Should the primary earner have to take time off for sick children?

[Sunshine231]

I am the “breadwinner” in our household and pay 75% of all our household bills / expenses plus any extras like meals out, family days out and holidays. I have a high pressure job as a senior associate for a consultancy firm. My partner works in a warehouse packing and labelling online orders and earns minimum wage.

We have 2 kids and whenever one of the kids is unwell I am the one who has to take time off work. I was talking to my mum and she said it was always the way when she had young kids, that the mum had to take leave to care for the kids and never the dad but I can’t help but feel this is because traditionally the man was the higher earner therefore their job took priority because that’s the job they relied on to pay most of the bills?

My partner however thinks that because I work from home and he has to go in person, it makes sense that I take the time off. My work has a strict no kids rule regarding working from home and I also have multiple client calls per day.

Today our youngest was sick and I had to tell my boss I needed to take last minute leave. I had to cancel 4 client calls and it went down like a lead balloon. This is the 3rd time I’ve had to do this so far this year alone. I have bad anxiety about losing my job as we rely on it to pay the bills. I’m just trying to get perspective on whether my partner is right about the wfh thing or should my job be more priority as I’m the higher earner and contributing most financially?

No he is being a piece of shit.

Me and dh have split it.

in your situation, your job needs to take priority.

does he do shared amounts of pick ups / drop offs / housework / cooking?

Well you would be in trouble if you lost your job @Sunshine231 . Less trouble if he lost his job since he earns less so he should be the person oncall. It makes sense for the whole family if you are responsable for 75% of the outgoings.

I think that the majority of posters don’t have experience working in consultancy and don’t understand how client driven (and competitive) it is. Client says jump. You should anticipated this and already have been jumping. No way can you look after a sick child if you’re wfh on client work. If you’re caught, it will be career ending. And even if you’re not caught, it will have a detrimental impact on your work which may also be career ending. Cancelling meetings etc due to an ill child you can get away very occasionally but that depends on the urgency / importance of the meeting and how sympathetic your client is. Most aren’t sympathetic when you’re a consultant. It would only need to happen a few times for you to be kicked off the client or be given bad feedback.

Your DH needs to step up.

I am on your side especially and certainly on days when you have client calls. If he loses his job it’s not a huge deal comparatively.

I am a successful professional and I dated an out of work professional who was doing a similar job to your DH, a lot of tensions emerged he was pretty jealous of me it seemed. What’s your general dynamics like?

Ps my dad had a job like yours and I can remember twice in my whole childhood he called in sick and said he had to work from home but he didn’t dare admit he was caring for a child he said he was sick himself I remember him reiterating how important it was that I was silent when he made the phome
call to work

He needs to quit his minimum wage job and be a SAHD.

I don’t think income really comes into it, unless the higher earner is at risk of losing their job over it.

If one person has a job that can accommodate it more easily then it’s reasonable for them to take on more of the burden if they’re willing to. Otherwise it should be shared as close to 50-50 as possible.

during my childhood, my dad earned less than my mum and my mum had a big important job. She still took time off to look after me when I was sick, some days my dad did it.
in my household now, my DH earns marginally more, we have always tag teamed kid sick days so neither of our employers felt too much burden - which is key here. Presumably you both still need your jobs and your partner wants to keep earning. You both need to facilitate this.

Of course it should be shared. 🙄

To be brutally honest, this is why employers are averse to employing women of childbearing age. Men don't tend to drop everything to do childcare, women do. Women are quite possibly just as good or better at the job but are perceived to be unreliable. It's not right but it's what happens.

Yes and children pick up on the inequality much earlier than we think.

My 8yo was off school sick for 2 days earlier this year. It fell on a night he was supposed to go to his dads but his dad supposedly had a super important meeting to attend (even though he barely works) so refused to have him overnight because he wouldn’t take the day off with him the following day. 8yo upset that he couldn’t see dad. I just said that daddy is working so he couldn’t look after him. 8yo said “but mummy you’re also working?”

I'm a sahm but DH can wfh when he chooses, so he sometimes looks after DD1 if she is off sick so that I can take DD2 out to her usual activities. When DD1 is ill she usually sleeps a lot and doesn't need much attention and it's not been a problem. I don't think DH's office has any specific rules about wfh with dcs around, he's regularly had one of the dcs at home while I've taken the other one out. If his work wasn't flexible then I would stay home with the dc when they're ill, but tbh if he wasn't able to work flexibly I wouldn't have had a second dc, and then I would have had no reason not to stay home.

You should share it and take turns, unless there's something really important you have to be in for or he's hit trigger points or something like that. It absolutely should not be you all the time, high powered job or not.

That. I don't know why he doesn't understand that simply the sound of your child's voice could lead to you losing your job.

What other people's WFH contract says has no bearing on that yours says. It is spelled out that children cannot be present, so why is he still claiming that it's easier for you to do it?

Your husband is being a dick. He should be taking at least half of the time off.

i earn more than DH: we
took it in turns

It's an easy one for us as I'm self-employed but DH isn't. In essence, he still gets paid for emergency leave whereas I do not. So he is the contact for our little one if she has to be collected from school.

@WhistPie Agreed. Which is another reason as to why women should say no to it being their responsibility and not ever the father's.

He should absolutely take more time off than you. Your job is more important to the family.

Is his workplace local. If it’s a long commute that I would take that into account. But generally should be split.

Companies often used to be more flexible about a woman leaving for childcare, as if it's ok for mum to go but not dad. You would hope this is now changing.
It shouldn't be about who earns more (lots of very demanding, important jobs like nursing are badly paid), but what fits in best. Some jobs are more flexible than others.

I can only say what we do. We split it roughly evenly but basically have a conversation about our work and whoever’s work is going to be less impacted takes time off. Fairly often though because we are both hybrid, we can do half a day each and avoid taking time off by catching up in the evening.

If it was him the main breadwinner and you working minimum wage in a warehouse labelling packages, do you think he would ever take a day off to take care of kids?

I’m already on a PIP for not meeting a target of a certain amount of time spent on project work, it’s because they don’t account for your leave in their calculations of time spent on project work across the year so the more leave you take, the harder it is to meet that target

This.

Is he supportive as a Co parent in the day to day?

Some of these answers are ridiculous OP. Yes, protecting your job is paramount. You need to ignore the sexist attitudes of your husband and mum and make it clear that he needs to deal with sickness.
Change his number to the school’s first number to call. Then stand firm in ignoring his protests.
You are allowing this to happen. Smash out of the internalised misogyny that this is some how a ‘woman’s role’. It is only a woman’s role if the man if still the traditional breadwinner. I’m so sick of men wanting ‘tradition’ when it suits them