Anonymous wrote:um, did your DIL ask for you to be with her during her delivery? (aka, are you the primary or preferred mother figure available to her?)

if so, then yeah, it's kind of a jerk move to put work ahead of family. but if your kid and their spouse haven't asked for you to be there and you assume you'll see the new family after they are home, then no need to cancel work event in advance.

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, the framing of this from the subject line messed everything up.

This situation is not about the DIL/MIL relationship at all. It is about a parent to somebody who is about to become a parent.

No right or wrong there, but the DIL is not the most relevant party in this sitation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why you are crowd sourcing this. Is it allowed to miss work due to the birth of a grandchild? Yes. Period. No questions to ask. It's not your job to determine if it is reasonable, somebody already determined that.

You are the exact reason why places need unions because managers try to apply their own weird and oddly irrational thought patterns to managing.

Luckily you don't have to think about it. There are HR rules and you follow them.

At every company I’ve worked for (private sector, obviously), PTO is up to manager’s approval. So in this case, OP is the “somebody” who determines whether her employee gets the the time off. I definitely think OP is TA here, but she definitely has the right to deny. It’s obviously not a smart move, or a nice one, but some people are like that.

Anonymous wrote:OP - thanks everyone. To clarify, I’m the manager and the situation involves an employee who is skipping work offsite for birth of grandchild (who may or may not be born by the time the offsite is over). I realize, I’m probably being an A$$. But I wouldn’t take off work for my daughter in law. I’d do it for my own daughter.

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why you are crowd sourcing this. Is it allowed to miss work due to the birth of a grandchild? Yes. Period. No questions to ask. It's not your job to determine if it is reasonable, somebody already determined that.

You are the exact reason why places need unions because managers try to apply their own weird and oddly irrational thought patterns to managing.

Luckily you don't have to think about it. There are HR rules and you follow them.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t skip a work event. I’d see the baby the next day. But if it’s super important to you to hang out at a hospital all day that’s fine too if your son and DIL are fine with it. I would excuse myself to take a call if the baby was delivered while I was at the event and they called to tell me. New babies are such a wonderful event for most families but the joy and excitement lasts beyond the moment and you don’t have to be there for every second of it.

Anonymous wrote:OP - thanks everyone. To clarify, I’m the manager and the situation involves an employee who is skipping work offsite for birth of grandchild (who may or may not be born by the time the offsite is over). I realize, I’m probably being an A$$. But I wouldn’t take off work for my daughter in law. I’d do it for my own daughter.

Anonymous wrote:Not sure where to post this but it is work related. Say you have a work event or offsite next week with a large team. if your DIL (not your daughter, your son’s wife) is pregnant and getting induced on Monday, would you today, bow out of attending the event altogether? Citing family as a priority? It hasn’t been a high risk pregnancy at all btw…. My husband and I discussed this and it would be the equivalent of my FIL bowing out of a work trip when I delivered my baby years ago. It’s not like he would have been in my delivery room?! and he and the rest of the in laws came to see us 3 days later when I was discharged and comfortable at home. But maybe AITA here.

Anonymous wrote:Something like this happened at my former job. A dear coworker wanted to leave early to be there for her son's child being born. Government job with plenty of leave but the supervisor hated my coworker and said no because "it's not even your daughter." My coworker responded that her DIL's mother was deceased. She was very upset and quit soon after.

I absolutely think the birth of a grandchild is a reason to skip work. You have no idea of their circumstances. It could be a first child after a pregnancy loss.