Am I being unreasonable? Two short meetings while kids are sick
Hi Community,
I need a sanity check to see if I’m being unreasonable. I’m a parent of 3 young children (5, 3, and 1) and started a new role at work today. My 3 year old and 1 year old came down with some type of stomach bug literally last night. My new manager wanted me to attend 2 meetings (one was 30 minutes, the other an hour). The purpose of the meetings was to give me my onboarding plan and introduce me to some colleagues. I told her that my toddlers had a stomach bug, and she was totally understanding and said to let her know if I couldn’t make the 1-hour introduction meeting later in the day (she said this during our 30-min 1:1).
I couldn’t make the 1-hour meeting on time because I was cleaning up the kids’ vomit, changing their sheets, calming them down, changing their clothes, etc. I showed up 30 minutes late and stayed for 10 minutes. Again, my manager was totally understanding.
The issue is my husband. He said I’m being unreasonable for attending the meetings at all. I want to be clear that I chose to attend both meetings, even if I was only present for 10 minutes at one of them, because this new role is important to me. I’m excited for it. I know I could’ve missed both without any repercussions, but I did not want to.
While I was in the 1:1 with my manager, he had to clean up the 3-year old’s vomit, get him in the bath, and change the baby’s sheets, too. I’m not downplaying what he did, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to want to attend two quick meetings because the kids are sick. We both work from home.
Am I being unreasonable for attending them at all? I don’t think I did anything wrong, and yet here I am second-guessing it because of my husband’s reaction. I feel like he is stressed but idk. It is hard being a #workingparent without a support system, so I get it, but I’ve encouraged him to take time to himself, visit his friends back home, or do fun things but he won’t take me up on it. I’ve never been away from the kids, but I do take time to care for myself and talk to my friends back home. I also meditate so that makes my perspective of what is going on a lot different than his. He doesn’t work in tech, so at least he doesn’t have that added level of stress right now.
Thoughts? Be kind please. #parenting
comments
Of course there's no such thing as perfect fairness when dividing up home and childcare tasks, but if you take care of kids while your husband is working, shouldn't he sometimes do the same?
It sounds like a stressful situation without either of you knowing what to expect ahead of time and raw nerves were hit. Set aside some time with your partner in the next week or so to express gratitude for the work they did. Explicitly verbalize that you want to make sure they understand and appreciate the challenges they faced. They might need to vent a bit more. Let them say how they feel but be firm that they need to qualify it with "I feel" rather than attributing any negative intent on your part. Hear them and verbalize you understand and see the struggle they handled.
If it seems like complaints have been aired suggest a strategy for the next time the kiddos get sick. Figure out if there are any expectations you can offer so they know what they can rely on. Perhaps the moment you both realize the kiddo is sick take a look at each other's calendars so you know who's covering when.
In the future maybe just reschedule to avoid issues. I'm a people pleaser as well and try to appease everyone but sometimes it's not possible.
Being 30min late is far far worse than rescheduling.
Not sure what role you’re in but I’m SDE & I have meetings half the day. Next time, just take a PTO. Uncertainty is honestly not fair for your teammates and you’ll lose trust. It should also be equal responsibility between you & your husband.
I’m appalled by the fact that he didn’t support you fully on your first day. It was really important to you & he should’ve taken take of children the whole day.