Working mom/sick kids

I guess I'm "lucky", most people would say...working the night shift means I'm always home during the day when the male parental unit is at work, and he's home 99.9% of the nights when I need to work.  I manage to get plenty of sleep, somehow, and he gets to sleep through the night, barring maybe one bottle in the early morning for W.  It's "perfect" (minus the parenting solo bit).  Especially when a kid gets sick...because with three of them, one a walking petri dish who rounds up the interesting infectious material from school and carries it home, someone always has something.

We still aren't 100% sure what this one was.  We have our suspicions.

When I started my current job, I thought working opposite shifts meant virtually no need to call out with a sick kid.  Sick call, schmick call, the husband can rock a pukey baby just as easily as I can...right?

24-hour stomach virus afflicted 24 month old baby.  What fun!

So the first few months go by, no issue.  Come early January I'm 38 weeks pregnant and finally have to throw in the towel, maternity leave begins.  I was proud to say my short time at my hospital had been untarnished by an absence, nor, I swore, would it be.  Apparently I'm a special kind of stupid.  I'd forgotten the chain of infection and the flat-out disregard a two year old has for keeping her/his germs to her/hisself.  The first major nasty: influenza, one week post-partum.  Four weeks post-partum brought vomiting.  8 weeks, and the morning before my return to work, pink eye.  It was at this point (calling in on what should've been my triumphant return) that I started to suspect that opposite shifts means absolutely nothing.

Pink eye!

Since then there's been two such occasions where a child has been sick and gotten me sick, one where mom got sick AT work and had to leave after barfing in a garbage can, and one (including a three day hospital stay) that a child was sick and needed BOTH mom and dad (she was considerate enough to schedule that over my three day weekend.)  Naturally, this has caught the attention of my higher-ups, and for good reason I suppose.

The hospital cribs look like a tiny baby prison.  But she slept like a dream.

I used to be one of the people they're trying to weed out, the one who just doesn't feel like exerting effort that particular day and so she calls out "sick" and then proceeds to go shopping, go to the beach, have some fun.  Granted, I was 16 and it was a summer job, but I digress...  I can't blame them for questioning four (and a half) absences in a four month period.  However, it throws into question for me: should working parents be treated differently?

Not an illness.  "By the way, your daughter is allergic to most antibiotics!"

As a single childless person, I was only responsible for me.  Now, I'm responsible for three little germ factories who love to share.  Is it fair to expect a parent to be out sick much more often?  As an overnight worker my impulse is to say no, not to expect me to be gone, especially as there is a father around to care for the afflicted child.  I should be held to the same standard as every other employee.

But I AM a mom.  I AM concerned with my children and I DO come into closer contact with them than I should when they're ill and I DO catch their germs.  Not to mention, I work in healthcare; can I, in good conscience, come to work sick?  With something I know the miseries of and I know spreads like wildfire?

Slap-cheeks?  It must be...fifths disease!

Should I extract myself from the workforce until the tots are old enough to understand hand hygiene and attending school with other such health conscious individuals?  Until such a time when I can leave my kids home on their own sick on the random off night when my husband works until midnight but I have to be in at eleven?

What about the single parents?  When I was on my own with A and working at a local gas station there were countless occasions where calling out was necessary.  Today I am deeply sympathetic to such moms/dads, and I expect most people would be.  However, back then there weren't too many kind words from my coworkers or boss.  It was a struggle all around; making sure my sick baby was comforted and loved and tended to, making money and making people happy, and for one grueling semester making sure I made the grades as well.

She made it all worth it.

It's tricky.  Even I flip-flop and have a few double standards.  Sometimes my thoughts and beliefs fall prey to outdated gender roles, I'm feeling guilty for leaving the kids home with their dad when sick and vice versa, beating myself up for being a horrible mother who doesn't stay and cuddle through the night, and then I have to rewind and rethink.  Today's workforce is what it is, I suppose.  The economy is unforgiving, a job is a job which is not something to be taken lightly anymore, but... I'm left to wonder if the kids are the ones who pay the price?