A Sick Day

Yesterday I woke up to a sick kid. High fever, wheezing, vomiting…the works. I spent the first few hours of the morning trying to get in touch with the doctor and getting everyone dressed so we could get to her office. Once we left the house, we ended up out several hours, between the doctor’s office, x-ray lab and pharmacy.

As I was driving home after 2pm, I realized a good chunk of our day was already gone. The good news is that I had already planned to be off for the day. I also thought about the fact that even if I wasn’t off, my work responsibilities are fairly easily shifted and I could have still taken the day off, working in the evening or another day instead.

I thought about parents who work a restricted schedule, who have to be at work at 8am every day even if they have a sick kid. I thought about the parents who would have had to use up a valuable sick day yesterday, or perhaps faced disciplinary action for missing another day at work. As if having a sick kid isn’t stressful enough, I imagined having to also worry about having problems at work because of the sick kid.

This is just one of many reasons that I value my family friendly work, and I would like to see more parents find it. My son, by the way, is feeling much better today.