Depends on how old the kids are and how sick. My older one can amuse himself for a fairly long time if he's a little sick but not feeling awful (or if the cold medicine has kicked in to make him feel better). He's in 2nd grade. My younger is in preschool and can't amuse himself for more than 10 minutes usually. If the older is sick, I might be able to telework half the day or take scheduled calls, or even show him a movie in the afternoon and work most of the day. If the younger is sick, forget it.

For most of my daughter's life, I've been the one with a more flexible telework arrangement. My company lets us telework on sick days, snow days and school holidays and they don't really care if kids are around as long as the work gets done. If I can get 6 hours of work done on such a day (usually by starting earlier and ending later and having frequent breaks), nobody cares about the missing 2 hours. We make it up during the busy times anyway - I don't get paid overtime, but working evenings/weekends is not unusual. Anyway, because I've had more flexibility, I took the lion's share of sick/snow days. For school holidays that I don't have off, my ex sometimes has them off because the govt is closed too. He takes her for those.

My ex now has a very flexible telework arrangement, so he may start taking more of the days. Then we'll just figure it out by who has to be in the office urgently vs. who doesn't.

Most ages of kids are pretty easy to entertain on a snow day. Put on a few movies, provide the occasional food and you're good to go. Even better if you can have a friend drop off their same-aged child - my kid bothers me 75% less when she has a friend over.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed who has trouble on snow days. I can't telework normally but on snow days it's forced telework. Except if you have small kids at home you cannot telework and need to take annual leave. The whole thing is ridiculous. Stop closing work! Our daycare follows federal closures.

DH usually takes off half a day and I will take half also.

That doesn't make any sense. Do you have a telework agreement or not?

DH has a fed job where he can't telework so he handles childcare on snow days. I was previously a contractor so I always had to telework during closures and also didn't get sick time so he often handled sick days as well. Now that I'm a fed too I just take sick time when needed (like today! anyone else's kid have a stomach bug??). I'll log in to check emails but don't have my laptop at home so not planning to do anything else.

I'm a fed who has trouble on snow days. I can't telework normally but on snow days it's forced telework. Except if you have small kids at home you cannot telework and need to take annual leave. The whole thing is ridiculous. Stop closing work! Our daycare follows federal closures.

DH usually takes off half a day and I will take half also.

When DH and I both worked out of the home, I usually was the one who took off sick and snow days. I had a more flexible job, though if there was something major I had to do, we'd split the days like other people do. I will admit it caused a lot of resentment that DH seemed to expect me to do it without discussion. The good thing, though, was that he was able to plan his leave and took the known days off, like spring break and any summer weeks and winter break we're not on vacation.

For sick days, I just take a sick day. Thankfully, I am not sick much myself, so the 4-5 I take for my kid a year is not a big deal. For snow days, I do what I can. If the whole DMV is shut down, I don't know what another option would be.

If it is a snow day, my office is closed and we are not expected to work. Our company has generous sick and annual leave and if my child is sick, I am usually the one who takes off.

Anonymous wrote:Either we rotate who has to stay home, or we both work from home that day and then split the day. We decide that spouse A is working from 8-12, and then spouse B is on duty during that time. And then we rotate. Just dpeneds on who has what meetings, etc. We use TV a lot for those days.

Same. Split up who is "on" but also use lots of TV and other screen time. Kids were 6 and 8 last winter and we could both get in a pretty full day doing this.

When the kids were really little, one of us would take PTO for part of the day. Most sick and snow days still meant naps etc. so you could still work part of the day.

Once they got older, it's not a problem just to WFH as others have mentioned. I think each kid is probably home sick maybe once or twice a year? Not often. And they usually just rest, watch some TV, read. And for snow days, they play with neighborhood friends, read, make their own snacks etc. so it's not different from a regular WFH day. No need to take PTO unless I'm taking hours off to go sledding with them

I am a single parent but that of course puts me in the same boat. Fortunately when my son is sick I am allowed to take it as a family leave day. So I take the leave but work as much as I can. I rather be "off" and work some than be teleworking and have to worry about the time I am away from the computer caring for my child.

For snow days I am also lucky as work (non fed) follows the fed schedule so typically there is a lot of overlap between APS and work snow closures (sometimes we even get some APS doesn't.

But on the rare times when work is on but school is closed, I either take my son to work with me, or I have him go with a friend who I have watched when I had a snow day their parent did not.

It is all about building that community and trading off.