The “New Normal” and Milbrats

Military families with children won’t be surprised to know that Children deal with PTSD, too. As service member mommies and daddies head off to the battle front, leaving children behind with other family members and a metric ton of anxiety and fear, children have begun to exhibit symptoms of PTSD.

…When [Aimee Ybarra] recently asked her daughter, Royana, how she felt about her dad being away, the 8-year-old replied, “I’m afraid of him dying. He’s been gone too many times. I’m not sure he’ll come back this time.”

According to this article, there are 1.8 million military brats. One point eight million – the population of Dallas, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, combined. How many of these kids have deploying parents? According to Dr. Michelle Sherman (Family Mental Health Program – OK City VA Health Center) , 1.64 million service members are deployed, and we’re not talking about the typical Navy 6-month cruises. These are year-plus deployments, and the way the military doles them out,  I swear Costco must have been running a special.

When kids are old enough to know that Daddy or Mommy deployed, the heightened stress of the remaining single parent or unaccustomed grandparent-guardian feeds a fear and heaps unimaginable responsibility on children too young to carry such burdens.

“My son uses every wish possible that he has on his dad, and Christmas was evident of that,” Ybarra said. “My son asked Santa to bring Dad home. That was his wish for Santa.”

A week later her 4-year-old son, Adrien, commented that no one listens to him because he was not granted his Christmas wish, she said.

I don’t know about most four-year-old kids, but mine understood that things were Not Normal and Not Fabulous when his father deployed to Afghanistan last summer. It had been an especially rough two years, with two back-to-back deployments (one normal, lasting six months, and a “surge” deployment on its tail that lasted four months) followed immediately by the IA. Sprog the Elder began having violent outbursts that usually ended with him trying to break something or hurt himself. We sought counseling from the Fleet and Family Service Center, and it broke my heart to listen to him tell a story from the Curious George book he was leafing through. “Curious George is scared because he can’t find his mommy and daddy,” he told us.

What about the children old enough to understand what’s happening over there? Kids like Royana Ibarra, whose father is on his fifth deployment – with more coming – know all too well that some children never see their deploying parent again. Those even older understand that there are myriad possibilities for that parent’s state of mind upon returning from a war zone. Injury, PTSD, even personality changes could mean that life doesn’t become peaches and fluffy bunnies when the family is whole once more.

What’s the solution? The Military Child Education Coalition has created a new program called “Living in the New Normal” to help address this problem of burdened military families, and especially children. The information about this program at MCEC’s website looks great, but what about the title of this program?

Living in the New Normal. Is it okay to tell a wee one missing her dad that this is normal? Because it’s not normal. The military lifestyle in peace time isn’t even all that normal. Sure, there are benefits – kids do come out of this experience resilient – but the military life is transient, unstable, and often very stressful. Kids give up friends and school, favorite hang outs and comfortable schedules to create a new life from scratch…and in two years, start the process over again. Add two wars, heightened operational tempo, and a 42% increase in child abuse incidents, there’s absolutely nothing normal about this life. At all.

Who are we kidding? Let’s not pad the truth – these kids are well aware of how suck-tastic the situation is when Mom or Dad deploys. This is not the New Normal. It’s Life on Hold. It’s Keeping Your Chin Up Even When You Want to Curl in a Ball and Sob. Maybe we tell ourselves that this is just a New Normal so that we have a way to minimize our own angst over a family run amok. But why should we do that to our kids?

Instead of deflecting a blow we can’t even cushion, we’re minimizing their fear, their anger, and their desires. Dad’s not here, he’s in danger, and Mom is stressed. There’s no candy-coating that at all. When we try to cushion that blow, and especially when we fail, are we telling our kids that they have no right to their grief? Are we telling them that they aren’t so normal after all? Especially now, they don’t need that extra stress.

I think the Homefront Project has it pinned down better, according to what milspouse Tracy Kehrer has to say about it:

“It’s that constant support to say, ‘It’s OK; you’re normal. You’re just in abnormal circumstances,'” she said. “There is absolutely no way we could’ve put up with deployment number four without our family counselor? [sic] We’ve now been given permission to cry.”

That sounds about right. Normal in abnormal circumstances. I’ll buy that one, too.

For more information about the Homefront Project, check out the information in Maxine Trent’s presentation. If you know of other programs available for families dealing with deployment, leave a comment and point the way.