{"id":9538,"date":"2026-02-03T08:23:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=9538"},"modified":"2026-02-03T08:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:23:42","slug":"family-first-i-refused-to-work-while-my-mom-was-dying-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=9538","title":{"rendered":"Family First: I Refused to Work While My Mom Was Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My mom was in hospice, and I knew I didn\u2019t have much time left with her. I asked my boss for emergency leave, hoping for compassion. Instead, he looked at me and said, <strong>\u201cCan\u2019t you visit on the weekends?\u201d<\/strong> I explained she might not make it that long, but he scoffed: <strong>\u201cEveryone has family stuff. We need you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I felt my stomach twist. I didn\u2019t yell or argue \u2014 I just said \u201cokay\u201d and walked away. But I wasn\u2019t going to let his coldness dictate my choices. I reported the conversation to HR and attached a screenshot of the company\u2019s emergency leave policy. Later that day, I saw him looking panicked after HR called. Honestly, it felt satisfying to know the rules were on my side.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know if I handled it \u201cperfectly professional,\u201d but I don\u2019t regret it. <strong>My mom needed me, and no job deadline could replace that.<\/strong> It\u2019s wild that someone could be so dismissive about something so human. In the end, HR reminded him that boundaries matter, and I reminded myself that saying \u201cno\u201d isn\u2019t rude \u2014 it\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My mom was in hospice, and I knew I didn\u2019t have much time left with her. I asked my boss for emergency leave, hoping for compassion. Instead, he looked at &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9543,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions\/9543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}