For most Americans springtime means the time of year when new things pop up out of the ground and life starts again. For military families, orders pop out of the system and new duty stations call. It’s time to pack up our lives and start anew. Some look at this situation and see possibilities.
Others dread it. And many of us feel like our parenting disappears. What we adhere to in “normal” times goes out the door.
I grew up in the 70s when divorce became a commonality. For me, this word became a staple in my vocabulary when I turned 5. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Not one of my classmates could claim this situation.
And with this new “normal” came a whole new way of life for many children. Many parents felt guilt for what they were doing to their children. Articles told of the preponderance of this situation that seemed to invade every divorcee you met. It’s “the decline of civilization,” the “end of the traditional American family and home.”
The rise of divorce brought guilt-driven parenting into the limelight. For some, that meant parenting in an overly controlling way. For others, it involves the parents competing with one another to be the better parent. The last style involves the parents being overly lenient to try and counteract the additional stress caused by divorce. Today, many parents will say that they “know better,” but I’m not sure they do.
I may not be a divorcee, but I have found plenty of parallels in the military especially when dealing with PCSing, and can recognize the tendency towards that lenient style of guilt-driven parenting. I don’t think I’m alone in this. Heck, even the dog benefits. I believe that many military parents use extreme leniency not just for PCS moves, but for those deployments we face too. You shouldn’t feel guilty; it’s a survival technique for the whole military family.
My spouse and I married right after college and our children followed quickly afterwards. I had no previous knowledge about how to navigate this life. No one in my immediate family had been drafted or enlisted. The relatives that had served did so in war time but left after their tour was over.
So, what’s a girl to do? I took my childhood and applied it to my own children. I made deployments special so the kids didn’t miss their dad as much.
Mondays became “Picnic and Movie” days. I would swing by the local Little Caesar’s and pick up their two-for-one pizza deals (Can you tell I’m old?) Then we would drive home, pull out a blanket, move the furniture aside and set up our picnic. The kids would choose a movie and we would happily munch on our food. I wanted to make sure my kids were able to indulge.
Another special activity we did was to eat out at the kids’ favorite restaurant – Chuck E. Cheese. Despite the hectic atmosphere, I found it quite relaxing. This was another way I tried to make up for those difficulties during deployments. They ran around and played video games and I could read a book.
When it came time to move across the country, we found ways to incorporate guilt-driven parenting there too. But let’s face it, there really is no way around it. It’s very difficult to maintain routines when everyone is trapped in a car for days and hours on end.
In “normal” times, I had snacks in the car for when we would have to be stuck somewhere and have no chance to get home at a regular hour. There would be granola bars, baked chips or organic fruit chews. In other words, somewhat healthy. But on a PCS move, the kids were able to choose whatever they wanted from the gas stations we would stop at.
And what about lunch? Don’t ask! Calories don’t count and neither does nutritional value.
And while desserts were usually limited, who bothers during those road trips? As I said, all traditional rules go out the door.
Food is not the only area where I digress with my stellar parenting skills. My adherence to only one hour of screen time a day seems to somehow expand. We must drive into a time warp going from Central Time Zone to Western. Or maybe it’s just the time change that miraculously finds my kids staring at their portable DVD player for much longer than usual.
The moral to this story is that changing your devotion to a routine won’t damage your kids. They have enough upheaval in their lives and this little shake-up is a positive event for them to experience. We can try to maintain our routines when chaos ensues, but don’t stress about it. I call it turning a negative into a positive. And that is one trait that we all can use on this journey.