"it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

[hunkermunker]

Xenia says "it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

I am interested to know what other people do in this situation.

very interested in this thread, particularly as i am suffering from having to do extra work for a colleague (part of my job description) who theoretically returned from mat leave on 1st sep. so far she has done 4 weeks work. some of her absence was to look after her dd, and her partner didn't help out with that at all. she didn't get paid, but my home/life balance was upset, and no-one paid me extra. so, sometimes, the effects of taking time off work do need tobe thought about - it's where you draw the line that matters.

first of all i really hope the comment i read earlier about women in low paid jobs was being sarcastic. Not everyone is lucky enough to earn mega salaries or maybe there are women out there that just dont want to! I worked for a big bank in the city once, earnt far to much money than is healthy for a 25 year old - spent most of it on shoes! but I hated it so gave it up to work in a pub.

Also read something about BA and high sickness rates, used to be cabin crew and yes there really is a very high sickness rate but you only ever fly with a cold once and you will never do it again, and it is one job you really do want to go sick for if you got a hangover as it is a million times worse at 35,000 feet and if you think its bad being sick in your own toilet airplane toilets are far less pleasant.

I went back to my flying job when my daughter was 7 months old shortly after this she was a bit off colour one day but i sent her to the childminder as i didnt want to make a fuss over nothing, In Egypt a 5 hour flight away i got a message saying that my childminder had taken my baby to hospital as she couldnt wake her up after her nap. DD was in good hands my childminder treated her like her own grandchildren but it was 7 hours before i could get to the hospital to be with her by which time she was in intensive care

Thankfully she was ok but i didnt leave her side all the time she was in hospital, on that occasion i was given compassionate leave by my employer. After though i felt awful that i hadnt been there when she needed me. any time she was slightly ill afterwards i went sick as i wasnt taking any chances

she has been in and out of hospital a lot and i dont care about anyone else but my daughter so i went sick as it was just the easiest option

i eventually retrained and started my own beauty business. Last summer dd was in hospital with meningitus, i didnt care about the money my daughters welfare came first so i cancelled my appointments and closed the shop. I know its not a special job and just a few women didnt get their nails done or their legs waxed but i suppose i was letting them down but my daughter will always come first.

she still has health problems and if i think she needs her mummy with her i will cancel everything and be with her.

my mum was the same, she was a solicitor and she would just cancel things and let someone else deal with it if her kids were ill.

How much of all this stuff feeds back to girls at school ?
Seems to me based upon this thread and my own experience, that women with useful skills, or who have engineered flexibility into their work are in a much better position to handle their kids being sick.
DW is a City lawyer, and a couple of days a week comes in a bit late becuase she likes taking DS to school. Can't imagine many secretaries getting that option.
The other side of course is that some nights doesn't come home at all, but she comes out ahead.
The impression I get as a bloke is that what little careers advice girls get is to try either to have a "girlie job", ie one that doesn't matter if you give it up to have kids, or to be a sort of "fake man" where everyone pretends a woman's career will have the same shapoe as a bloke.

I could of course be grossly wrong here.

DC - i think you are on to something there....

When I was a girl at school I wouldn't have listened to any advice an old lady with children gave me! I was going to have a high flying career and my children ( if I had them) would have to fit in around that. I don't think any teacher, or career guidance counsellor ever brought the subject of children into any discussion of future careers.
But when I had ds1 I was in floods of tears in hospital at the thought that I was going to have to go back to work in four months time. The feeling was a complete shock to me.

Interesting thread

Actually thinking about this hospital thing I have developed some more sympathy for Xenia on this one. My sister had her adenoids out in 1979 when it was a case of staying in a few days. I think she was about 2 or 3. The hospital wasn't a local one and she was in for several days (unlike when DS had the same op as a day patient). My Mum couldn't drive so all the visiting was done together and my grandparents (who did not live locally) were roped in for some childcare. But they only visited and did not stay in overnight. And I remember total that my sister was eating jelly and ice-cream and had a new nightie.

Fortunately DS has been able to be a day patient for all of his 4 operations. So the only time I have stayed in overnight was when 11 month old DD fell down the stairs and banged her head. It was a Saturday, which simplified things, but I really could not have left her. But 24 hours on a children's ward really opens your eyes. The girl in the next bed was about 8 and her Mum was a single parent with other children so couldn't stay with her. So I spent a bit of time with her once I had managed to get DD to sleep.

Still major side track.

It's interesting - do you have more choices if you're at the top (the partner ability to come in late by choice (but then often stays over night to work etc) compared with the secretary due on the dot at 9am etc) or is it easier if you have a job which in the grand scheme of the family doesn't matter that much (the so- called pin money) and messing the employer around a bit so eventually you lose the job but find another.

It is interesting the level of attention Xenia has gotten for not spending the day with her DD in hospital. Yet, I typed on Tue 16-Jan-07 21:10:42 that when I was in the hospital as a child my dad only came in the evening after work and no one has batted an eyelid at that comment. Is that because he was the dad and only mothers are expected to drop their jobs and run for the children.

Incidentally, I spent several stints in the hospital as a child (eye surgery at age 3, concussion from falling on ice at age 6, blood infection at age 7 Dad used to call me "an accident waiting to hapen" lovely ). Nobody ever spent the night with me. They came to visit during visiting hours. But, they were kicked out at 8:00. ANd you what I remember that brought me great joy? When I tweaked that I could press this button and get the nurse to bring me whatever I wanted. My mum didn't really buy junk food (like soda). So, I used to hit the button and get orange sodas on demand -- when my mum wasn't there of course. It was great!

