice as likely to take unpaid leave than ABC1 parents (26%). Almost four in ten parents had taken holiday/annual leave to look after sick children. ABC1 parents were twice as likely (31%) to take paid leave to look after sick children compared to C2DE parents (15%).

The situation is even more dire for single parents, more than 90% of whom are women. Single parents were almost 60% more likely to take unpaid leave than parents living with a partner (43% compared to 27%).

12% of parents in the survey, most of whom were mothers, had reduced their hours, dropped work, or even left their job to deal with having sick children. 10% had reduced their hours or dropped work due to caring responsibilities related to caring for a sick child.

Unsurprisingly parents supported provision to be able to better manage their children’s sick days without losing pay or losing holiday time.

When asked if they would support extending statutory sick pay to cover a parent when a child of primary school or nursery age is sick, 90% of parents supported the idea, with only 6% opposing it.

More info here and our posts on Instagram here, twitter here and Facebook here.

Let us know what you think!

Thanks

MNHQ

If you’ve used up all of your annual leave looking after a sick child, what do you do when the school holidays roll around? People are going to have to call in sick at some point.

@twobarnsmammisonthebus. I understand that people with children want to work. I understand that when their children are ill, they want to stay off with them. I understand that that means that someone has to cover for them. So my proposal is that people without children should get automatic extra holidays over that which people with children get. Say 4 weeks extra holiday. Or maybe 6 weeks. Well, I don't want to be inflexible so 4-6 weeks extra holiday a year. I realise that some people with children might think that's unreasonable but it's very progressive and it will make everyone feel like their needs are being served.

I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not, but that really doesn’t sound fair at all - basically that people without children are rewarded with six weeks’ extra holiday? Why? Where is the logic?

(And I would add that people don’t ‘want’ to stay home with sick kids, beyond maybe wanting to be the one who is with them for the child’s sake, they need to be off with them, to look after them!)

If you mean that people who cover others’ shifts should get the option of time off in lieu as an alternative to the overtime pay, then obviously that’s more understandable, but surely only equal to the time covered, not 6 weeks as standard…?

@twobarnsmammisonthebus. I think it's very fair. Parents have a need to know they can take time off work on 80%+ pay whenever their child is sick. Non-parents have a need to know they won't have to work over and above their annual hours to cover that time off. It might mean that non-parents come out of the arrangement better off than parents but as a pp wrote, we shouldn't have a 'what about me?' attitude. Parents would surely just be happy that they can have paid time off and that their covering colleagues won't feel put upon. What's not fair about that?
Disclaimer. I was a bit tongue in cheek at the start because I am fed up with my situation. But actually as I work through it, I feel like it's very reasonable. Maybe the amount of time should relate to the amount of time a parent is allowed off. Say 50% of that time as not every parent will take the full amount. I read that some countries allow 90 days. That's thirteen weeks, but I'm not unreasonable so I'll drop it 6 weeks holiday. If a country allowed 2 weeks, it would be one week holiday. Oops, I'm getting too excited about it. 🤭

Sorry, we cross posted. I write too much, I know!
6 weeks because the company can then make proper planning for the time off. And no, not just to pay back shifts worked. That doesn't compensate me for my extra stress. It should be a guaranteed amount.

Well even if we differ in our views, at least we’re having the debate which is more than most MPs haha 😍

😂😂😂 And we're coming up with policies, twobarns! This politicking is so easy. Give us two the reins for the week and we'll have sorted everything out come Friday.
I always said that if we'd got a cleaner from each EU country, with a fresh A4 pad and a nice cup of tea and a KitKat each, we'd have had a withdrawal agreement by the end of the day which met everyone's needs. 😉 🥳

I live in Germany and I was amazed to find that here parents have an annual entitlement to days off when their child is sick. We just need to visit the child's doctor and they produce a note to show the employer and health insurance (this is also standard practice for your own illness from the third day, or second day in certain industries).

I think it's ten days per parent and single parents get the full 20 days to themselves. With one child we never used it all up. Now we have more children it might be tighter, but still much better than the UK system where there is nothing to accommodate this kind of absence.

@madisonbridges these countries also vaccinate against chicken pox, so nobody is taking 2 weeks off routinely. It would be a few days at a time for a cold, or rarely longer off for something serious, for which you'd hope that people would have compassion for their colleague rather than being annoyed at them.

@BertieBotts That's great. By the scheme above I, as a non parent, would get 10 days added to my annual leave - 50% of a parents entitlement to leave to look after their child. I'm sure you would support that?
I don't have a lot of compassion with someone with a cold when I'm left doing their work as well as my own, no. However, with my promised extra days which the parent wouldn't get, I would definitely help me to feel less pissed off. 🙂

[quote Mackerson]@Preech. Thanks but you don't need to send me links about Crohns. I work with the mother. Trust me, I know all about Crohns and how serious it is. They were considering cutting away some of his intestines at one point. He had real problems and was only at junior school.
I was sympathetic. At first. But not every other flaming week. I'm enabling her to earn a wage. In effect she's taking home part of my wage packet.
You're right that she has to take care of her children but that shouldn't be my problem. They're not my children. She had them, she took on the job knowing what her situation was, and now I'm paying the price. And the company won't just have somebody on standby waiting for the next day it happens.

