OT: Military Spouses/Kids

[Guest guest]

Yup! There's no denying ANY of that post. I've seen me own mother do it time

and time again. However, like her husband, she signed up for it.

 

Kid's get no choice and knowing from personal experience, I feel for the

kids whose parent isn't there. The one who gets up-rooted and forced to move

every two years to that new school and to leave those friends, to live with

only one parent, sometimes hearing them cry at night.

 

" Kids are flexible " Yep they sure are, but that doesn't mean that being a

military kid is always easy. Military kids also have to deal with the

loneliness and isolation that comes with every move, before the ice melts

and they can start making friends again. IF they make friends again.

 

At some point a lot of kids who have been moving all their lives reach a

place where they say " That's IT! I'm not making anymore friends. I'm fed up

with having to leave them behind, it's just too hard. " Check out the

military kids who are bookworms, a LOT of those have reached that place.

 

Don't get me wrong, military kids are immensely proud of the military

parent. Some even get to stay in one place for years at a whack and others

get to taste the flavour of many countries over the years and are able to

speak a foreign language or two. Their outlook and understanding of other

cultures and lives is much broader than those who stay at home, they usually

end up much more willing to face challenges as they get older than those who

haven't tasted, touched and felt new things every two years. They also

understand the idea of sacrifice more more easily than those who have stayed

at home.

 

They also see and hear close at hand the dangers that fill the world, the

things that that their parents are fighting for and develop a fierce loyalty

to the country that their parents serve. You think an old soldier can be

rabid in their patriotism, well, so is the military brat and it stays with

them their whole lives.

 

AND. Like their mothers, military kids understand each other better, often

there is a wall between the military brats and the civvie brats. Even when

grown up, when an air force brat meets an army brat, there is that bond of

having shared the same types of experience that will break the ice quicker

than those who don't have that.

 

The same types of questions will flow " Really? Where were YOU stationed "

" Me? I was in Japan, Guam, Alaska, California, Utah and North Dakota, how

about you? "

 

" Well, we were in the Philippines, England, New York and we were also in

Germany "

 

" Really, where? How long were you there? When were you there? etc. "

 

Often times those same military brats will grow up to join the military too,

then they have military spouses and military kids and so it begins again.

 

Yup, those military folks and those military spouses face challenges, life

changing experiences, loneliness and the challenge of making standard base

housing into a home.

 

However, don't forget those kids who are also dragged from pillar to post,

they face the same types of challenges of missing parents, the real and

stark fear of a parent never coming home again, of conforming to a certain

standard of behaviour so as not reflect badly on the military parent, of

turning a standard base housing bedroom into something that is theirs, at

least for a year or two. All done without their permission and on the whole

without much complaint. And yet. Years later, if you ask them if they would

have changed it if they could, most would emphatically say no.

 

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

The Woobey Queen

http://www.woobeyworld.com