Given the unexpected interruptions to the working day which children can present – school holidays, a sudden illness, childcare falling through – the fact that parents can take up to four weeks of unpaid leave per child per year can be very handy.
But how does that work in reality? It leaves that parent’s colleagues to pick up the slack, which can become a source of resentment. And more than that, the existence of that unpaid leave can mean that parents – especially mothers – end up seeing their career progression stall as they spend more time away from work.
So, have working parents got it harder than ever? Mothers Emily Watkins and Charlie Bond, and work academic Adam Webster, give their perspectives.
Trying to work when you have kids of pre-school age is not for the faint of heart. There is literally not a week that goes by when one of them doesn’t have a snotty nose, a sickness bug, gunky eyes or an incident report from nursery because another child scratched their face while pretending to be a cat.
Nursery costs £100 a day. And half the time they’re not even there because they’re unwell.
Obviously I care about my children and hate to see them ill, but I also hate the inconvenience that comes with having a child poorly at home when you need to work.
I know some parents who work from home will have their kids there with them while they try to fit in work around mopping up vomit. Maybe for older kids it’s a possibility, but you can’t park a one-year-old in front of YouTube for eight hours while you join Teams calls. So, when the illness strikes, that’s you out on strike too.
Lots of people would happily take a day off to look after their kids when they can’t send them to childcare or school, but it’s always a last resort for me. Partly because I’m self-employed, so a day off work is a day I don’t get paid – but also because I hate last-minute changes to plans or commitments.
If I have to change work plans at the 11th hour, it causes me huge anxiety. I feel like I’m letting people down, and also that employers might think I’m lazy or not committed. I suppose it’s classic millennial people-pleaser behaviour, but I feel as though I need to keep my work life and my home life separate.
There’s the saying that women are expected to “work like they don’t have children, and parent like they don’t work”, and I think this is all too apparent when it comes to working around children and taking time off for illness. There’s an unwritten rule that it’s not the done thing to put your kids first when you work, and that makes it incredibly difficult to figure out how to prioritise them when they’re ill.
Even when I was employed full time I didn’t ever feel like I could juggle things if a child was poorly. Yes, as a parent I could take time off to look after them. But lots of companies don’t pay you if you have to dip out to look after a sick child, so you have to lie and say it’s you who’s got the sickness bug – and then you inevitably pick it up from your child anyway, and have to take more time off. I find the whole thing too stressful.
‘In the past plenty of trips and experiences have had to be abandoned just as we were getting ready to go because the kids or the whole family have caught the latest virus’ (Photo: Charlie Bond)I dread to think how much money I’ve lost thanks to illness. This year alone I’ve had to cancel a (child-free) weekend break to France at the last minute because of a sickness bug that struck the household, and missed out on two 40th birthday celebrations because of illness. In the past plenty of trips and experiences have had to be abandoned just as we were getting ready to go because the kids or the whole family have caught the latest virus doing the rounds.
And, while I know the “right” thing to do is stay home and look after the kids, I can’t help but feel a little resentful each time another plan gets cancelled. It’s got to the point now where I avoid committing to plans because I expect the worst and assume I’ll have to bale.
It’s not just illness that affects working either – this week nursery has an inset day, and that’s another day I need to take off work to have the kids. My eldest son starts school in September, and for the first two weeks he only goes in until lunchtime. What am I supposed to do about work every afternoon for a fortnight?
I know I’m not out there saving lives or anything, but getting the work/parenting balance right feels impossible. Sadly I don’t have the solution. But until the system changes, you’ll find me frantically typing away and hoping the call from the nursery is just a cursory update about my child biting someone – and not that they’ve thrown up on the slide.
Perspectives
square Opinion Have working parents got it harder than ever? Charlie BondI hate how much time off work my kids cost me
Emily WatkinsParents at your workplace aren’t getting extra ‘time off’ – so stop calling it that
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