How Does Your Family Handle Sick Time?

[pensmama87]

I am curious about other families manage sick time and work, because my husband and I disagree quite a lot about it. I also realize that there are differences in sick leave policies in the workplace and that probably plays a big role in how families handle it - so if you respond with how your family does it, some details about how you can use sick leave would help.

I stay at home (I bring in some extra money as a babysitter, but if I’m sick and don’t work, I don’t get paid.) My husband is paid on a salary and accrues sick leave every year. The number of sick days is generous as well as what they can be used for - doctor’s appointments, children’s illness, or spousal illness. There is, however, an upper limit on how many sick days can be accrued (about 3 months). My husband is very close to that limit.

When I worked on salary and could bank sick days, I liked to bank them. But if I was genuinely sick or couldn’t schedule an appointment outside of work hours, I took sick time - because that’s what it was for. My husband, however, feels differently - he wants to save that time in case of some major health emergency. But I am confused as to what that would be, unless he is anticipating getting cancer and needing time off for treatment. He took off a total of 2 days when we had our second baby. He had clarified the sick policy (at my request) before I went into labor and was told that he could use his sick time for birth and during my recovery, instead of just vacation time.

I do get sick more often than he does, which in part I attribute to having young children around constantly, and sometimes they do things like sneeze or cough right in my face. But even if I have a high fever, or I am throwing up, I have to beg him to stay home if I feel I can’t take care of the kids. He sometimes will, but is really mad at me for asking, because in his mind I’m asking him to waste his time (to be used for - what? He’s about to start wasting it anyway because he’ll stop accruing any.) I ask him for this at most 3-4 times a year, so it’s not like I’m asking every time I have a little cold.

He seems to be the only person in his workplace who hoards sick time. He does have some HR-related duties and other employees use a lot more of their sick time. I don’t believe the workplace has a lot of pressure from higher-ups to be constantly at work and never take off, which I know is the case in some places. I don’t think it’s wise for employees to use up all of their sick time every year if they don’t absolutely have to, but that’s not what I’m asking DH to do.

I guess I feel like I am being reasonable. He feels I am being completely unreasonable. I don’t know how other families work this out, so maybe that can give me a better idea of what is reasonable for handling sick time and family responsibilities.

 

[Lorelei12]

I don’t think what you’re asking is too much at all, in large part because of how much sick time he is able to accrue. Three months is a lot of time, and 3-4 days per year is minimal if you have that much available.

This isn’t really an issue for us, because my husband doesn’t get that much time to begin with. He gets ten days, and needs to save that time for himself. He was already out several days with the flu this year, so he has about a week left, and if I get sick, I just have to deal with it. It’s hard, because I get frequent migraines, and am often sick, so I’ve had to learn how to cope with an infant while having one. But if he had as much sick time as your husband does, I’m pretty sure he’d take at least some of that time to be home if he could. I do know, though, that if he takes too much time off he gets really behind and it gets really difficult for him when he goes back. He also has a lot of meetings that are hard to miss. Is that maybe a concern your husband has?

I know sometimes my husband feels a lot of pressure since I was laid off, being the only one bringing in money. He worries a lot about it, and he can have a doomsday-type outlook about saving both money and vacation/sick time. I try to remember that when I feel like he’s going a little overboard. But, I don’t generally think he is unreasonable. While it could certainly happen that you could have a major medical emergency, I imagine that your husband also has some kind of disability insurance that would cover him at least partially as well in that kind of situation. Maybe he would feel better if the two of you made some kind of “disaster plan” regarding such things? I don’t know, I really think you’re being quite reasonable.

 

[Xantippe]

I am curious about other families manage sick time and work, because my husband and I disagree quite a lot about it. I also realize that there are differences in sick leave policies in the workplace and that probably plays a big role in how families handle it - so if you respond with how your family does it, some details about how you can use sick leave would help.

