"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.

"So sagger if you earned more than your husband how could it make sense that you went part time not him? I just don't understand those types of decisions."

In those first few weeks, maybe even for the first 6 months (be honest, maybe even more) I don't think I physically could have left DS in someone elses care. I don't understand those that can; but neither do I want to judge them as lacking because of it. We don't understand. There's not logic that can get past that.

Whatever gets you through the night..

"Interesting balance to get right."

It is interesting. As parents I think we're doomed to get it wrong no matter how sensible we think we are. The major problems may occur when we don't adapt to the needs of the individuals that are our children.

i could go and do a well paid job if i wanted to, i have plenty of qualifications and work experience but i dont feel that working every hour god sends to employ a nanny and have a big house etc makes up for being there when your child is ill, even if i a child only has a bit of a cold or chicken pox they usually feel pretty crap and just want to have cuddles from there mum.

i have my own business so i am lucky enough to choose if i want to go to work or not and most of the time i work hard but if my daughter is not well she will come first

emotional security is more important than financial imo. i grew up in a priveleged background with nannies and everything i wanted except sometimes i wish it was my mum or dad that came to sports day or watched me in a school play and not the nanny,

Dificult one, this.

If an employee has a job where not turning up to work means that research/letters/'phone calls etc get made a day later then I s'pose it's not the end of the world.

Parental leave, by law, covers days when a parent can't come to work because of family issues. And quite right, too.

As a small business owner, however, in an industry where attendance is paramount, we have to send children home from our nursery if we don't have enough staff to stay in ratio, it hurts.

Wrong sometimes I mean Doh

I haven't read the whole thread so apologise if I am cross posting!! I went back to a previously full time role part time after having ds a) because we needed the money and b) because I enjoy my job and the career path and felt I had the right and the choice to have both, selfish as that may sound. My job is both involved and stressful at times and i do feel a certain amount of pressure not to let my position suffer. I rely on nursery and dp's mum for childcare and unfortunatley this can be inflexible in times of sickness. If ds has a runny nose but is ok in himself then he goes in, not because I'm hard nosed but because that's how I was bought up. Illness needs to be just that in my opinion. When ds had chicken pox that was a totally different story. Not only was he obviously quite poorly but there are certain conditions that kids are not allowed into daycare with. In that instance I managed to work something out with both my work and dp to maintain my hours whilst still being able to care for ds. I was lucky - others are not and in that situation your hands are tied as unless you can obtain emergency childcare where there are not other children present you're buggered!! Not only that I certainly wanted at least one of us to be at home with him. If ds's nursery rings and tells me ds needs to be picked up and I've got the most important deadline or meeting, then shoot me down but I look to dp to pick him up and stay with him until i can get home. I do this as I do feel that I will be disadvantaged/frowned upon within my job if I don't. However, if there isn't a crisis on, I'm out of the door in minutes in fact my boss is the first one to say get home and get him to the doctors. I do feel that it is not just my responsibility as a parent to manage my childs care, I feel that is that of my dp as well and that my job and posistion is just as important as his. To say that a parent should not be able to call in and say they are not coming in when their child is sick (especially as it is unpaid) is imo naieve but there are grades of poorliness and just as my employer does not expect me to ring in as I have a sniffle, they don;t expect it when its my child either. I think you know your own child and you know when they are severly poorly and need a parent at home to when they are jsut a bit under but otherwise ok.

Can I ask how old you were when you divorced Xenia - had you had all your children then? I'm just curious, theres no hidden agenda

Hi CountTo10 ? there?s noting selfish about wanting to have children, it?s fundamental human nature.

As for the rest of it, people shouldn?t be made to feel guilty about their choices, be they SAHM?s or working mums ? as long as legal neglect is identified ? they will no doubt feel guilty on their own anyway. These positions can, will and should always be debated, but there is no need to judge anyone. We do the best we can. We certainly don?t need to be competitive about that.

another typo sorry: ? as long as legal neglect isn't identified ?

This whole question/subject sums up the differences between large and small businesses, IMO

A large business will usually have enough staff to absorb an absent employee, work-wise.

A small business, like mine, can't.

If one of our staff memebers 'phones in sick tomorrow, for a child or for themselves, I have to go into work with my baby to cover them.

If someone is ill, no problem. If someone 'pulls a sicky' and believe me, it is often obvious, it hurts.

An ill child is non-negotiable, of course and I'm not suggesting that someone leaves an ill child at home, but when in a small team someone is not there it shows.

