My sick leave is going down the drain.
Over the past few months, I’ve had to take several days of sick leave because baby boy had a fever. It was a weird virus thing that seemed to only cause fever and nothing else. He seemed to feel fine otherwise. Like, fine to the point where people maybe thought we were faking it. Sick enough to not be allowed at school, but well enough to have fun with mommy.
Mostly, it was a boom! Undivided time with my son! A little break from work! We got much-needed errands done, did crafts, played games, cuddled a lot, had great conversations, and monitored the fever. Thankfully it happened during a low-key time at work.
But it was also a bust. First, I couldn’t help but be a little annoyed at the fever policy at school. I mean, I get it (after all I do work in public health!), you can’t bring a sick kid to school because you don’t want to get other kids sick, naturally. And it’s a state law and regulations are in place for reasons and so forth. But other kids at the school must have gotten him sick in the first place so clearly they came to school sick – right? Then he has to be fever free for 24 hours with no meds before he can come back. So basically I have to keep him home fever-free for at least 1 day…. Using my precious sick leave.
Now before you get your torches out and start chanting, “But that’s what you get sick leave for, you dolt!” hear me out.
When it comes down to it, I only earn 8 hours of sick leave a month. That’s one day. This stupid virus sucked 2 days away in July and 2 days this week. Now what if somebody really gets really sick, like for real with maybe knock-on-wood hospitalization??! Or what if I get sick again this year (heaven forbid)? Or what if I actually get my act in gear and go for a well-woman checkup this year? And what if/when the stuff really hits the fan, my husband can’t take time off work like happened this time?
I feel like the threat of leave-without-pay always looms in the future of the working moms parents with little ones. The dreaded LWOP. I feel like I have a complex about it that started with maternity leave. They allowed shared leave where I used to work so I got a little donated, but I think I had to take like 3-4 weeks of LWOP. I don’t think I was in danger of losing my job for excessive time off, but I’m sure there are other moms who aren’t or wouldn’t be so lucky if it weren’t for Family Medical Leave. But aren’t there countries that give families guaranteed paid time off work when they have kids? Oh that’s right, almost every other industrialized country but us. Even though my baby making days are over, this is still a very important issue to me. It speaks volumes about our country and how it views women, childbearing and families.
If we were to have any more kids, I’d be all about the LWOP because we are SOL: my SL went AWOL.
Now I realize that I just meandered from talking about taking Sick Leave to care for my son, to ranting about maternity leave. Maternity leave is a special thing, but it seems like taking leave to take care of somebody else in a time of need is also a special thing that should not only get you protected from being fired, but is a time when you most need reliable income. Bottom line: Perhaps I am intrigued by revisiting the way we “do” leave in this country.
I’ll save my vent about sucking the regular leave bank dry for another day. (Foreshadow: I may have to take LWOP for a family vacation that won’t happen for another few months!) For now, I’m thankful that our pay period just ended so I got another 8 hours’ sick leave in the bank! Too bad I just made a whopping withdrawal. On the other hand, maybe I should be thankful for the Sick Leave I get with my kids…. because it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to use annual leave any time soon. I’m just hoping for a healthy rest of 2012… because our medical account just got sucked dry as well!
Photo credit: David Blackwell via Flickr
This hits so very close to home. I am in this situation. My son has medical issues and I need to take significant time off for his 3x weekly therapy and various doctor visits plus additional time for hospitalization and specialists sprinkled in. I earn one day per month and use far more than that. I am taking significant leave without pay at a time that we need more money because of the $200 per month prescriptions (after insurance cost) and $30 copay for each doctor/therapist visit plus 20% for the hospital stay and feeding pump equipment. This costs are on top of the pay checks I get that are three quarters or less of what they should be.
Its so unfair. But at the same time I’m very lucky because my workplace is not required to give me FMLA but they allow me to take whatever time I need to care for my son without fear of losing my job. In that sense, they are family friendly. But we are having serious trouble making ends meet.
So yes, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But we continue to truck along, doing the best that we can and focus on getting our baby boy healthy (and he will be, his condition is most likely not life long) while trying not to worry about the bills.
Barbra recently posted..August 2012
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I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with leave issues while caring for your son! It does seem like a ‘system’ problem though, that you’d have to both worry about your job and making ends meet *while you are employed*. The ‘system’ has taught us to feel grateful that we don’t get fired for caring for loved ones. There does seem to be a fundamental unfairness about it all.
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Ack!! I meant worry about your **son** and making ends meet while employed – doh!
Mary Beth recently posted..10 Ways Parenting is like the Peace Corps
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I am fortunate to have a lot of sick time. As a teacher I earn 1.75 days per month and I am permitted to save the time for years. I also get 3 personal days per year that roll into sick time if not used. In the past I have taken time off whenever needed to care for my children. However, this year we were told that we can only take 4 days off the entire year. This is sick leave and personal days combined. After that our co-workers will have to cover classes during their planning time. This is because of our budget issues and the cost the county paid out in subs last year. This is stressing me out because I know that individuals and kids get sick but now teachers will start sending kids to school sick or coming in sick themselves so that others don’t have to cover for them.
