"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.

DH earns a good salary, very good infact. However, if we moved to one of the other bigger cities he could earn mega amounts - we know this; he has head hunters calling every month. But he wouldn't take the moves. The life work balance we have no is great. DD is in a frim where they see beyond the "sitting at your desk all hours" - they look at productivity overall, and that is where DH does fantastically well, and still manages to keep decent hours. He takes DD to school, drops her at 8:15am and is home, ready for us to eat as a family each night, at 6:30pm. He doesn't work weekends. If he moved for the money, we wouldn't have that and he'd be under pressure to work long, unsociable hours and not be as good a parent to DD, in our opinion anyway. Certainly not owrth the money - there's more to life. We are very comfortable, we don't need the extra xxx salary and certainly not at the expense of family life.

cf, I know many more parents in London with day nannies than live in because we never ever had a spare bed room. I don't even now, the twins share and I'm not sure I'd like someone living in.

Cappuccino's post of 10:15 has led me to conclude that Xenia is not JF but David Gest.

if that kind of job and life is a fantasy I'm done with fantasising.

Actually I think anyone who earns 2 million pounds a year has no right to take holiday, sick time or even go home at all.

They ought to have their bed under their desk.

Actually, Xenia, that thread was not about people earning £1-2 million p.a. It was about a fairly junior lawyer working in London trying to juggle motherhood with a fairly inflexible and demanding job. You turned it into one about people earning mega-bucks, because it suited your point.

Where I work (Local Authority) the understanding is that you call in to say that you are staying at home with a sick child but you don't get paid for it.
That's very fair, in my book.
If a child has long-term condition you can apply for compassionate leave, which you do get paid for.

I agree that there are some occasions in my job where I just cannot take the time off - important meetings, tender negotiations and suchlike. In which case dh would look after them. In the very very rare instance that we both have something unavoidable, we might ask a caring friend who could look after the child.

I am not happy with dropping my employer in it. But, when a child is really sick, there are times when only the parent will do. And to think that the responsibility for that can be palmed off routinely onto paid help is a fundamental misreading of the role of a parent.

They aren't called dependents for no reason.

a £1.1 million mortgage and no spare room?

Was shocked that this quote was from a mumsnetter.

MrsCusack she mentioned before that her kids had a horse

maybe he has the East Wing?

We didn't know she was only 2 years qualified when we started debating the issue.
Freckle, I don't believe in segregation. I think it's useful to hear other view points which is one of the nice things about the internet.

This thread here was asking do you take days your child is off sick as paid holiday as unpaid leave or pretend you're sick or have someone else to look after them. Remember although it's not mentioned on this thread grandmothers are the main emergency childcarers in the UK.

Xenia - what about people who earn megabucks but spend the whole day on MN?

no reply to my email yet - yet Xenia is posting here

Come on Xenia - if you're the real one - reply to my email please!

I'm not advocating segregation, but you harangue people on this site for not living the way you believe women should live, when really it is not feasible for them to do so given that their circumstances are so alien to yours.

Not read the thread yet, but my employer automatically assumes I will be off if my kids are sick. I work at their school so soon as I report them as absent they mark me down as off as well.

No, "the affects on the class" is wrong. It's "the effects" as a noun. Happy to be corrected however.

Do look at the other thread as it's interesting

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=2310&threadid=260412&stamp=070115101822

On me, that is very uninteresting and I don't think I've ever said who I am, where I live, what I earn, what job I do. My choice.

Well put in context I think that there are jobs, or at least periods in jobs where it is unacceptable to call in sick because your childcare arrangements fail.

Of course the actual reality is that you don't simply take a day off - you work from home juggling work and your sick child as far as possible. Or you spend an hour phoning round people seeing if there is any alternative childcare arrangement that can be put together. Or your child watches more tv than is really good for them. I work for a MNC and most of my work is done by conference call so provided I use my mute button carefully the other people on the call may have no idea where I am. If you have face to face meetings then it is much more difficult.

Of course some employers are aware of this, and my employer provided some (admittedly limited) assistance with emergency childcare.

I meant to say like today for example, since DS1 is flaked out on the sofa with a nasty chest infection .

What about dogs? Would you take a day off or be happy if a colleague took a day off it their animals were sick or their husband had flu? I worked with someone who stayed home to look after his wife when she was ill (and he was in a "special job" - can't stop laughing as I type my new word now...)

eh? dogs? eh?

My mum had it down to a fine art. She sent me to live with my grandparents 200 miles away when I was 4. She could work whatever hours she liked and go out at night too - I bet it was great! 'Course, she doesn't have a relationship with me now, but she earned plenty of pennies and those were her priorities.

I wouldn't mind if my colleagues took off to look after their sick dog, elderly relatives or spouse.