I stay at home (I bring in some extra money as a babysitter, but if I’m sick and don’t work, I don’t get paid.) My husband is paid on a salary and accrues sick leave every year. The number of sick days is generous as well as what they can be used for - doctor’s appointments, children’s illness, or spousal illness. There is, however, an upper limit on how many sick days can be accrued (about 3 months). My husband is very close to that limit.

When I worked on salary and could bank sick days, I liked to bank them. But if I was genuinely sick or couldn’t schedule an appointment outside of work hours, I took sick time - because that’s what it was for. My husband, however, feels differently - he wants to save that time in case of some major health emergency. But I am confused as to what that would be, unless he is anticipating getting cancer and needing time off for treatment. He took off a total of 2 days when we had our second baby. He had clarified the sick policy (at my request) before I went into labor and was told that he could use his sick time for birth and during my recovery, instead of just vacation time.

I do get sick more often than he does, which in part I attribute to having young children around constantly, and sometimes they do things like sneeze or cough right in my face. But even if I have a high fever, or I am throwing up, I have to beg him to stay home if I feel I can’t take care of the kids. He sometimes will, but is really mad at me for asking, because in his mind I’m asking him to waste his time (to be used for - what? He’s about to start wasting it anyway because he’ll stop accruing any.) I ask him for this at most 3-4 times a year, so it’s not like I’m asking every time I have a little cold.

He seems to be the only person in his workplace who hoards sick time. He does have some HR-related duties and other employees use a lot more of their sick time. I don’t believe the workplace has a lot of pressure from higher-ups to be constantly at work and never take off, which I know is the case in some places. I don’t think it’s wise for employees to use up all of their sick time every year if they don’t absolutely have to, but that’s not what I’m asking DH to do.

I guess I feel like I am being reasonable. He feels I am being completely unreasonable. I don’t know how other families work this out, so maybe that can give me a better idea of what is reasonable for handling sick time and family responsibilities.

You are being reasonable. This will work itself out, though–sometime soon he’s going to hit the upper limit for saving sick leave, and he’s going to have to either stay home to help you or “lose” the sick day.

In our family, it’s pretty much unheard of for my husband to take a day off due to family illness, but he’s a college professor, so he has two or three days a week where he MUST be there to teach his classes, and the rest of the time, there’s a lot of flexibility as to where and when he does stuff, so he’s free to use his flexible days for family illness. There might be some meetings missed, but in general, work would continue to get done, whether at home or at the college. I’m trying to remember if he took a day off when our last baby was born, and as far as I can remember, he didn’t need to, as baby was born on a Wednesday (a non-class day that term). He spent labor and delivery with me and then popped in an out with and without our big kids as his schedule allowed the next couple of days and then brought me home on the Friday (also a non-class day). So, under that system, there’s a combination of way less flexibility than in a normal office job (somebody has to be in that classroom teaching those college students), but at the same time way more flexibility at other times.

With our middle child, I wound up asking him to cancel some poorly chosen (by both of us) conference travel. A good thing, because middle child would have been born while we were on the road.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t think what you’re asking is too much at all, in large part because of how much sick time he is able to accrue. Three months is a lot of time, and 3-4 days per year is minimal if you have that much available.

This isn’t really an issue for us, because my husband doesn’t get that much time to begin with. He gets ten days, and needs to save that time for himself. He was already out several days with the flu this year, so he has about a week left, and if I get sick, I just have to deal with it. It’s hard, because I get frequent migraines, and am often sick, so I’ve had to learn how to cope with an infant while having one. But if he had as much sick time as your husband does, I’m pretty sure he’d take at least some of that time to be home if he could. I do know, though, that if he takes too much time off he gets really behind and it gets really difficult for him when he goes back. He also has a lot of meetings that are hard to miss. Is that maybe a concern your husband has?

