Parenthood: Week 461 - Regretting The Sick Days I Didn't Take

One of my biggest regrets as a teacher is that I didn’t take more sick days in the past for myself and my children. 

I remember going to school so sick and congested that even with cold medicines, I couldn’t talk. I had a huge headache, I hadn’t slept well in days, but I still went to school and tried to teach. I have many other moments that I can remember in my sixteen-year teaching career that I went to school and taught when I was sick. This was not right, I shouldn’t have done this, and I’m glad that I’ve realized how wrong it was for me to do this.  

No one forced me to come in and teach when I was sick. I never had an administrator give me push-back when I called in sick, but I didn’t fully feel comfortable taking a sick day before the pandemic. Now, I take full responsibility for my choices, but I think it’s important to state I saw all of my superiors, except for in one school I worked at, came in and teach sick...often. And as much as they said that my health was important, seeing them come in and work sick created an atmosphere that did not make me feel comfortable taking a sick day.  

Mitigation practices around the pandemic put a hard stop to this practice of teachers going to school sick at my school, and I hope this continues after the pandemic is over. It's essential.

The other part of my regret with sick days is not taking more sick days to take care of my children when they were sick.  

In the past nine years, it feels like there are at least two dozen if not more days when I should have taken a sick day off to take care of my children. By the way, in my contract, taking care of a sick child counts as a sick day. I should have been more flexible and put less of a load on my wife to take care of our kids when they were sick. Similar to my attitude about not taking a sick day for myself, this was this preposterous level of self-importance where I told myself that I couldn’t miss work. 

This logic feels so stupid in retrospect. I’m a MUSIC TEACHER. What happens if students watch an educational music movie instead of me teaching? They learn a little less music. Big deal. I should have been there more for my own children.  

There were days when our children were borderline sick, and we chose to have them go to school. It took not having that option at all because of COVID-19 mitigations which set a higher standard for student health for attendance, for me to see how wrong it was for me to not take a sick day when my children weren’t feeling well and keep them home. 

I’ve been some days with my children when they aren’t sick at all this past year. They have fully recovered from an illness, and are home because we are waiting for a COVID-19 test results that we need to send our child to school. While these extra days are annoying and I wish they could be in school, I’m kind of glad that this situation has forced me to spend more time with my children at home when they aren’t sick. I’m thinking that maybe I should take a personal day in the future just so that I can have a special day with my children.  

I feel bad about not taking sick days off to take care of myself, and I feel horrible being away from my children when they were sick. However, I have never regretted taking a sick day off to be with my children when they need me.