Looking after sick LO

[Tiffanygirl]

Hi all

I wonder if I find more understanding and adequate advice here. I asked this question on a UK business forum and didn't get much support at all. But I still have a feeling what is happening is wrong. And now having number of people saying to me "no it's fine, you are in the wrong" upsets me too much.

Our toddler started nursery 2 months ago and I went back to work part time.
Since the very 1st insert session in the nursery she is getting sick very often. I think we had 5 or 6 different sicknesses now, which she'd also pass to us sometimes.
So during this 2 months my husband took three days off to look after our toddler. The rest of the time she was poorly is on me, some days I'm not supposed to be at work because I'm part time, some others I am.
Last time my husband was off to look after LO he was working from home too, he received an email from one of the bosses asking to "make other arrangements next time his child is sick because they need him in the office.
Next day he went to work and was told by his manager that "maybe your wife should take time off instead".
I surely not going to leave my baby if he can't take days off anymore, but this would mean for me to take time off twice as often compared to if we shared responsibilities.
At first I felt this was sexist since his company feels he doesn't need to look after his child, his wife can. But people on UK business forum criticised me for that saying that they could just the same way demand for a grandfather to look after LO, or a gay male partner. So it dismisses sexism (though I'm not really convinced employer would expect grandad to look after sick kid and not his parents. I just feel they wouldn't say that about grandad, but to expect it from mum is fine). And so with a degree of neglect I was told I'm just seeking support to build a sexism case, which isn't true, but I do feel it would be unfair to expect me to be the only one to take time off everytime lo is poorly.
Can someone tell me, can employer prohibit you taking day off to stay with your sick child? Is it our right to stay home with a poorly baby?
Do we have any "equality" rights here, aka we babysit in turns, etc? I just can't help to feel they expect that it would be me taking time off and not him, full stop.
We don't have any family to help us, babysitter will charge pretty much what I'd earn being at work +time getting ready and getting to work.
My husband is now crossed with them for lack of empathy and understanding. He is a hard worker and done a lot for the company over the years. Now we are going through this difficult winter building immune defence and there is not much we can do if lo is sick.
Any advice and tips would be great. Thank you.

It's a right to have emergency unpaid time off to make arrangements for care.

As an employer I would raise an eyebrow if one parent was being expected to provide all of the cover irrespective of gender. But you can't force parents to share this equally and some jobs might have more flexibility than others.

In the first year of nursery both my children got ill very often, and then at around a year they stopped getting poorly. I hope your run of ill health is coming to an end as i remember how stressful it can be in those early years.

I didn't find the run of I'll health ultimately impacted on my career even though I fretted about it at the time.

Thank you, everyone is telling me it gets better once they build immune system. I guess we will just put up with employer not being happy until our LO gets stronger and then they won't have reason to be annoyed. Upsets me though how for many years DH worked for them being valuable employee, but as soon as we are going through something most families do they got annoyed.
Thank you for response xx

This comment would make me livid!! It was obviously a sexist comment albeit perhaps not meant that way. Your child is both of your responsibility and I agree you should share the burden. My husband and I take the same approach and we have had the same type of comments, or because I work part time(& am the mother) my job is somehow percieved as less important?!!

But yes you are entitled to time to organise childcare in these situations, should be in HR policies. The only logical thing is if it's unpaid whoever earns the least (if there's a substantial difference) takes time off.
It's still a man's world where employment is concerned