And yes, we can call in agency staff, but if we call at the last minute they often can't get there very quickly.

i have a small business just me and 2 other girls who work part time and both have children themselves, if one of them goes sick its not the end of the world we just rearrange stuff around it, we try and work round it but if we cant i might lose a bit of money but thats not important.

nulnulcat. What kind of business is it?

We have to call working parents to come and take their child home if we're understaffed.

It also sums up the system that passes the buck rather than creates systems in place to help with the inevitable. I'm not an economist though and I only have a limited knowledge of game theory but there are different systems out there - they just need to be adopted by governments, are in some places and will definitely have to be in future if civilisation has a chance of surviving the shortages to come.

I wish this government would give small businesses a break. We employ 16 people yet are governed, on the whole, by the same rules as BT etc. We can't keep up.

bubble its a beauty salon so not really important in society and no one will really suffer if i close for the day if my dd is ill, that would rarely happen as the part time girls help out in this situation

We've got one part-timer and I'm already employing her to cover the kitchen for me ( I cook) while I take some maternity leave. Most of the staff the agencies send us are useless so Mr Bubble usually steps in to cover.

Sorry went away to watch BB

I said why - the difference in attitude by our relative employers.

His employers gave him paid leave - mine wouldn't. He'd been with them for 18 months and I'd been with mine for 14 years.

Mine would only extend my unpaid maternity leave by a month. Then I was asked to resign. I didn't and they made life difficult. Bearing in mind dd was so sick that she wasn't even fit for transplant, how crap is that?

Dh got paid leave for medical appointments. I got unpaid or had to take holidays.

This was a long haul thing and it soon became obvious that my employers wouldn't put up with it. His on the other hand have been fantastic. But obviously now I'm at home all but 2 days he doesn't have to take the time off

But it wasn't a totally financial thing. I just don't function properly when dd is sick or in hospital. Odd that

I suppose my popint to nulcat would be if you have the job which enables you to pay the nanny you are usually in the position to be able to take a day off for sports day. the more I've earned, the more power I've had, the more people I've had to help me with the children the easier it's been to get to a sports day etc (not that I think I ever missed one). It was me who could get to my daughter's carol service at St Martin's in the Fields each year but never her father because he was just a teacher and stuck with that kind of inflexibility of a timetable etc.

MT, we divorced nearly 4 years ago. The children were all still at school then but one was doing A levels.

I wanted someone like B on the thread who employs people in a small business. If we had a child at her nursery we might not be too happy if it were staffed by people wanting to put their feet up because they or their child had a slight cold but as she says you can usually tell who's malingering and who has a genuine problem. Still a good idea to try to recruit staff who are fit and healthy though, no point in storing up problems for yourself as an employer or as an employer of nanny etc.

MT - other systems? I think every experiemnt has failed though hasn't it from the various communes set up in the UK, to communism everywhere it's been tried - or may be it will come into its own in Cuba now Castro is dead. North Korea just seems to have lead to starvation. Israeli kibbutzism? Did that work as collective care, all working for the good of others, children living in children's houses not with parents? I just haven't really seen anything working better than capitalism. It seems to be what is within us. I suppose convents have worked in my own religion but they are one sex only and no children. Perhaps the eradication of men from the planet might be the fundamental change needed.

just a quick point about unpaid leave when sick. I don't think it's a good solution. If you offer or rule that employeees can/must take unpaid leave after 'x' number of self certified days sick then IMO it's unfair.

Some employees will be more able to afford this than other employees ie a single adult, still living at home versus a single parent with no support. Some employeees may see unpaid leave as a convenient option that lets them off the hook about their attendence.

"just a teacher" Just a teacher Xenia?

That's very true Tutter. Also the not being paid after say 3 days, suits the employees who take days off willy-nilly and hits hard the ones who are truly ill and off work less often but maybe for a longer period.

If the company I worked for had been a small business I could have understood the way I was treated but they weren't. They are a massive financial institution. And I have never pulled a sickie for myself when it was my child who was ill. In fact I've never had a sick day that wasn't genuine.

Sorry Tigermoth not Tutter. Not awake yet!

But tigermoth they're not allowed unpaid leave unless they are sick. If they're pretending they can ultimately get sacked which is why HR departments at times hire people with camcorders to record the supposedly sick playing squash etc.

Aderyn, Where is that comment? I am "just" a teacher...

17-Jan-07 23:41:59

Xenia's ex-husband was just a teacher.