Careers and Kids and Separations. And a bit about Homeschooling, too.
John just got back from attending a month-long course down in Texas for Air Force Officers of his rank (major) who are in his career field. The class was small, maybe a dozen officers or so, and they were (rather forcibly) encouraged to mingle and socialize after-hours as an extension of the networking that the course promoted.
I’ll be interested to see the final numbers once John has filed his travel reimbursement. Lots of eating out. To give you an idea? John gained five pounds! He’s a fairly fit and trim guy, so this was a pretty significant gain for him.
Career
John’s been in the military for a long time: going on 17 years now. During those years, we’ve had plenty of separations for deployments and TDY’s. The longest separation at one time was seven months — not too bad considering all of the year-long+ deployments the Army and Marines regularly deal with today. I consider us lucky.
John had several interesting conversations with other officers during this course. One subject that came up was circumstances within the military that require a husband and wife to be physically separated. Now, within military circles, TDY’s and deployments are accepted as fact and taken as a matter of course. When you mention to a fellow military spouse that your husband is deploying, for instance, you’ll hear something like, “Oh, I am so sorry. That’s rough. How long?” Whereas in civilian circles you’ll hear something more like, “I don’t know how you do it.” Or even better, “I could never do what you do.”
Separations
Which really isn’t helpful, by the way. Because of course you could do it! We all just do what we have to do, don’t we? I would never want to be a single mom, for instance. But if something happened to my husband, I would do it because I had to. Oh, it would stink all kinds of rotten, and there would be scars and lots of tears, but I would do it. Just like you would. A deployed husband? At least he’s coming home!
These are the kinds of thoughts that, for me, help when my husband goes away: at least I still have income; at least we can (usually) communicate while he’s gone; at least my kids still have a dad who’s coming home to them. I really don’t have it bad at all. This knowledge helps me climb out of any pity I might try to wallow in.
But back to John’s TDY conversations.
Kids
So the topic of separations came up, and one couple was mentioned who have been apart from each other eight out of twenty years. You read that right. Eight full years. And yes, they have kids. They’re both military, and they’ve both pursued their careers which at times has caused them to be stationed apart from each other. This wasn’t a case of multiple deployments, and 365-remotes (an assignment for one year without your family). But rather two separate households, for eight years, in different parts of the country, to take the best assignment for your career. And the thing is, no one else thought a thing of it. It was just mentioned in passing like it was no big deal.
As John went on, he said that when the people he was around look at our situation of owning a home where our son is attending high school, with John getting ready to go to school in another state… They would think nothing of me and the kids staying behind while he moved without us. For three years.
The arguments might sway many people.
“Oh, your son is in a good high school. What about his friends? Just stay so he can graduate.”
“You have a great house in a great neighborhood. This is a terrible time to sell, just stay and let John go on without you. He’ll be busy with school anyway.”
“Lots of people do it.” This one is usually accompanied by a shrug.
I think you can gather what I think about our options. To me, a house and a school and even friends are just not compelling enough reasons to split up a family. Okay, a school is pretty important… But that is why I’m making this huge effort to transition to homeschool, something I have been getting to the nitty-gritty details about more and more even just these last few days. Lots and lots of military families homeschooling in Monterey, people. I am not the only one doing this.
Homeschooling
Another thing that John brought up was his follow-on assignment to California. If Conner attended public high school and had one (or two) semesters left until he graduated, John could put in for a 365-remote while the kids and I stayed in California for Conner to finish high school. I was like, “Um, no thanks?”
John readily agreed, but he felt compelled to tell me that was an option. The guy really is trying to get this whole homeschooling thing, but he just doesn’t feel like he knows much about it and he hasn’t been learning everything that I have and so the whole thing just sounds difficult and daunting. I try to fill him in on what I’m learning, but my explanations are sketchy at best: it’s difficult to summarize something you’ve read so much about yet are still trying to figure out for yourself. My ultimate goal for Conner, for instance, is that he will be an official high school graduate before John’s three years at Monterey are up. I have some very specific ideas of how to make this happen, but I won’t know how all the details will play out until we’re actually there.
Has anyone else started homeschooling for the first time right after moving to another State? Including a high schooler?
Back to Career
I understand the pull of the career, I really do. Ten years ago, I felt the same pull. But to me the choice was clear and I could never imagine having made a different one. Have you ever sacrificed a career for kids? Kids for career?
We do not have ultimate control over future separations that we will face, but John and I are clear on one thing: if at all possible, keep the family together. John has no interest in being a long-distance dad. I have no interest in being a single mom, if I can at all help it.
That’s not to say that the military won’t decide to send him on a 365 following Monterey anyway, or that we won’t have many more TDY’s and *gasp* more deployments in our future. But this single-parenting thing is for the birds, really. I’ve just sat back and realized that John has been gone five out of the last eight months. No wonder I’m feeling burnt-out! Now, that’s not nearly so bad as some have it. Really, it’s just a taste of what some go through. But to choose these separations in the interest of a career for each of us?
To me, the choice is clear. But I’d be curious to know what you all think. It can’t be so cut and dry when so many people are choosing otherwise.
John added one final tid-bit from his TDY. So many of his officers are so focused on their career and pursuing the best assignments at whatever cost. Yet, during this course, more than one guest speaker — a higher-up — touched on Life After Service, and how when it was all said and done, your life and ambitions in the Air Force and what seemed so important for your career will dim in favor of life Everywhere Else and the life you’ve cultivated outside of the service.
This, coming from officers who, in the eyes of some of John’s fellow classmates, had made it. They were where officers of John’s ilk want to be. And they were saying, It’s not worth sacrificing everything just to be where I am standing today. I just wonder how many actually listened to their advice.
Debt Balances as of the End of August 2010:
