The Important Work

C.S.Lewis is credited with saying that children are not a distraction from the more important work, they are the important work. Or something to that effect. I repeat this to myself daily. Everyday I require this reminder. My kids mean the world to me, but the world doesn't care that my kids need me. The world says, "your kids need you to put food on the table and a roof over their heads". My kids say, "we need mommy and daddy to spend quality time with us".

In this life that we lead there is the very big reality that most of the time one of us is not available to our children, when our children need/want us. I had a moment recently that exposed a very difficult situation for a lot of people, and myself too. Since the hubs has been at school our son has developed a bit of separation anxiety. Preschool is fine, but Awana and church are sticky situations. I now sit in the nursery, for all of first service, so that he can get over the anxiety he initially feels and have fun again before I head into the second service. I don't actually mind this, but it took me a bit to figure out how to handle his anxiety at church. At Awana...I haven't got that entirely figured out. And in this moment it really showed. I raced us to Awana just a little early, in case there was a melt down, and he got out of the car fine but as we walked up to the Cubbies room he lost it. Stopped, sobbing hysterically, in the driving rain...mommy was not pleased. All of my mommy powers engaged to get him under the awning so we could talk and not get soaking wet. However, just as I had gotten us under the awning and I am crouched down to his level and asking him why he doesn't want to go (after listening to him beg to go to Cubbies for HOURS) a volunteer (whom I have never met) interrupts us and asks me (in a short and rude manner) if I got the text message about it being "Father-Son Night". My immediate reaction was...less than graceful. No, I did not get a text message and my husband is in the military and on the other side of the country: right now I'm trying to take care of my son and he is way more important than this conversation.  Ya...I'm winning bitch points here. Two things collided: 1) poor attitude and bad timing on the volunteer's part and 2) exhausted warn out mom. The volunteer took some offense to my comment and went to get the director. Cool beans. In the meantime I have collected my daughter and cell phone and have engaged my husband in a video chat to help get our son over this anxiety. All good, he wants to stay for Cubbies and now I have to address the situation with the Awana director. He was very kind and started to explain that there was no offense intended in the evening and they would love for our son to be involved, even though his dad is not here. I told him that I'm sure my son love to be involved and that I took no offense to the night-the volunteer simply had epically bad timing given the situation. He agreed and we got my son to where he needed to be and a friend's husband took Z-Man for the evening's festivities.

Here is what happened: high school volunteer doesn't understand that she needs to wait before engaging the parent of a child having a meltdown, mom is exhausted and can really only focus on one thing at a time, preschooler is loosing his mind because he misses daddy, and volunteer doesn't know how to ddress the situation once she has the bigger picture. Most people don't know how. There is the inclination to say, "oh those poor military children who's parents are away so much. They are missing out on so much and don't have good relationships with their military parent." These are the messages that military children hear: they are broken, they are missing out, they are not normal. When people are faced with the reality of military separations they don't really know how to help the parent and child(ren) at home thrive in this season. Let me make it clear, I aim to thrive (and misbehave)-NOT survive. 

April is Military Child Month. This is month for celebrate resiliency of military children, scholarships are awarded to this effect as well during this month. I won't lie, someday I hope 1 of my children will win that scholarship. But that is small beans compared to the bigger issue we are faced with. How do civilians interact with military kids and the mentality that we are all broken? The truth is, the military community knows that our kids aren't broken. We know how strong and amazing our kids are. We brag on them left and right. We know how difficult all of this is and we try to help ease the pain but they somehow end up amazing us and helping us instead. But the rest of the community...they could learn a thing or two from the women I have come to call my friends. The rules haven't changed for my son. He still has a nap time, bed time, he still must say please/thank you/excuse me/yes, he must listen or face the consequences for disobedience. The consequences haven't even changed. Though, if something isn't working the hubs and I discuss it and come up with a new tactic. No one pities my son. No one thinks he is broken. At least not in the community of people that are core to our day to day lives. But that day, that high school volunteer? It was all over her face. This child is broken by his absentee father. I didn't immediately let myself process her face; I would have never been able to control my temper if I had. But after I had a moment I did process her face, the body language that immediately changed, the whole picture. This girl thinks my child is broken. He is not broken. He is fierce. And damn it he wants to go to Hawaii, because he knows he gets his daddy back when we move again. He isn't broken. And neither is any other military kid; at least not because their parent(s) in the service. 

So each day, I have to remind myself that I am doing the important work of raising my kids. Some days I am a single mom with long distance emotional support, and some days I am just mom and dad is right there. But every single day I am 1/2 of the parenting team that supports and grows my military children. My husband has been working at carving a pine wood derby car to send our son for this up coming week's race, and the other week the OIC where we are stationed taught my son how to throw a baseball. You see, my son isn't broken because of the military. His life is filled with more role models and a better support team because of the military. So if you're a civilian reading this and you think military kids are broken, please rethink your position. Because they are anything but broken.