Strollerderby : military families

Say Hello to a Tiny Hero

JeanneSager — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:34:00 GMT

The soldiers off at war get (and deserve) all the credit, but sitting back here at home while men and women are fighting overseas are hundreds of thousands of kids. They're waiting for mom and dad.

In a memoir about the life of a military wife, out in bookstores this month as the nation celebrates National Military Child Month, Alison Buckholtz opens the doors to her home off the Naval base on Whidbey Island in Washington State while husband Scott is at war. She shares the stories of her two toddler children's struggles to make it through ten months without daddy, and her life as a near single parent for the duration of his deployment.

It's a story we don't often hear. As Buckholtz points out in her book, Standing By: The Making of A Military Family in a Time of War, military spouses put their best faces to the world, even as their internal struggles rip them apart. They do it for their soldier. They do it for the military - and despite it. Because even parents, like Buckholtz, who have a deep respect (and a deepening love) for the military, get angry with it. Angry for the toll separation takes on their lives, and their lives of their children.

Pentagon numbers shared by Buckholtz put the number of parents deployed since September 11, 2001 at close to a million. More than two hundred thousand have gone away twice, more than one hundred thousand have deployed three times over in the eight-year span. Buckholtz's own husband is preparing to leave his family for a second tour in Iraq. And still, they carry on, dragging their loved ones with them on another adventure.

The power of Buckholtz's book remains in the stories of her children, Ethan and Esther, the reminder that her story could be ours. In her frankness, she is both eminently likeable and identifiable. She is just a mom. She's careful to assure single parents that she doesn't want to diminish their battles by claiming to be one (she has a partner . . . even if he's thousands of miles away), and yet she is. My already hearty respect for single parents who juggle it all grew with each page.

Buckholtz is also careful to remain apolitical, making this a book about the military family - not a book about the war. You won't find the names Bush or Obama in Standing By. And as a liberal mother who has always been pro-military personnel but decidedly anti-war, for that, I'm grateful. It let me read about a family and their love.

Soldiers serve presidents of both parties; they make no distinction in who they serve. They serve for the American people, and Buckholtz does not write for a president. She writes for mothers and fathers and little kids - the little heroes who say heartbreaking goodbyes and joyous hellos.

Check out a video she made for the kids, below, and get her book from Amazon.

Images: Amazon, Alison Buckholtz

Operation Shower Helps Lonely Military Moms-to-Be

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

If you know--or are a member of--a military family, you know how hard it is to wait on pins and needles for a loved one to get home after a long deployment in a dangerous place. Parents wait anxiously for children, children wait anxiously for parents. But some wait both for the return of a partner and the arrival of a baby at the same time.

Operation Shower is a non profit program designed to give aid and comfort to women expecting babies while their spouses are deployed. The organization sends a "shower in a box" to individual women as well as hosting "unit-wide" showers for groups of expectant moms. The boxes are filled with gifts and goodies packed in a festive way to cheer and help a new mom.

If this sounds like something you'd like to support, the organization could use your help. You can donate gifts, money, time and space to host a shower, or you can gather a group to sponsor a box or a unit-wide shower. For more information, contacts are available at OperationShower.org.

image: savvy-baby-gear.com

Mark Your Calendars: Sesame Street Supports Military Parents Coming Home

Shannon LC Cate — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

In its ongoing project to assist military families and help children adjust to the changes wartime military deployments bring, the Children's Television Workshop will be airing a Sesame Street prime-time special called "Coming Home." April has been declared the month of the military child and the show will air April 1 (check your local listings for times).

Sesame Street's production company, the Children's Television Workshop has already aired an earlier special about parents leaving for deployments abroad. In this special, the focus is on returning parents. The show will cover the special concerns of families with a returning military member who has been injured--either visibly or invisibly--and the best ways to adjust to a "new normal."

Sesame Street's military family initiative, Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes, also offers an extensive web resource for military families with young children.

Elmo's Dad Gets Sent to Iraq

Cole Gamble — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Sesame Workshop, the people behind Sesame Street, is helping military families with young children cope with the deployment, redeployment and homecoming of their mommies and daddies. Would you like to see something a little surreal this morning? How about watch a music video in which Elmo’s dad tells Elmo he’s being shipped off to Iraq?

I must be a little behind, I didn't know Elmo had a dad and that his dad knew how to really rock the goatee/track suit combo Oh, and apparently he's southern? Kidding aside, I think this is a wonderful thing Sesame Street is doing. It’s the kind of thing they were created for. The program is called Talk, Listen, Connect and if you are a family with young kids and a loved one at war, you may want to check out this kit at www.sesameworkshop.org/tlc/. There is information and advice for both the child and the parent in dealing with this difficult time.

What depresses me is that this program is still needed. The reality for military familes is that mommies and daddies go to war, they come home from war, but then they get sent back to Iraq again. It’s just tragic. Once the kid has seen the video when mommy went off to Iraq the first time, what are we supposed to do when mommy goes back to Iraq a second or third time? Show them the video again? Some day this war will end and it will be up to families, not politicians, to pick up the pieces.

Iraq War Takes Its Toll on Officers’ Marriages

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Facing problems of recruitment and retention, the Army has turned to unorthodox measures to keep its soldiers happy. At the end of March, 18 military couples (in all but one case, the husband was the soldier) gathered at an Army-hosted retreat in an effort to bring one of the less talked about casualties of war—stable marriages—into the open. In the wake of 15-month deployments, divorce rates among officers shot up from 2.9 percent to 3.9 percent in 2004. And studies show that war puts a deep strain on the couples who decide to stay together as well.