It's not easy Bozza at all. You just have to make choices based on your circumstances particularly if you have a lot of children. If you have 3 under 4s it's hard to have them in a hospital ward. It's like parents who have to let older children come home without a parent at home and let themselves in. You just do the best you can in your own circumstances subject to some basic rules - like none of us would leave very small children alone at home but might have an argument about whether to leave a 12 year old.

I don't mind, uw. Real examples are good. The thing I realise most from this thread is how rare any of us in our family have ever really been ill and some are ill all the time. It's luck too.

I know it is not easy, Uwila. I posted earlier about my DS having an op when my DD was a tiny solely breastfed baby. That involved some juggling.

Sorry Xenia not Uwila.

And although it was hard re the op, I remember breathing a sigh of relief that it came through when I was on mat. leave.

People with high status jobs, with a greater amount of agency, reagrdless of how many hours they work have a much greater life expectancy, lower rates of menatal illness and a much higher emotional landscape in the qaulity of their lives than those with low or lower status jobs; the 'underlings'.

This has been noted to be because of many things, most of them obvious, but the fact that they are working towards tangible goals rather than mere subsistence is a huge part of it.

In other words, status, when basic needs are catered for is hugely important in peoples quality of life.

DC I get a lot of flexibility in my job because I'm a damn good secretary (nearly typed damn god secetrary but there you are). I guess that's back to the skills again, though.

DC - "The impression I get as a bloke is that what little careers advice girls get is to try either to have a "girlie job", ie one that doesn't matter if you give it up to have kids, or to be a sort of "fake man" where everyone pretends a woman's career will have the same shapoe as a bloke."

Yes - both men and women are expected to forsake something of their gender in order to fit into the ?tradition? of the others role. It's an anachronism in this day and age.

Agree about tangible goals. When 22 years ago we hired a nanny whose pay was more than my salary (or my husband's salary) we knew or I did that in 20 years' time or less that working at a loss would massively pay off in all sorts of areas. It has. If I were working at a loss or indeed at subsistance level without that hope and expectation it would be a very different matter. I'm not sure it's an income level thing though as much as a mental thing. Plenty of women hold down a day job, work in a pub, do cleaning, manage a family all on very low wages but have massive ambition and do (in their terms) terribly well compared to others in the same situation who don't have the internalised goals.

I agree that gender stereotypes cause a lot of harm, but to get the message across you have to tailor it to the kid.
I see too much anecdotal evidence of school pushing girls to girlie subjects, and certainly the stats imply either this or that girls can't do hard A levels, an idea that I don't see being popular here...
Indeed there seems a strong correlation between a subject being wholly useless in a career and it being taken by girls.
One reason men earn more than women

Which is why where people have a choice they often send their girls to academic girls only private schools. I think my daughter's school North London Collegiate has a lot of girls doing good A levels. She did Chemistry (nuffield) for example.

Until very recently I was employed by the NHS....In my 6+years of parenting I have never taken time off for a sick child. They have never been dangerously ill,( except twins at prem birth but then I was off as well...), whereas my patients often are, so I am needed more by them than a chickenpoxy 4 year old.My nanny is also a sick children's nurse and is happy to 'nurse' as well as 'nanny'. Other colleagues dealt with it in other ways, the only one that really annoyed me was calling in sick themselves, and putting on a pathetic,( and always boring and long winded...), croaky ' performance ' on the phone...Now I have moved abroad and am working in a university, the culture is very different and parents take time off at the drop of a hat; because it's wednesday,( most kids don't go to school all of wednesday...but hey wednesday comes round every week ! ), because their teenager had ' issues ' that morning, because the toddler didn't look quite right etc.etc....I have 5 young children, and they are truly amazed that I turn up everyday. I confided to a female colleague I was hoping to have one more baby, hopefully conceived whilst I am on this sabbatical year, her reply was ,' you'll have to have time off if you want to make a baby...everyone will understand ' . It isn't that most of my colleagues aren't parents,( it's about 50/50 ), buut it's just the whole pace of work is so much more slow/ laid back than what I'm used to.....I'll see how I adapt.

"Kids need someone to aspire to and look up to in order to be able to make good career choices"

It is true. But the point is some people don't have them and there's no need in this day and age in our 'civilised' societies to leave them to rot.

My upbringing was so dysfunctional as to be a cliché. It took me until I was 30 to sort myself out and discover the potential within me (sorry that sounds so crap). I went to university at 32 and had a baby at 34. I'm hoping to do my PhD now - though I am battling with DP at the mo over this as he wants another baby (as I do ideally) and he thinks I should be happy keeping study "as a hobby". We, well me, are in a total bind basically. I can't afford to leave DP (and I have thought about it) as I can only afford to even dream about doing my PhD is I have his financial support (though I have applied for a studentship, but it's a long shot so don't want to get my hopes up).

I never want to get to the place where I regret having DS. I never will but I know I may have to make some bitter compromises that will make maintaining a relationship with his father very hard.

None of this is because I'm stupid or not prepared to work (I have 2 part time jobs) it's just because I had the bad luck to loose my dad very early and for my mum to fall apart because of it.

I'm not trying to be emotive; I'm well past those associations with my history. But it is extremely frustrating.

Oh interesting Mohze, Out of curiosity how would compare the work ethic in France to the UK (and to America if you are familiar with America)?