Too many sick days!!

[Anonymous]

I am SO stressed!! We have had SO much sickness this fall/winter. My kids had the flu in the fall for 1 week and we’ve had a couple of scattered days after that maybe 1-2. Then this January I’ve been for going on 3 weeks now with a cough. I only took 1 day Friday before MLK weekend and then I had to take Tuesday as well for my one child. My husband took Wednesday with our child (he got approval to WFH). Friday, our younger child was sick and coughing so hard he was gagging and crying. He stayed home with my husband. We thought it was over!!! No! He woke up with a high fever this morning.

My husband is afraid to take off or ask to WFH again and I work at a school and I am not allowed to WFH. Everyone does but we have to still use sick leave but can’t fall behind on work. I had a meeting with my supervisor today and a review scheduled next week with my boss. They’ve already brought up “taking so much sick leave”.

I have searched before for paid sick care but I’ve not been able to find any where I live. I’m going to check again so I can try to have a plan in place. I have NO family and my neighbors won’t help if my kids are sick (they have kids themselves).

My husband has taken a few days but he has limited leave. I’m terrified one of us will be fired because of this. I don’t think I can take intermittent FMLA because it’s just regular viruses that last 1-3 days per kid Most of the time.

Ugg are there any other options I haven’t thought of??

[Anonymous]

Get an au pair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get an au pair.

I cannot afford an au pair my 7 year old is in school full-time and my 4.5 year old is in a full-time preschool. I’ve already arranged full-time summer camps for both kids and after school care for both next year (our school has a afterschool program literally down the street and they charge $50 a month after school and $50 a week for summer camp) and the kids can be signed up for dance after school at the rec center or swim lessons at the pool attached in the summer so it’s really good.

I just can’t afford the thousands of dollars for an au pair. We rely on our two incomes. I make 52% but also get all holidays, school breaks (not the full summer though), more sick time, and I cover our health insurance, and have my VRS retirement account so I am the primary breadwinner somewhat.

[Anonymous]

White House nannies or similar. You’ll pay through the nose, but people are available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get an au pair.

I cannot afford an au pair my 7 year old is in school full-time and my 4.5 year old is in a full-time preschool. I’ve already arranged full-time summer camps for both kids and after school care for both next year (our school has a afterschool program literally down the street and they charge $50 a month after school and $50 a week for summer camp) and the kids can be signed up for dance after school at the rec center or swim lessons at the pool attached in the summer so it’s really good.

I just can’t afford the thousands of dollars for an au pair. We rely on our two incomes. I make 52% but also get all holidays, school breaks (not the full summer though), more sick time, and I cover our health insurance, and have my VRS retirement account so I am the primary breadwinner somewhat.

Oh and I arranged back-up care for when I have early meetings or there’s a teacher-work day but our back-up sitter has kids and can’t watch mine when they are really sick. He’s watched them once or twice when they were recovering but not when they had fevers. I’m sending out messages to the local moms i know to see if anyone has a back-up sick day sitter. Someone said they have one that lives 30 minutes from me and she doesn’t speak English, only Spanish but is really nice. I’m seeing if she would be open to a possible back-up situation.

I’m looking for more. I can’t beg my elderly parents to drive 2 hours each way from northern VA. They are 76, retired but do not want to get sick. They’ve offered to “help” with childcare once but they didn’t fully understand the full financial implications and it put me in a huge bind when I agreed to a nanny that I could no longer afford and had to go into debt. I have no one else.

[Anonymous]

You should get this thread moved to General parenting where you will get more traffic and perhaps some good suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Have you taken more sick leave than you’re entitled to? If not, how can it be a thing that “taking too much sick leave” is a factor in your review? It seems insane to me that you work at a school, which must be aware of the fact that we’re all living through historic levels of sickness in elementary age kids and younger, and that they don’t recognize that you will need to be off when your kids are sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you taken more sick leave than you’re entitled to? If not, how can it be a thing that “taking too much sick leave” is a factor in your review? It seems insane to me that you work at a school, which must be aware of the fact that we’re all living through historic levels of sickness in elementary age kids and younger, and that they don’t recognize that you will need to be off when your kids are sick.

I get 11 days a year off sick leave and I do NOT have flex time at all. My hours are rigid. They have said that they understand that kids get sick but then say that it's hard to keep on top of your work when your kids are sick. You basically have to use your sick leave and work from home during the day or work extra in the evenings to catch up. They also are quite rigid with deadlines so if I can't meet with a parent because of the parent's schedule until 3:30 pm on a wednesday and my work hours are 8:30-4:30 and my schedule is full thursday from 8:30-4:00pm, I am expected to work from home that evening to write it and submit it, despite that going far over my work hours. Meanwhile, there are many colleagues submitting their reports on the same day for no reason at all.

So yeah, not much flexibility!!

I found a back-up sitter this morning after I offered to pay double and have my child wear a mask. I do not live in the dc area (I am from there though). I pay $50 a day for back-up care in someone's home and will pay $100 for sick days. I am working on locating a 2nd back-up too.

I do not have nanny options where I live and finding someone willing to watch my kid sick is very hard! Many parents have looked for something like this. I'm lucky I found anyone at all.