Delicately termed “marriage education” (to avoid the touchy-feely connotation with the words “therapy” or “counseling”), the weekend’s discussions, which were facilitated by marriage therapists, aired marital stress stemming from soldiers’ emotional distance, guilt, decreased interest in parenting, and temper control problems. One wife complained that her husband spoke to her as if he were still issuing commands to his troops. “I am your wife, not someone working under you,” she said.

According to the New York Times, many of the officers seemed uncomfortable and even resentful being asked to openly discuss their emotions—which is precisely what many of their wives hoped to change. Several of the women expressed frustration that their husbands are so private about their experiences in Iraq, and welcomed the therapists’ suggestion that talking openly is essential to a happy marriage after war. But these 17 men, a tiny fraction of the soldiers whose family lives have been disrupted by the war in Iraq, seemed to remain unconvinced.

Flat Daddies Help Kids With Separation

Kelly Mills — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:30:00 GMT

The military has come up with a fairly odd tool for kids whose moms and dads are stationed overseas: give them a life-size cardboard cutout of the missing parent. A Flat Daddy or Mommy is a cardboard poster of the parent created from a photograph that families can seat at the dinner table or bring on car rides. The cutout is designed to help them feel connected to the parent who has been deployed far away.

The program was started by an army wife who made a cutout of dad for her daughter, and the idea has been adopted by military units across the country. The posters are made available for free (except for shipping and handling) to children of deployed parents.

The website for the daddies and mommies shows a picture of two kids riding in a car with their dad poster sitting between them. Does flat daddy allow you to use the carpool lane? There's a note written in kid scrawl, "My flat daddy is in my room with me all the time." I might find that more terrifying than comforting. While the idea is seems wacky, it did arouse my suspicions a bit. So I did a little snooping, and discovered that I have in fact been living with a Flat Daddy for months. Apparently my significant other is somewhere in the Bahamas right now. No wonder we've been getting along.

So I can tell you the pros and cons of having a Flat Daddy from personal experience. Flat Daddy is not so good at ball sports, and his driving leaves something to be desired. However, he is extremely easygoing, and a fabulous listener. He constantly tells me he loves me. He also goes great with the life-size cutout we have of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I think we'll keep ours.

Save Your Marriage, In The Army!

Melissa Summers — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:06:00 GMT

Wow, this study must have made the armed forces pretty happy. Apparently the longer a soldier is deployed the less likely their marriage will end in divorce. Except if you're an active duty officer or in the Air Force. Then kiss you marriage good bye, the more days these soldiers are deployed the more likely their marriage is to end in divorce.

The study was run by Rand Corp., a non-profit analysis firm, and looked at records of about 600,000 military personnel to determine the likeliness of marital break ups. It seems to make sense the stress of being apart and single parenthood while one half of a couple is deployed would put strain on a marriage. But not so says the report, though they are quick to point out this new information "take nothing away from the huge burden on these families", but may show that service members are better able to handle the stress of deployment than members of the civilian community are able to handle the stress of day to day life..

I wonder what military families think of this study? I'm also wondering if the divorce rate (3% since 1996) among deployed service people has anything to do with the fact that it's hard to fight about stupid things, like how you hate it when he forgets to take the trash out, when you're not together.

Department Of Defense Launches Shaken Baby Campaign

Melissa Summers — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:09:00 GMT

The Department of Defense has rolled out a program aimed at stopping or reducing the number of shaken baby deaths in the military community. Each year about 10 to 20 infant deaths occur across military families. According to David W. Lloyd, director for the Defense Department's Family Advocacy Program, fathers and other males are responsible for 70% of all shaken baby cases.

I vividly recall moments when my kids were little where I could, for a brief moment, understand how someone could shake their baby. Of course, I don't condone such behavior but I understood at 3:30 am while holding a screaming infant, how you reach that point. My husband and I had a code word: 'SHAKY' which meant a fresh set of arms and ears were immediately needed.

The program aims to educate parents about the risks of shaken baby syndrome and to provide parenting classes and coping skills for dealing with a crying baby. Military parents can also access a 24 hour counseling line at 1-800-342-9647

Leslye A. Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy said, "Military parents are like all parents -- they need information and support about how to cope with the stress of living with an infant, especially a baby that won't stop crying."

Military parents are like all parents....except they go to war and shoot people while fighting for our country.

Babble's Military Mom: Husband Is in Iraq but the Battles are at Home

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:01:00 GMT

Last week, this video of a tearful kindergartner being surprised at school by his father who had just returned from Iraq, was making the rounds. The video is undeniably sweet and it's almost impossible to remain dry-eyed when you see the look of joy and relief the boy's face the moment he sees his dad.

This is one of those situations where unless you are deep in the heart of it, you can't possibly imagine what these families must be going through. What must the waiting and worrying be like? How do you explain to children who have no concept of time that mom or dad will be home in 6 months, 9 months, a year?

Giving us a glimpse of what it's like to be in a military family is Korinthia Klein, who wrote Babble's latest personal essay entitled The Home Front. Dad is stationed near Baghdad, mom is at home with their kids. She now knows where the fusebox is, but most of all she just wants her husband to be safe. Check it out.