Motherly Advice to You. Love, Me

I just cannot even begin with this. Today I had a revelation in parenting. It came after a particularly unsettling moment with my son. You see, my toddler is a tyrannical three year old. Threenager is a ridiculous title for this age. Teenagers have the words to express themselves, three year old do not and that is why their behavior is so...tyrannical. Terroristic even. Some days I have PTSD flashbacks from parenting a toddler.

Today though, my toddler was walking about telling anyone who would listen that dinosaurs are beautiful. I have heard this a google times. I was not really listening. We were walking the dog so I was more worried about my son running off into the street than dinosaurs. And then it happened. My son saw an older lady (maybe 60s) and he beamed so bright and wide that I was smiling.

"DINOSAURS BE BEAUTIFUL!!"
"Dinosaurs are not beautiful young man. They are scary. You should teach your son the difference."

My son's face fell. He went from irrationally happy about his dinosaurs to furious in the those short seconds that this stranger spoke to us. His soul crushed. He raised his fist with his response and with anger in his voice,

"THEY NOT BE SCARY!!"

I was so shocked the woman walked away before I could process what happened. My son now angry at the world would not tolerate our walk any longer. So I knelt down and I asked to see his dinosaur. I told him how much I liked his dinosaur's stripes, and claws, and teeth etc. I told him that his dinosaur was beautiful. Then, I channeled one of our personal heros,

"She's an adult. Most adults forget they were children and all adults forget, for a time at least, what is really important."

"Impotent?"

"Like how beautiful dinosaurs are."

He beamed again and we finished our walk. The rest of our walk I thought about that moment. I thought about his fallen face. I thought about what I will say if he ever comes to me with questions about how to handle things like his with his own kids someday. Or worse yet, would he agree with that woman? I came to a simple solution. It starts today. Moments like this, moments of parenting struggle and strife amd triumph, I will write them down. I will write him letters about things as they happen. I started a cover letter for him of course.

"My Little Prince,

Your father has been calling you that since day one. It helps to remind him that you will see things with fresh eyes and eyes of wonder. It helps him to remember that he needs to tread lightly with you. By the time you read this letter, and those accompanying it, you will be an adult and I will hopefully be a grandmother. On either your 30th birthday or the baby shower for your first child I will give you these. Letters on how your father and I have handled various parenting decisions and messes. People always want to give advice years down the road. But I will not likely remember as truly then as I do now. So I am writing them now, when the memory is fresh. You can read them at your leisure. Maybe these will be bound in a book for you. On weather proof paper, because trust me, life requires it. After you have read them you may wish to tell me how I did it all wrong. And I will accept your criticisms, on one condition; you must be a parent first. You must have joined this tribe of sleep deprived people first.

I love you beyond belief.

Mom
•xo• "

Military Family Resources v. Parenting Summit 2015

I want to dispel the myth of resources for those who have families in the military and trying to raise kids within the military schedule and life. There are two types of military families and there are only resources for one of those types. The first type has all the resources. These are the people who are in the military (one or both spouses) and decide to have kids. They get all the help. They also have it infinitely easier than the second type. Military family type 2 (MFT2) are those families that join the military. We are MFT2. We brought 1.5 kids into the military (pregnant when we started on this journey). This is a whole different beast.

Why MFT1 has it easier:

• The adults were already (for the most part) adjusted to the military way of life.
• The conversation of having kids was radically different and predicated on the knowledge of a military lifestyle.
• The children will never know any different.
• The various military branches have resources for you.

Why MFT2 is fighting an uphill battle (and Gen. Patton isn't here to give us a rousing battle speech):

• Mom and/or Dad have to adjust to the new lifestyle. While adults do this much faster than children, they do not always do it gracefully.
• The family planning conversation was based on civilian life. Example, our decision to have kids included the statement, "I don't want to be a single parent, we both have to be in this." Military spouses of the world, enjoy the laugh.
• These kids have to adjust to the military life. The moving, the work schedule, the moving, the training, the moving, the making new friends, and the moving. Coda. (<-- for the musicians)
• The branches have no resources for you, because they do not know how to tell you that parenting is hard on its own and you decided to master the Kobayashi Maru of parenting. (<--for the trekkies)

MFT2 in reality, not theory:
We came into the military with a toddler and one on the way. The military was not in the plan. But life handed us lemons and we joined the military...no cleverness there at all, sorry my brain is currently mush. I did NOT, and still do not, want to be a single parent. Thus my husband must always be there for the kids and myself as per the agreement we made when we decided to have kids. The military is laughing in my face right now. "Husband? Father? Pft. Maybe in a year or two, right now he is just passing through." Okay, so that conversation and plan was already in place when we joined.

