How many of you have lost jobs due to difficult child's?

[WSM]

Wow, scary. My husband is worried a little about his job. He said today his boss is losing sympathy. Son11 likes to lie about being abused, so I fear losing mine because too much police contact could cause me to lose my security clearance. He's only 11 and the lying and the behaviors are bound to get worse, and I'm frightened of this very real possibility; and my husband is stressed out by it.

It looks like the people who answered all either quit because of these problems, were fired, or thought it interfered with their opportunities and advancement. Very scary. I'm the sole support of three kids. My husband the sole support of two. We don't have back up.

 

[dreamer]

star, I totally agree, our sd did not follow the IEP and if they had, things very possibly might have been VERY different here.
and yes, wsm, I was sole support for 5 of us. it was financially devastating....completely and totally. But I have seen it so many times, how so many different illnesses can financially ruin a family, or create job losses etc. It is so sad.

 

[Sheila]

I haven't lost my job, but I've come close to loosing the whole company.

I have to add that it's never been because of difficult child; in all but one occassion, it's been because the school district refused to do their jobs and therefore would trigger him.

 

[looking4hope]

Well, when ex was the difficult child, I did lose jobs. I was a marketing exec in the high tech industry, making a six figure salary plus bonuses and stock options. I also traveled extensively, which was hard once I had a child. But the ex would call during the most inconvenient times, and was needy and had to talk NOW!! My admin got tired of it, my boss got tired of it, and I was let go. He would also pull things like call me and tell me that he couldn't pick up our son, when he knew that I had a longer commute and a late afternoon meeting, and dump it on me. Leaving early and unexpectedly didn't help, and this became a real problem. Of course, ex's attitude was that if I was such a big wig (I made 2x what he made on base salary alone, not to mention bonuses), then I should be able to come and go as I please. We all know what a bunch of !@#$ that is!

When difficult child started to have problems, and the marriage went south, I decided to become a teacher. The ex actually petitioned the court to force me to take another exec level job "in order to support the family"!! He wanted me to pay him spousal support!!!! Fortunately, the court threw it out and told him that I was the type of parent they need to put on a pedestal, because I was changing careers so I could spend more time with difficult child and make sure that he got to all of his medical and therapy appointments.

Anyway, I have no regrets. The loss of income *****, but my life is much less stressful. I may go back into my previous field someday, but for now, I know I'm where I need to be at home and at work.

 

[Marguerite]

I was medically retired from my main job, back when the older three kids were little. Before that I had been struggling at times but followed the principle, "A woman has to do twice as much as a man to be considered half as good. Fortunately, it's not difficult."
(apologies to any male Warrior Parents out there, but I'm sure you know what I mean).

I worked in a very chauvinistically male environment and I know my boss valued me a great deal. However, he did resent any imposition on my time caused by my family. I did my best to be as indispensible as possible, including spending extra time on the job where I could, to make up for sometimes needing to take off in a hurry. I do remember the boss being sarcastic one day, claiming that it was clearly my ambition to have taken every kind of leave possible, on the leave forms; he said that when paid paternity leave came in, I'd find a way to take that, too. All because I refused to take "recreation leave" when difficult child 1 was sick. (It was certainly not leave for recreational purposes). I rang the personnel office and found that I was entitled, under those circumstances, to "compassionate leave", and so I applied for it. My boss was most annoyed with me.

I had arranged with husband to take alternate days - we each looked at our workload and I knew Tuesdays and Thursdays were bad ones for me at work, Wednesdays were less busy. So I made sure I was at work when they needed me most for Tuesday and Thursday, and husband stayed home with difficult child 1 on those days, while I took Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This meant I had three separate absences, which then got flagged in the personnel computer which eventually resulted in a warning letter. These warning letters also got sent to blokes who persistently took Mondays off because they had partied too much on the weekend and got hung over. I objected to being lumped in with the slackers - I COULD have taken off an entire week, and NOT got the warning letter, it was only me trying to be a responsible employee that got me into trouble. So I put my concerns in writing, and handed it personally to the personnel officer responsible for the policy of sending out those warning letters, without checking things out first. Would you believe - the fool tried to defend his policy to me, in front of the office? So I held very little back in telling him (in front of all the other staff, who were grinning with delight) what I thought of him and his policy, which penalised good workers who tried to be at work on the busy days and instead encouraged people to take whole slabs of time off while their co-workers were really struggling. I also publicly requested to view my personnel file and hinted darkly tat there had better not be anything on there that could jeopardise my upcoming promotion, due to his idiocy.

Several weeks later I viewed my file. It was incomplete - the bloke had 'pulled' the warning letter and all related documentation. But it DID mean my promotion went through unopposed. I never got another warning letter.

Unfortunately, my health failed a year or so later, for the final time. I went home on sick leave and never returned. This has, in the long run, turned out to be a good thing, because it has meant I've been home and available to the kids when I was needed. However, the down side is, it meant that the kids had to go to the local primary school (apart from easy child 2/difficult child 2, who was refused enrolment there - long story) and this local school is frankly in dire need of a major shake-up.

When difficult child 3 was a toddler, I tried to get back into the workforce, into a less physically demanding and part-time job. I was with this job in the medical publishing industry for 9 months before my health failed again and I was ordered by my doctors to quit my job, go to bed and stay there. So I can't blame difficult child 3, although this happened at about the same time he was getting 'flagged' as having problems requiring urgent intervention. If it hadn't been my health, I would have had to resign to look after difficult child 3.

Sometimes it all intertwines and it's very hard to be sure where one issue leaves off and another begins.

Marg