I know sometimes my husband feels a lot of pressure since I was laid off, being the only one bringing in money. He worries a lot about it, and he can have a doomsday-type outlook about saving both money and vacation/sick time. I try to remember that when I feel like he’s going a little overboard. But, I don’t generally think he is unreasonable. While it could certainly happen that you could have a major medical emergency, I imagine that your husband also has some kind of disability insurance that would cover him at least partially as well in that kind of situation. Maybe he would feel better if the two of you made some kind of “disaster plan” regarding such things? I don’t know, I really think you’re being quite reasonable.

That’s very good.

Pensmama, do have a good look at doomsday scenarios. Your husband may be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and cash money is nice to have, too.

 

[mommy_k]

Hubby has the capablility to telecommute and works in the office which is almost 2 hours away door to door. He goes in most days and works from home a day or two each week.

Although there is a sick day policy, he rarely uses days because he will work from home when needed for himself or one of us. If he had the flu then maybe he would use a sick day and not do any work.

 

[pensmama87]

That’s very good.

Pensmama, do have a good look at doomsday scenarios. Your husband may be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and cash money is nice to have, too.

So, what would be a few examples of “doomsday scenarios” to go over? I’m having a hard time thinking of any - are we talking about things like cancer or other extended illness that would require lots of time out of work, but not necessarily job loss?

We do have an emergency fund and I set aside money every month in a sink fund for medical expenses. We do have very good health insurance (some of the perks of working in the public sector - the salary may not be high as private sector, but he does get generous time off and insurance).

Even when he does stay at home he probably works about half the day, since he has access to email and he regularly gets work calls on his cell phone. That goes for whether he is home sick or I have asked him to stay home to take care of the kids so I can rest. He has large meetings with the public 2-3 times a month in the evenings, and I know that those are days that are virtually impossible for him to take off simply because of all the preparations that need to be done.

 

[pensmama87]

Oh yes, one more thing - I did check, and yes, he has disability insurance through work, too. I don’t know the exact details, but I asked DH to look into it just so we would know. Good suggestion, Lorelei12.

 

[Xantippe]

So, what would be a few examples of “doomsday scenarios” to go over? I’m having a hard time thinking of any - are we talking about things like cancer or other extended illness that would require lots of time out of work, but not necessarily job loss?

**Yeah, something like cancer. **

We do have an emergency fund and I set aside money every month in a sink fund for medical expenses. We do have very good health insurance (some of the perks of working in the public sector - the salary may not be high as private sector, but he does get generous time off and insurance).

Sounds good!

Maybe just walk him through the implications of a 90-day or 180±day temporary disability situation given his sick day supply, his disability insurance and your cash savings? He may not understand how good is situation is.

I recently had a situation with my husband where he was very concerned about our financial situation, and specifically about $100 a month of music lessons. Come to find out that he didn’t realize how solid our assets are in terms of home equity, retirement, value of paid-off cars, and cash in the bank–the $100 a month was not even a tenth of a percentage of the value of our assets and even as a percentage of monthly income it’s totally insignificant.

Similarly, my husband recently split out our basic expenses (housing, school tuition, food, gas, clothes, utilities, etc.) versus “frills” on our monthly budget. The frills are the things that we spend most of our time having headaches over (household help, extracurriculars, summer camp, meals out, Christmas, birthdays, school lunch, travel, etc.). Come to find out, the basic expenses cost roughly 5X more than all of our frills. On the one hand, that’s bad news (because there’s very little we can do about reducing the basic expenses). On the other hand, it suggests that we do not need to be beating ourselves up over the frills, because they’re not that big a deal.

I think it is easy to accidentally do this sort of thing (obsessing over things that are very minor) if you don’t look hard at the numbers and the big picture.

Time for a home Power Point presentation?

Good luck!

 

[Lorelei12]

So, what would be a few examples of “doomsday scenarios” to go over? I’m having a hard time thinking of any - are we talking about things like cancer or other extended illness that would require lots of time out of work, but not necessarily job loss?

