I don't have kids personally, but I'd absolutely love to see numbers on how many sick days parents take for the kids. I just can't imagine it being so high that it would really matter. Versus say, flu season, where the flu spreads rapidly through entire teams and floors of open offices.
That being said, people with kids do typically have stricter schedules (like picking up kids from daycare) than people without kids.
Interesting point on the staying longer. The amount of time you sink into training a person on your system / codebase / company etc you're not getting back. People generally only start to become productive after a couple of months anyway.
I have three kids. When one kid gets sick, the others get sick too, but not at the same time. It's usually a week later for one, and a week after that for the other. Now we're talking about sick time spread across three weeks.
It's really frustrating that parents bring their sick kids to school, and even sick teachers show up to teach because they can't afford to take the time off (apparently). This winter was brutal, I've pretty much spent all of my vacation time just taking care of my family.
Obviously this is just an anecdote but I suspect that many parents are either taking a lot of time off, or just dropping their sick kids off at school.
A few years ago, in my old job, I was talking to the marketing team about something. One of them mentioned that she rarely gets sick, but she never lets something as minor as a cold or flu stop her, and she still comes into work because she's tough.
I had a go at her, because I'm asthmatic. Someone brought a cold into my previous job, and I spent six months with the symptoms of it (really). Another time, someone brought a cold in that hit my asthma so bad that I needed a break after rolling over in bed. My doctor nearly hospitalized me over that - apparently my airways were really narrow.
The other woman from the marketing team jumped in, explaining that she doesn't usually get the cold, but takes the disease home on her hands and clothes, her young kids pick it up, and then she ends up spending a month off looking after them, using all her vacation time just like you did. After all her kids have been sick with it, she'll get it, and she doesn't have any vacation or sick days left.
In the end, it turned out that the hero who never let a "minor illness" get in the way hadn't thought about anybody else catching it.
That being said, people with kids do typically have stricter schedules (like picking up kids from daycare) than people without kids.
Interesting point on the staying longer. The amount of time you sink into training a person on your system / codebase / company etc you're not getting back. People generally only start to become productive after a couple of months anyway.
(Edited: you said it was a pro)