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Hey guys! I wanted to share #HoldThePRess which is an initiative, inspired by #PullUpForChange and 600 and Rising, holding the PR industry accountable for recruiting and cultivating Black talent at all levels. The website with more info and to sign on in support is holdthe-press.com and you can sign whether you are Black or an ally. Also, we are planning on presenting the asks and demands to agencies in the coming weeks and will be sharing via the website and on IG: @holdthe_press.
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Not only is this against the doctor’s orders, but I’m also not OK just sending her back to daycare when she’s just absolutely miserable. I told him that he can just go and I’ll figure out how to take care of her while having a million things to do the rest of the week. I’m frustrated because I will NEVER put work in front of our daughter. Even though I’m successful at my job and the breadwinner of our house, I’m still expect to be primary caregiver and sacrifice my career when things get tough.
Coach
Literally take an EY family care day! That’s what they’re for!!
You’re making the right call by not sending her, mom. I’m sorry that you have to deal with such a frustrating situation. That has to be so hard. Even IF you were to give her a dose of Motrin, that doesn’t mean the fever would stay down, and she’d likely get sent back home anyway. I would definitely recommend a talk with your husband at some point - sickness will continue and it can’t always fall on you.
That’s great you talked to him and came to a resolution. I wish his manager who’s giving him a hard time a lifetime of cold coffee, computer tech issues and flat tires until he better understands.
Coach
That sounds really bad on your husband’s part. I want to be generous here, is he getting pressure from work?
If it were my husband I’d be having a talk with him about what was going on there. If it was him fearing for his job, we’d then be looking for a new job for him where he doesn’t have to fear for his job because he’s working remotely while his daughter is sick. It’s a great job market right now, he can find one like that I’m sure.
If it was instead that he thought he shouldn’t have to take time away from work to care for a sick kid? Well I don’t think I married a man like that, and I’d be reevaluating my relationship. Your daughter deserves care and sending her to daycare sick isn’t the care she deserves. In extremis I understand why that happens and why families do that. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the position your family is in, so I’d be talking about family values and making sure my values aligned with his.
Coach
I see from your other responses that you have the more demanding job. Do you also make more? I ask because in my household I also have the more demanding job, and make substantially more money. I’m an attorney, my husband is a computer engineer. My husband had a boss until recently who put a lot of pressure on our family because he had outdated concepts of family structure. It made raising our family nearly unworkable
My husband changed jobs recently, made it clear while he was looking that he was searching for a job that would give him better work/life balance because his breadwinner wife had crazy hours. His new job is the same work, for a different company with better pay, and they treat him SO MUCH BETTER. He took a work from home day last week because I had a cold. Not one of the kids, me. I thought it was silly, but it was his boss’ suggestion.
So I guess my TL;DR is, I get that workplaces can make us feel like we don’t have a choice. But we have a choice, and especially right now we have more choices than we’ve had in a long time. If your husband’s employer is making him feel like he has to drug up his daughter and send her to daycare sick against doctor’s orders, it might be time to find a new boss. No workplace needs you every single day.
Not only should your daughter not go to daycare, ideally your husband shouldn’t go into the office when someone in your household has a fever. Are they certain it’s not contagious? What if the doctor is wrong?
You’re doing the right thing, I know it’s hard but in the long scheme of things, these are just jobs that would dump us at a moment’s notice. I’m with you on this one in that my daughter would be the most important and I’d quit or take LOA first if need be
That’s an excellent point. EY will be fine without me but my daughter needs me.
On the being contagious front, they tested her for flu, COVID and RSV and the results are all came back negative.
Mentor
As a fellow parent, thank you for not sending your child to daycare or school with a dose of medication. Seriously.
As for your husband, this is just a part of being a parent. A good parent. Both of you have things that need to get done. He needs to figure out how to make it work, not just dump his child somewhere (with you or daycare, guess he’s fine with wherever as long as he gets to go into the office). God, this makes my blood boil.
He was getting a lot of pressure from his supervisor, whose wife only works part time and they also have a full-time live-in nanny. We have no help and my job is lot more demanding. I told him he needs to talk to his supervisor tomorrow so he understands our situation. On a going forward basis, we will take turns to take days off from work so he can go in half of the week.
OP I completely understand. My husband and I started taking turns so there wasn’t one person consistently missing work. 9 times out of 10 it was me but now it feels more balanced. Hope your little one feels better soon.
Thanks so much!
Yeah it's pretty standard for daycare to ask you not to send the kid back until they've been fever free for 24 hrs, and it's what my pediatrician says too.
Is it possible for your husband to take over when he gets home so you can focus on your work and get some of the million things done? That's what we've been doing with our 3 yo. I can wfh and he can't, so I stay home when she's sick and check emails, do small work things etc. and then when he gets home I go into our office room and work for a few hours on things that take more concentration/focus while he takes care of kiddo.
We made the exact same arrangement today. I will take care of our daughter during the day for the rest of this week and he will take over when he gets home and be responsible for everything until putting her to sleep.
Subject Expert
Sadly I’m not surprised by this. It’s definitely not okay. Is you weren’t around would he really just dump his sick kid at daycare and go to work? Or does he know that because she has such a great mom, that you will handle it and keep her comfortable? Probably the latter and that’s so so common and frustrating. My husband’s coworker told him as long as as your kids have a great mom, you’re all set 🙄
He got a lot of pressure from his supervisor, whose wife only works part time and they have a full-time live-in nanny. We have no help and my job is lot more demanding. I told my husband that he needs to talk to him tomorrow so he understands our situation.
Coach
At EY we have leave days to care for sick family members. It sounds like you can consider using one for tomorrow
My team has been nothing but understanding to my situation this week. There are things I will have to do to keep things moving / answering questions from seniors