Before I was a mother, I found myself continuously trying to prove something to my male counterparts. I could work late, have two a day gym workouts and had no regard for endangering myself. As a young Marine, my long term goal was to become the first female Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. Leaving or volunteering on deployments or operations was a simple choice.
Children are a blessing, but being a single parent in the military is difficult for anyone. In addition to preparing for field operations, life becomes meticulously calculated logistics plans for child care, carpools, homework and after school activities to name a few. The desire to put myself on the forefront disappeared. I now had another life to consider. My decision to continue to serve was tempered by my desire to see my children, and be the one who raises them.
While my story is a bit different, I was 23 years old fighting against my parents for custody of my two siblings. After the most stressful nine months of my life, I was finally awarded custody! At that time they were 17 and 13; one ending high school and the other middle school. They needed me more than ever and it was apparent. There were several years of neglect that I had to work through; from dental exams to bad grades, discipline, high school and college…. my life was turned upside down.
Women who serve face many of the same challenges that all working mothers do. These challenges include trying to balance work and home, taking sick days because a child has a fever, and the fighting the unending perception that because we work, we are somehow shortchanging our children or that we are less than devoted mothers. But there is a harsher reality that military mothers face which most civilian mothers cannot comprehend.
Returning home, parents are enveloped in a gamut of emotions — from guilt for having left for so long, to anger of child-like behaviors to disbelief at how big they are now, and back to guilt, for wanting just a few minutes alone.
Military mothers not only balance work and home, but must also face the fact that by remaining in the military, we may never see our sons and daughters again. All parents realize that they might someday die, but before each mother deploys, she must make all the final preparations in case she doesn't come home. For military mothers, this reality makes the struggles of reintegration and the heartbreak of deployment that much harder.
Unfortunately, the answers never seem simple. A mother doesn’t want to leave her children on deployment for months or a year at a time, and sometimes-single parents careers become impeded by the responsibilities of having children. For example, you are not qualified for a secondary billet (drill instructor, recruiting duty, etc) which hinders promotion. Single parent families are also often not as financially stable as they may appear to others. So, the decision to remain in the military lifestyle may even feel like an obligation in order to provide stability.
Single parents are much stronger than we realize, just remember to keep your eyes and ears open and be proactive in providing assistance to those few single parents out there. They have the world on their shoulders with very little support.