I’d say yes, things like cancer or some kind of major surgery, but also ask him- since he’s the one who says he wants to save his time in case of a health emergency- what types of things he has in mind when he says that, and go off that. I wouldn’t focus on job loss scenarios because in that case his sick time wouldn’t matter anyway (I don’t think companies usually pay out unused sick time).

Get to the root of what he is worried about and then work through it together. As much as possible, try to help him understand how difficult it is for you when you’re sick. And try to figure out whether he has other worries he hasn’t voiced to you so you can talk about those too- is he worried about being seen as a slacker for taking sick time? Even if there isn’t a lot of pressure within the company, sometimes people can self-impose pressure on themselves. Hopefully when you find out the details of his disability plan, that will put some concerns to rest too.

 

[Pax2u]

It appears to me that your DH is being rather selfish with “his” sick time. My view is, as a married couple you share everything…that “extra time” is not just his. If you are really sick and can’t care for the kids, it’s mean of him to make you feel badly about asking/needing him to stay home a day.

When our kids were small my husband chose to work third shift at his job (he had a choice). That way if one of the kids was sick he was home, he just cut into his sleeping time to care for them. That way I didn’t need to use a day (my days off were just leave time…could be used for sick or vacation). That way we had some vacation time to use as a family in the summer. And fortunately our kids weren’t sick a lot.

It was generous of him to do it, as it’s hard to go without sleep! But that’s what married couples do.

Perhaps you can find a sitter or friend who you can hire to watch your children on a day you are ill. Then tell hubby he’ll be dropping the kids off that morning and write a check!

 

[Lorelei12]

It appears to me that your DH is being rather selfish with “his” sick time. My view is, as a married couple you share everything…that “extra time” is not just his. If you are really sick and can’t care for the kids, it’s mean of him to make you feel badly about asking/needing him to stay home a day.

This is a good point. If the company allows him to take sick time for family members as well, then in a way it belongs to you too. If he was sick enough, he would stay home from work. If he has the time to use and it’s not going to complicate things too much for him to help you on a particular day, I think he owes it to you.

My husband and I had a discussion about this a few months ago. He took a vacation day to “relax”, which was fine, but slept in while I got up with the baby, and played video games all day while I fed, bathed, and entertained him and did household chores. While I’m not one to generally try to “even the score” about whose work is harder or what’s “fair”, I had a bit of a short fuse that day and by the end of the day I was fuming. He figured he was just taking a vacation day, but didn’t really consider that his vacation is really “our” vacation. He ended up taking the baby for a few hours the next day so that I could go out. I’m still not sure he agrees that his time off belongs to both of us (and when I say that I don’t mean that he shouldn’t get to relax) but it’s a little better.

I’m not sure if trying to convince your husband that his sick time is yours too is really going to work in your situation, though. I’d probably still take the approach of getting to the bottom of what he is worried about first.

 

[pensmama87]

My husband and I had a discussion about this a few months ago. He took a vacation day to “relax”, which was fine, but slept in while I got up with the baby, and played video games all day while I fed, bathed, and entertained him and did household chores. While I’m not one to generally try to “even the score” about whose work is harder or what’s “fair”, I had a bit of a short fuse that day and by the end of the day I was fuming. He figured he was just taking a vacation day, but didn’t really consider that his vacation is really “our” vacation. He ended up taking the baby for a few hours the next day so that I could go out. I’m still not sure he agrees that his time off belongs to both of us (and when I say that I don’t mean that he shouldn’t get to relax) but it’s a little better.

We have had this problem, too. I may have said, “So, when, exactly, is my vacation, and what does it look like? Because if my vacation looks like my everyday life, then it’s NOT vacation.”