I have a bank of over 80 days and am being told I can’t use them.
Sick kids are hard enough to deal with, without loss of pay and bosses being ugly about having to take the time off.
I hope everyone has a very WELL winter/flu season.
IS THAT CONTRACTUALLY POSSIBLE?! I am absolutely outraged that your district or school would tell you WHEN you can take sick leave and HOW MANY days when you have responsibly accrued 80 days… I need to know more about this!
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Right?? That seems so crazy….
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I typed a long response to this and it did not post….
URG… will try again later.
The county gave each school a “pot” of sub money. Once that money is gone the school has to pay for subs out of local funds. The principal divided the amount of money up by number of staff that require subs when absent and it came up to an average 4 days per person.
We can take more than our allotted 4 days, but when we do other staff will have to cover our classes. This system is going to create hard feelings among staff. It is also going to guilt sick teachers and those with sick kids to come into work so that co-workers don’t have to cover for them. Co-workers who have to cover all the time will become angry and feel used. Additionally once the money is all gone NO personal days will be approved (even if you have not used your 4 days of time).
This year I have been made a full time Work Exit Coordinator. This means that I teach NO actual seat time classes. My students leave campus and go to work and I supervise them on the job. So if I am absent I don’t need a sub. However, I have been told I have to cover for someone on Friday that has used all of thier days already. So while I have taken no time off, and don’t need a sub I have to cover for those who do. I have a feeling that since I don’t actually meet with my students daily I will be doing a lot of class covering.
Is it technically illegal? No… because we can take the time if we need it.
Is it unethical? Yes, because teachers should not be forced to come to work sick or send sick kids to school in order to not tick off co-workers, plus they have earned the time off.
Every year it gets worse and worse…. this is just one more problem that is associated with the economy. We can’t find subs because the county requires them to have 4 year college degrees and only pay $60 a day.
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“Co-workers who have to cover all the time will become angry and feel used. Additionally once the money is all gone NO personal days will be approved (even if you have not used your 4 days of time).” WOW how is that possible? What if you seriously just cannot go to work? Does FMLA kick in and they cancel that person’s class? WOW!
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I understand where you are coming from! We earn one day of personal time off per month, with a maximum accumulation of 160 hours per year. DH gets sick and vacation time, but gets “sick” way more than I do, so he never seems to have any time. If E gets sick, I have to take the personal day. I normally don’t mind because she’s sick, but it would be nice if he had the time for those days that I have meetings, etc to reschedule. Thankfully, she doesn’t get sick that often.
However, my daughter goes to a home daycare and she has two daughters who seem to have caught EVERYTHING this year! (Like yesterday, one was throwing up, one had a fever.) I hate having to take time off when it’s her kids that are sick because we don’t have an alternate sitter for those last minute phone calls. It’s one of the sacrifices of having her in a home daycare, just very frustrating on days of Murphy’s Law. I’ll be on maternity leave in just over a month and I’m trying to save those precious days off when we need the $ the most.
And it is sad for as first world as the US is, that we have no maternity leave!
YES! Sad for no guaranteed paid maternity leave! In many ways, our society values parenting and having children…. but it’s like society also puts up barriers and says “Kids are important to *a point* but the economy is more important so we’re going to deprive you of income while you’re caring for your baby and nurturing our country’s future.” Or something like that!
Mary Beth recently posted..10 Ways Parenting is like the Peace Corps
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I HATE the sick leave policy. I think parents should get two sets… sick leave and kid sick leave. But no one listens to me.
Know who people DO listen to? Moms and dads who write their congressmen and senators and explain the working parent dilemmas. Maybe if enough of us explain how difficult it is, something will change with the provided leave? Maybe not, but … maybe?
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Two sets of sick leave?!? I think if parents had that there would be serious workplace issues between people with and without kids. It seems like it would be discriminatory.
I don’t even have sick leave! I get accrued PTO (paid time off), which is for both vacation AND sick. So everytime I stay home sick, I feel like I am losing vacation time.
i think 2 sets of sick leave for everybody would be great…. because even if you don’t have kids, you may have parents/loved ones/partners that you will need to leave and take care of. One for ‘me-time sick’ and one for ‘take-care-of-sick-loved-ones.” Those politicians profess to be so family-friendly, pro-marriage etc. need to eat their words. If they want us all to say “in sickness and in health” then they need to support us in living up to it.
Twitter: bloombing
My first year back to teaching I was left with like 1 sick paid day at the end of the year because of all of Abby’s breathing medical issues post RSV. Last year, I was shocked to see I had like 6 left since I felt like I was out a ton as well. So now, I’ve signed up for short term disability so that if there is another baby in my future, I won’t have as much time off without pay…when I had Abby I had 30 days of paid time off built up, but I took my full 12 weeks of FMLA time so half of it was unpaid. Not going to do that again if I can avoid it. What a mess the US is with all this junk.
Twitter: wa_tracy
Mess is right! Reading the posts, I never knew how varied all the leave policies were. Wow – I feel pretty lucky now. Short-term dis. is a good option for maternity leave and having some income generated.
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