@twobarnsmammisonthebus
But equally there will be times when childfree people are off and people with kids have to pick up their work.
But as a childless person I already cover when people are off sick. But I'm expected cover when colleagues are off sick AND when their children are off sick. They only have to cover when I'm off sick. Can you not see the disparity?[/quote]
Are you sure you understand how serious it is? Because you sound awfully flippant about it.

Your problem isn't with the mother with a sick kid. Your problem is with the unfair allocation of workload. Take it up with the people who allocate it all unfairly to you. That's on you. Not your colleague.

[quote madisonbridges]@BertieBotts That's great. By the scheme above I, as a non parent, would get 10 days added to my annual leave - 50% of a parents entitlement to leave to look after their child. I'm sure you would support that?
I don't have a lot of compassion with someone with a cold when I'm left doing their work as well as my own, no. However, with my promised extra days which the parent wouldn't get, I would definitely help me to feel less pissed off. 🙂[/quote]
That's a great idea! As you say, there would be less resentment about having to cover and you'd also know you'd get your time back. Seems fair to me

@Preech.
"Are you sure you understand how serious it is? Because you sound awfully flippant about it.
Your problem isn't with the mother with a sick kid. Your problem is with the unfair allocation of workload. Take it up with the people who allocate it all unfairly to you. That's on you. Not your colleague."

You see, I don't think YOU don't understand how serious this is. You want legal regulations to help parents, but you're happy with non parents having to do an individual negotiation with their mgt, with all the unlikelihood of that happening. Why don't we flip it and say, parents do individual negotiations with mgt, and non-parents get extra holidays? As a non-parent I can see that's totally unfair, but parents can't see that it's unfair that parents get legal protection whereas for non-parents any inequity is all on them. Charming!
If you think my attitude is flip, then you don't understand how this situation causes so much ill-feeling and resentment in a workforce.

@HunterHearstHelmsley. Thank you 😊 I'm thinking of running for PM and this is my first policy. I shall be bringing more pro childless people policies forward shortly. 😃

As a teacher I don’t get annual leave. So if my boy falls ill in term time I have to take it unpaid. Which I can’t afford to do as I only just make enough money to cover child care cost whilst I work. I went back part time to manage childcare and money is now extremely tight

The other option, although I guess it is unpaid leave really, is making up hours elsewhere. A lot of shift workers in the nhs will just do this

@Mackerson

Excuse me? You don't know exactly what I want. Meanwhile, I've acknowledged that your feeling overloaded is a valid complaint, and your response has been to shit on a colleague who's trying to take care of her sick kid. Do you think she's lying about it or something? "She chose to have them" is something bitter and immature people tend to say. She didn't choose for her kid to have Crohn's disease, or for her other kid to have injuries that need her immediate attention. Jesus.

Everyone has to approach management and work things out with them sometimes. Parents do this all the time. So do well-adjusted "non-parents", for that matter. Managers aren't mind readers. Especially not the ones who are the hands-off kind, and just coasting on the job title to earn a higher salary: those types will always have to approached before they notice anything is awry.

If you are truly feeling that overloaded, the sensible thing to do is go to your management and straight-up tell them that your current situation is unsustainable. Suggest a solution (such as adding another person to your team to relieve some of the pressure), show them your documented unpaid overtime, and ask them to make it up to you with an offer you'd be happy with, whether that's paid compensation or TOIL. And if they act like dicks about that, then inform them that you're going to have to start seeking work elsewhere, where your skills and work-life balance can be treated with more respect. There's apparently a labour shortage on right now, so they probably can't afford to lose you.

Parents looking after their sick children are not on holiday, by the way. We're not enjoying ourselves and relaxing when our kids are unwell and distressed.

I would absolutely be in favor of everyone getting a "family care" allowance and paid time off to support that. Days off to care for ailing parents or siblings would also go a long way towards supporting colleague well-being.

@needabreak5 This would be is unfair on many colleagues. Why should they pick up the slack and cover workloads while some parents get repeated paid full time leave for kids being sick?
Because it will be those same generation of children that support the economy to pay their pension, and care for them in hospitals and nursing homes.

If my children are unwell I take annual leave, I thought that was the norm?

DH and I are both FT teachers so annual leave is not an option. We each get 1 day of paid leave to "make other arrangements" but in reality what other arrangements can be made? We don't have family locally - only my aging parents who live 80 miles away. I am happy to take unpaid leave but unfortunately in teaching if you are taking unpaid leave to look after a sick child you still seem to be expected to provide cover work and resources. And in my school they would cover my class with a TA even when saving the money from my unpaid leave.

I've worked for companies where there has been a allowance a few day to look after I'll children. Think they has a day for household emergencies as well. I get children are part of society but we don't grace adults with full sickness days for example many will only pay a week. I know parents that are not even allowed allowances or time of for gp certificates. As adults our company can get rid of if they don't want to accommodate illness. The laws around this need to be improved massively for everyone and so parents can tell their boss about long term children illnesses in the same way they could disclosed their own and say how they need support without fear.

Mum to a disabled dc. I've done a mix. Reducing my hours to part time and term time only was the first thing due to no holiday care and frequent appointments. I have used annual leave, had unpaid leave and lied and said I was sick myself.
DH has taken leave.

I now no longer work. Caring for DS was not the reason, but it does make life easier!!

@preech
and your response has been to shit on a colleague who's trying to take care of her sick kid

Leaving aside the rest of your post until I can respond later, on average I must do about a 20% of her work for her. She gets paid for it and I don't. I'm enabling her to go off and look after her children. How on earth is that, as you so nicely put it, shitting on her child? 🤔