I have wondered sometimes if our differences in opinion about this come in part from him growing up in a two-working parent household, and my mom being stay-at-home until I was living on my own. His dad worked shifts and was home a lot during days (kind of like Pax2u describes), and his mom was a teacher so she was home for a lot of DH’s school vacations, etc. He was also an only child. So I think his sense of what my responsibilities are may not be fully grounded in our family’s reality.

Now my dad was/is a workaholic, and thought his responsibility began and ended with breadwinning, which I don’t think quite describes my husband, but I do think sometimes he might prefer being at work to being at home. He gets a lot of recognition at work and really is very good at what he does. Nobody gets accolades for endless dirty diapers and dishes and laundry and letting kids crawl on you, though I do let him know I appreciate it.

Anyway, it looks like if we were to have some kind of health emergency, DH could get at least 5 months off with full pay, and more with half pay. At the beginning of 2016 he’s likely to hit the sick day limit. I think we’re very blessed to have that, and don’t understand his need to hold onto those days, but I am going to try to talk to him to figure out why, and show him that really, I would much prefer him to stay home if I have the flu rather than try to accrue a couple extra days for a “what if?”

 

[pensmama87]

And I am going to point out here that I really don’t enjoy trying to guess his motivations for doing things, but getting him to discuss fears or anxieties is like pulling teeth. He likes to insist “nothing is wrong” when clearly, SOMETHING is weighing on his mind. I do like to give him his space, but when it affects all of us, I feel like I have to figure part of it out!

 

[Xantippe]

Anyway, it looks like if we were to have some kind of health emergency, DH could get at least 5 months off with full pay, and more with half pay.

Sounds great!

5 months at full pay and then more at half pay is a long, long time to figure out how to switch gears.

You also might want to look at your budget together and figure out what life would look like on half his salary plus whatever you are currently making. I know that in our case, our current family budget contains a lot of charity and sinking funds for expected expenses (car repair, home repair, dental/medical/therapy, summer camp, travel, Christmas, birthdays, electronics replacement, etc.) plus some stuff we could just stop doing entirely (household help and meals out). That means that for just basic survival, we could get by on substantially less than we currently spend. You guys probably run a tighter ship, but I believe you’re paying off student loans? Those could temporarily be put on hardship deferral. You would not be carrying your full current expenses on half your income.

Good luck!

 

[LongingSoul]

He seems to be the only person in his workplace who hoards sick time.

My husband and his family of origin suffer from this ‘illness’ also. They have an inordinate sense of achievement in their bank of sick leave and holiday hours and have been forced at times by their bosses, to take some holiday time. I view it as an ‘illness’ because it seems to signify a greater loyalty to the job then the family.

People with the problem end up with lots of regrets.

 

[Bspencer]

pensmama

couple questions- and i apologize if you have answered this already;

when you say you want him to stay home and take care of the kids, do you mean the babysitting kids, or your own kids? if your kids, are they in school all day, or at home all day?

if they are your kids, and they are at home all day, he should stay home. no question.
if your kids are at school all day, does he need to stay home for that? have to talk that one over.

if they are babysitting kids, then those kids should not come to your house when you are sick. i dont feel he would be obligagted to stay home and babysit.

why does he not want to miss work for reasons other than sick leave. maybe he can barely keep up when he works. time off could put him behind. maybe there is some young gun trying to get his job. ask him.

in general though, his family comes before his job.

 

[Xantippe]

pensmama

couple questions- and i apologize if you have answered this already;

when you say you want him to stay home and take care of the kids, do you mean the babysitting kids, or your own kids? if your kids, are they in school all day, or at home all day?

if they are your kids, and they are at home all day, he should stay home. no question.
if your kids are at school all day, does he need to stay home for that? have to talk that one over.

if they are babysitting kids, then those kids should not come to your house when you are sick. i dont feel he would be obligagted to stay home and babysit.

why does he not want to miss work for reasons other than sick leave. maybe he can barely keep up when he works. time off could put him behind. maybe there is some young gun trying to get his job. ask him.

in general though, his family comes before his job.

