Family or Work

I knew this day would come but didn't think it would come so soon. The day where I would have to choose whether I was going to take care of my family or take care of my job. See, there shouldn't be a reason why I need to go through this selection process. However, American businesses the way that they are, they are not family friendly in reality. My husband got sick last weekend. On the second day when I realized this was more than allergies and his needing to spend the weekend on the couch, I advised him to head to Urgent Care and get this taken care of before we all get sick. He refused. So, he lingered, coughing, hacking, etc. for the remainder of the weekend. Monday morning I finally was able to get him to see a doctor who put him on all kinds of medicine. He stayed at home for the next two days from work.

Well, I really hoped that it would miss me and the kids but it did not. My daughter who is 2 has had a mild case of it. I have had a pretty bad case of it and took myself to Urgent Care to get antibiotics and prednisone because it set off my asthma really bad. My four month old has a really bad case as well and is having trouble breathing through his nose and his lungs are really gunky. Of course they can not give him anything and the whole thing has me a bit concerned because he is so little and he is so congested. He can't get to sleep very well. I even called the Dr. this morning that was on call to see if I could get any other things to try to make him comfortable and to help him breath. I was told one additional thing and told to call first thing in the morning Monday to make an appointment to have him seen quickly. Well, that would be easy to do if I didn't have to work on Monday.

My Mom normally keeps my children for me while I work. However, when my four month old is sick she gets a bit nervous about keeping him. Plus, I'm giving him breathing treatments several times a day and she is a bit unsure of doing this. So, because of this and because I'm worried to death about my son, I am going to call out from work on Monday and hope that it doesn't affect my job. I know it will in some way or another. I'll get an "occurence" because I had to take care of not only my son but I'm still sicker than a dog as well. I have spent my afternoon trying to find another way to keep from calling out because in these economic times I don't want to give my employer a reason to fire me. But, in my mind, my first priority is to the health of my children and honestly the health of me as well.

We shouldn't have to make these kinds of choices and worry about loosing our jobs because we need to take care of our children. I think this is the worst part ever about women being back in the work force and the work force not giving us any way to take care of our families. I should have been able to call my job tomorrow, explain the situation, and them be OK with it and it not count against me. My job should be protected. I should be protected because I am a mother trying to take care of her children. I should never be asked to choose job over children for any reason. Our country is very messed up in this regard.