@kezia Methinks this is a bigger issue of resentment. You must have discussed this somewhat since Parent A knows that Parent B has an easy day and vice versa. This isn’t the first time your kids have been off school on a workday…what do you usually do? Is Parent A always left with the kids? If so, that’s not really fair. But again, it needs to be discussed beforehand.
That said, your kids are old enough to take care of themselves and entertain themselves, so it honestly shouldn’t be that big of a deal for the WFH parent. However, since the WFH parent has a busy day and the commuting parent has a light day, it would be nice for the commuting parent to stay home just in case. But again….advanced planning and not passive aggressiveness is needed.
@kezia I don’t understand how this conversation is just coming up the morning of. I’m the full time WFH parent in my marriage, and I would absolutely be upset if my husband assumed I could work and take care of my kid. But we’d never leave that discussion to the day of to figure out what to do with the kid(s).
Echoing another commenter, ages matter here too, though. My kiddo is a toddler. Your kids ages feel pretty manageable to be at home mostly unsupervised during the day, which changes the situation considerably.
Parent A expected Parent B to KNOW they needed help that day without explicitly saying anything and parent B probably should have followed up knowing the change in schedule.
This very easily could have been solved by a simple convo from EITHER parent.
@kezia Oh this is a whole big thing in my house. My husband is a doc who can’t work from home so it’s obvious that I will be the one with the kids, but I expect a moderately big deal to be made of my courageous sacrifice lol. Failure to fawn over me will result in very grumpy sniping for the rest of the day.
@spacecadet3767 Thank you for identifying what I want from my spouse, who works weekends. Yes, I understand that weekend childcare will be on me, and that’s just the way it is, BUT I also require fawning.
@spacecadet3767 I’m healthcare and my husband isn’t and I wish I was able to do sick days! Maybe that’s because he usually works in the office and gets to work from home on sick days which frankly I really really wish I could do. Is he jealous of your situation at all?
@kezia Our general protocol is that the person with the lightest load takes the first sick day. After that, we swap or determine on a day-to-day basis. I'm not seeing a lot of communication in the story, it seems like there are a lot of assumptions being made and not a lot of communication happening.
I'd recommend sitting down and talking about how to handle incidents like this moving forward. If youve already discussed and this behavior goes against the protocol, then a discussion would be useful to reestablish norms.
@kezia How have these parents not communicated what will happen with the kids during their day off of school?? Like what? I can’t imagine a universe in which that just hadn’t come up between me and my husband.
@kezia So I am the parent that works outside the home, my husband is remote. If I know there is a holiday coming up, or a closure, my husband and I discuss how we are going to handle the day. I don't think this is a question of entitlement but rather a miscommunication on parent A's part. I never assume that since my husband is remote that he will take care of the kids. I have no idea what kind of schedule he has going on. My daughter is 8 and is self sufficient, but my son is 4 and gets into things, so when I know both will be home, we have to figure out arrangements for that day.
@kezia This seems like an assumption problem on both sides- one parent assumed the other would follow the usual routine; one parent assumed the day would change due to no school. This is best solved with better communication ahead of time.
Every time we have days coming up with no school my husband and I discuss the plan for the day well in advance. That way we can figure out on a day by day basis who has more flexibility at that point and what our best options are.
@kezia If this was a planned day off, this should have been discussed in advance and decided what parent will be in charge of the kids that day. The problem was both parents are assuming the other has things covered.
@kezia If the kids have the day off, there needs to be a discussion.
A lot of conjecture here, but it seems like parent A was testing whether or not parent B would step up without being asked. While parent A probably shouldn’t have done that, it doesn’t change the fact that parent B did not even consider anyone’s schedule for the day but their own. Parent A is resentful, Parent B is inconsiderate.
You both have some ish to work on here. If I had to guess, Parent A is tired of being the default parent.
@melissauk Yes exactly, we say “Okay how do we want to handle Monday?” We each look at our meeting calendars and make a game plan - usually both WFH and switch off at some point during the day. (But my kids are much younger)
@kezia Echoing others, particularly if this was a planned day off, why wasn’t it discussed well in advance? I’m the work from office parent (hubby works from home) and I’d never assume he would be the one watching our son. If we have advance notice, we usually can make alternative arrangements. When it’s more last minute, we talk about our respective days, and often end up each being responsible for our son for part of the day.
@kezia Two working parents should discuss ahead of time each time the kids are home and not have an assumption about which parent will watch the kids.
So, yes, failure to expressly discuss ahead of time is a problem
