I’m a single mom who has to work full-time outside the home. Normally I can balance everything enough to get by – children are fed, clothes are clean, house is passable, job assignments get done close to their due date – but sometimes, everything seems to fall apart.
It can happen when multiple children get sick at the same time – or when several doctor appointments fall in the same week – or when I get sick.
It’s at those times that I have to take time off from my paying job and devote myself to meeting my family’s needs 100% of the time. Fortunately, the Family Medical Leave Act exists and I am able to take the time off from work. That time off comes without pay, and that puts a serious dent in the family budget. But even when I use the FMLA for its intended purpose, my time off is not well-received by my supervisors. They seem almost angry that I have to spend time at the hospital during my child’s surgery or when I have to go to an IEP meeting or when it’s time to take the children for their flu shots.
These are people who don’t really understand why I have adopted the medically-involved children that I have. They are people whose children are grown and moved away, and who seem to have forgotten the days when their children were younger. They can’t relate to me and my family, and they don’t care to try.
Do any of you face this same thing? If so, how do you deal with it if you even do deal with it? Sometimes I just want to ignore their snide comments or eye-rolling, but other times, it makes me worry that my job is in jeopardy.