I hate moving. That is really all you need to know on that subject, it sums up everything quite nicely. I hate moving. There is no part that I enjoy or find any beauty or pleasure in. I am not a rolling stone, I am fucking moss.

I hate moving and thus my necessary time to adjust is...3-5 months. I also...do not like being forced to socialize. I am like a scared dog. If you try to engage me when I am brand new, I might bite you. Leave me alone and I will come to you...eventually. This also means that my ability to parent is severely stunted by my own difficulty adjusting.

My son's life looked like this for the 18 months prior to my husband joining the military: daddy home all the time, mommy at work and school 6 days a week, beloved pet chickens, lots of walks with the dog.

My son's life with the military: daddy disappeared for 8 weeks, came home and 48 hours later our house was packed and we were driving to another state. Daddy went straight to work and mommy is now home all the time. Five weeks later daddy's schedule changes and now he is home only 14 days out of the month. Two days later baby sister is born and daddy gets 10 days leave for baby bonding, then back to being home only 14(ish) days a month. Sometimes, daddy does not come home when he is supposed to because some admiral or captain or whatever comes to our station and daddy has to stay late, or it is range day, or open house day or because its Tuesday. The possibilities are endless on why he is not home. Baby sister is not going anywhere, daddy is not home nearly as much as our son would like and there is no regular schedule to his life as a result.

RESOURCES AND THE HUNT FOR THE RED OCTOBER:
So my son's life is in chaos and he is acting out. He is acting out with violence. Now, we are not bad parents. We saw this. We struggled trying to figure it out. We decided that the best way to change this would be to get on the same page parenting. We would have a debriefing of sorts on off going duty days (for civilians, this is the day he comes home). So coffee date where we discuss what I need to know on the military end, what he needs to know on the family end, plans for his time home, and general chatting about the world. Unfortunately, this was too late. Our son's behavior exploded the following week. My amazing husband took some last minute leave to come home and have time to sort this all out. In the talking about it, what could we do, where could we find help, how do we help him, we discovered some things. The resources for military families are specifically aimed at MFT1, and so are all the milso blogs. Civilians think the military has resources for you, or maybe your church. The church might, but not really the military. So what did we do? What are we doing? Well, my husband is folding laundry and I am typing this with my thumbs on my phone.

We pulled every imaginable resource. In a moment of desperation I emailed the sector chaplain, I asked friends out of town if we could come seek refuge there to figure this all out, and I prayed. I prayed a lot. The chaplain is the one military resource that you always have, in every situation. They are great people and the one assigned to our area has a great sense of humor and as a parent he has an understanding of the parenting struggles. Our friends let us come and they kept our son so busy and watched him for us that we could have a conversation about parenting in the military and what that will look like for us. We had tried to get some help from our branches family support section...they were useless. They offered family counseling a hour away from where we live.

You see we had to get away. If we had stayed home we would have done the laundry, washed the dishes, cleaned the house, worked on the car, done anything but what we needed to do. We live in a state of damage control right now. If the hubs is home, it's time to get caught up on the things I missed while he was on duty. So we needed to leave town to make sure we did what we needed to do.

Red October aka Parenting Summit 2015:
We talked and talked about things. We made a list of the issues at hand and ways we can approach these situations and decided what we would try first. We made an agreement that every 3 months we would do this again, while the time between summits we would minorly tweak things, no major tweaks until we had a chance to discuss it in depth. We talked about our short comings as parents, how we could do better, how to handle the upcoming training, how to be better spouses. Part of parenting is being responsible for teaching your kids how to have relationships and the most important human to human relationship is the one that is with the other parent of your child(ren). We returned home recharged and ready to conquer the world. It promptly fell apart. Changing habits is hard, and we lost our mojo halfway through day one. But there is always tomorrow.

Even the most family friendly military branch is filled with people who are not kind nor understanding to your struggle. Just this morning I read a young woman's question about whether or not her husband would be able to call home over the impending holidays. He will be at basic and not home with her and their kids. She asked about the holiday protocol for recruits. She got verbally back handed for asking. People do not understand the difficulty of this life. My heart broke for her. She was not trying to ruin anything (though some decided she was), she was just trying to get some information so that she could prepare herself and her kids for what to expect. I get this. I do not know how to help her. I wish I could give her a hug. We are not alone, but the military sure does do a good job of making us feel alone.

This is not about raising a family in the military, it is about joining the military as a family.