[Anonymous]

If your husband can WFH, he just needs to get over it and ask to WFH more often. Your kids aren't babies and should need only minimal help. My kids are awesome when sick (and by awesome I mean I can get work done). They are lethargic, take naps and just want to veg. They're high energy when not sick during teacher work days and I really can't work during those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your husband can WFH, he just needs to get over it and ask to WFH more often. Your kids aren't babies and should need only minimal help. My kids are awesome when sick (and by awesome I mean I can get work done). They are lethargic, take naps and just want to veg. They're high energy when not sick during teacher work days and I really can't work during those.

He gets anxious about working from home because he was told at one point that they could no longer WFH (even though he did for whole months during the pandemic!). He recently got approval for 2 days but they do not want it being a frequent thing. He also said that he's the ONLY one asking to WFH. His immediate team is mostly middle-aged men who do not have young children at all so they don't have this issue. He sometimes just REFUSES to ask and it puts me in a huge bind.

I've come across as flaky and unreliable at work and I've struggled alone to figure this out. If I tell my husband that I simply CANNOT take off as I'm under review and they've brought up my attendance....he'll say that he can't take off or thinks he will be fired (though I think that's mostly him just being anxious). They quite literally brought up my sick time with my kids during my last meeting with my boss!! They had the flu this october and were out a week. That's the bulk of it but there's been scattered days since then. I did not even ask to WFH that week because I knew they didn't like people asking so I did what work I could but TBH, my kids were both really sick, miserable and grumpy and did not allow me to work at all that week. I got a little done in the evenings but it was a really hard week!

[Anonymous]

I added it up. Including a few doctors appointments that could not be scheduled at other times, I've missed 9 days combined from July through January including 4 days for the Flu for both of my kids.

It was 1 day July (kid), 1 day september (me), 4 hours combined appointments october + 4 days flu, December - 1/2 day kid, January 1 day me, 1 day kid.

[Anonymous]

Honestly? I would tell your husband he needs to look for a job that allows him to take sick leave or that you need to look for a job that allows you to take sick leave. You can't both be in rigid environments with young kids; they WILL get sick. I'm a single parent of two young kids (single parent by choice, so no backup/financial help) and I'm pretty much constantly playing late night catch up on my sick leave to cover the work/time, but at least my company understands that I will in fact have to care for my sick kids. The feeling of being constantly behind does suck, though, this winter especially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your husband can WFH, he just needs to get over it and ask to WFH more often. Your kids aren't babies and should need only minimal help. My kids are awesome when sick (and by awesome I mean I can get work done). They are lethargic, take naps and just want to veg. They're high energy when not sick during teacher work days and I really can't work during those.

He gets anxious about working from home because he was told at one point that they could no longer WFH (even though he did for whole months during the pandemic!). He recently got approval for 2 days but they do not want it being a frequent thing. He also said that he's the ONLY one asking to WFH. His immediate team is mostly middle-aged men who do not have young children at all so they don't have this issue. He sometimes just REFUSES to ask and it puts me in a huge bind.

I've come across as flaky and unreliable at work and I've struggled alone to figure this out. If I tell my husband that I simply CANNOT take off as I'm under review and they've brought up my attendance....he'll say that he can't take off or thinks he will be fired (though I think that's mostly him just being anxious). They quite literally brought up my sick time with my kids during my last meeting with my boss!! They had the flu this october and were out a week. That's the bulk of it but there's been scattered days since then. I did not even ask to WFH that week because I knew they didn't like people asking so I did what work I could but TBH, my kids were both really sick, miserable and grumpy and did not allow me to work at all that week. I got a little done in the evenings but it was a really hard week!

PP here. This is your answer- get DH to ask. Frame it as an extended period of illness, not intended to be a way to just get WFH, and he should ask if he should get HR involved. As long as his work is excellent, I don't see the issue. WFH with older, sick kids is nbd. It's nothing like WFH with a toddler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly? I would tell your husband he needs to look for a job that allows him to take sick leave or that you need to look for a job that allows you to take sick leave. You can't both be in rigid environments with young kids; they WILL get sick. I'm a single parent of two young kids (single parent by choice, so no backup/financial help) and I'm pretty much constantly playing late night catch up on my sick leave to cover the work/time, but at least my company understands that I will in fact have to care for my sick kids. The feeling of being constantly behind does suck, though, this winter especially.

Yes, this. I’m really sorry you’re in this bind, but I agree that it can’t really be a thing with two kids that neither or you can take sick leave when you need to. It sucks but this is the world we live in.

I also will say that in my experience, most workplaces will pay lip service to the idea that you can take sick leave but will be annoyed if you fall behind. My whole family has Covid this week and I’m taking a ton of sick leave to be on kid duty while we all isolate so that DH (more demanding job) can focus on work. But you better believe I’m working during nap time/after bedtime to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:White House nannies or similar. You’ll pay through the nose, but people are available.

This 100%
White House Nannie’s are expensive, though. I use Nanny Poppinz(they’re affordable)most of their caregivers have also been with WHN. Good luck!