Pensmama’s kids’ ages are in her signature line.

 

[pensmama87]

pensmama

couple questions- and i apologize if you have answered this already;

when you say you want him to stay home and take care of the kids, do you mean the babysitting kids, or your own kids? if your kids, are they in school all day, or at home all day?

if they are your kids, and they are at home all day, he should stay home. no question.
if your kids are at school all day, does he need to stay home for that? have to talk that one over.

if they are babysitting kids, then those kids should not come to your house when you are sick. i dont feel he would be obligagted to stay home and babysit.

why does he not want to miss work for reasons other than sick leave. maybe he can barely keep up when he works. time off could put him behind. maybe there is some young gun trying to get his job. ask him.

in general though, his family comes before his job.

When I am sick, or my kids are sick, I do not babysit.

My kids are almost 4 and almost 2. Before we had kids, I would not expect my husband to stay with me unless I needed to go to the doctor or hospital and was not physically capable of getting there on my own (which did not ever happen, except when I was in labor with kiddo #1). I expect things to go roughly the same once all of our kids are in school (recognizing, of course, that situation may be a decade or more away, depending on how many more kids we have and what their age distribution is, though as our kids get older they will be able to take on more responsibility such as easy meal prep and entertaining littles).

He is very busy at work, but he is accessible for emergencies or other urgent situations even when he is home. Nobody is gunning for his job - that’s not the type of work environment he has. I think he may feel a lot of pressure, but it’s primarily self-imposed. There are a few people there who don’t particularly like him, but they don’t have a lot of pull and he has a lot of integrity (the major reason, I suspect, that they don’t like him. )

He does use all of his vacation time and personal days every year, because if he doesn’t he will lose them. But we do end up in a situation where he is scrambling in December to figure out how to use up all the rest of his days while also getting done all of his year-end stuff.

 

[white_sheep]

I’ve always felt that people abuse their sick time too much. That’s for when you really can’t work and there just isn’t any way around it. These people who take sick time for every little thing, or for no reason at all, are really pushing it. I don’t think it’s professional. I’ve worked with people who treated sick time as if they were extra vacation days and had to use them or lose them. If I had been able to fire people they would have been gone.

As a former restaurant manager I have fired a lot of people for calling in sick, so maybe I just started off in the wrong industry. I told people during the interview that I didn’t believe in calling in sick, they had to come in and if they were sick I would send them home. Otherwise they were just hungover or out partying in some other town.

Anyway, there are lots and lots of people, especially bosses, who take a dim view of employees adopting a liberal stance towards the use of their sick days and find it highly unprofessional.

Staying home because your “mostly stay at home wife” is sick, no. Sorry, no dice. You’d have to be really, really sick. I mean something uncommon. Maybe the flu, but certainly nothing less. I might not say anything if I was his boss, but that kind of thing doesn’t get forgotten.

He may have some of those kind of thoughts in his head.

Edit to add. I worked with a guy who had a sick kid and they had to take him to the doctor all the time for breathing treatments and stuff. His wife worked also. They sort of split sick days and time off. That’s the kind of thing I can totally understand, and that’s what it’s for, not common colds or whatnot. That’s a real thing, would never hold that against him. Kid has a cold… come on.

Oh, also, the child got better. Took a few years but when he was 2 or so he got a lot better.

 

[Lorelei12]

As a former restaurant manager I have fired a lot of people for calling in sick, so maybe I just started off in the wrong industry. I told people during the interview that I didn’t believe in calling in sick, they had to come in and if they were sick I would send them home. Otherwise they were just hungover or out partying in some other town.

I’m glad you’ve never been my manager! You “don’t believe in” calling in sick? And fire people for being sick? If you’d done that to me, I would consider a lawsuit. People who are sick can’t always drive safely so their managers can decide for themselves whether they’re “sick enough”. Sure, people abuse their sick time. No reason to assume that about everybody.