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• Say Hello to a Tiny Hero

  The soldiers off at war get (and deserve) all the credit, but sitting back here at home while men and women are fighting overseas are hundreds of thousands of kids. They're waiting for mom and dad.  In a memoir about the life of a military wife, out in bookstores this month as the nation celebrates National Military Child Month, Alison Buckholtz opens the doors to her home off the Naval base on Whidbey Island in Washington State while husband Scott is at war. Read More... Posted Apr 13 2009, 12:34 PM by JeanneSager with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: iraq, military, single parenting, military families, Jeanne Sager, review, Alison Buckholtz, military family, National Month of the Military Child, Standing By, military brats

• Operation Shower Helps Lonely Military Moms-to-Be

  If you know--or are a member of--a military family, you know how hard it is to wait on pins and needles for a loved one to get home after a long deployment in a dangerous place.  Parents wait anxiously for children, children wait anxiously for parents.  But some wait both for the return of a partner and the arrival of a baby at the same time.Operation Shower is a non profit program designed to give aid and comfort to women expecting babies while their spouses are deployed.  The organization sends a "shower in a box" to individual women as well as hosting "unit-wide" showers for groups of expectant moms.  The boxes are filled with Read More... Posted Feb 17 2009, 06:30 PM by Shannon LC Cate with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: military families, baby showers, Shannon LC Cate, operation shower, shower-in-a-box

• Mark Your Calendars: Sesame Street Supports Military Parents Coming Home

  In its ongoing project to assist military families and help children adjust to the changes wartime military deployments bring, the Children's Television Workshop will be airing a Sesame Street prime-time special called "Coming Home."  April has been declared the month of the military child and the show will air April 1 (check your local listings for times). Sesame Street's production company, the Children's Television Workshop has already aired an earlier special about parents leaving for deployments abroad.  In this special, the focus is on returning parents.  The show will cover the special concerns of families with a returning military member who has been injured--either visibly or invisibly--and the best ways to adjust to a "new normal." Sesame Street's military family initiative Read More... Posted Jan 28 2009, 03:30 PM by Shannon LC Cate with | with no comments Filed under: sesame street, Iraq War, military families, Shannon LC Cate, children's television workshop, military deployment

• Elmo's Dad Gets Sent to Iraq

  Sesame Workshop, the people behind Sesame Street, is helping military families with young children cope with the deployment, redeployment and homecoming of their mommies and daddies.     Would you like to see something a little surreal this morning? How about watch a music video in which Elmo’s dad tells Elmo he’s being shipped off to Iraq?     Read More... Posted Apr 10 2008, 06:00 AM by Cole Gamble with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: sesame street, elmo, Iraq War, military families, deployment, elmo's dad, redeployment, coping

• Iraq War Takes Its Toll on Officers’ Marriages

  Facing problems of recruitment and retention, the Army has turned to unorthodox measures to keep its soldiers happy. At the end of March, 18 military couples (in all but one case, the husband was the soldier) gathered at an Army-hosted retreat in an effort to bring one of the less talked about casualties of war—stable marriages—into the open. In the wake of 15-month deployments, divorce rates among officers shot up from 2.9 percent to 3.9 percent in 2004. And studies show that war puts a deep strain on the couples who decide to stay together as well. Read More... Posted Apr 05 2008, 03:00 PM by Hannah Tennant-Moore with | with no comments Filed under: divorce, Iraq War, military families, army, long deployments, soldiers' marriages

• Flat Daddies Help Kids With Separation

  The military has come up with a fairly odd tool for kids whose moms and dads are stationed overseas: give them a life-size cardboard cutout of the missing parent. A Flat Daddy or Mommy is a cardboard poster of the parent created from a photograph that families can seat at the dinner table or bring on car rides. The cutout is designed to help them feel connected to the parent who has been deployed far away. The program was started by an army wife who made a cutout of dad for her daughter, and the idea has been adopted by military units across the country. The posters are made available for free (except for shipping and handling) to children of deployed parents. The website for the daddies and mommies shows a picture of two kids riding in a car with their dad poster sitting between them. Does flat daddy allow you to use the carpool lane? There's a note written in kid scrawl, "My flat daddy is in my room with me all the time." I might find that more terrifying than comforting. While the idea is seems wacky, it did arouse my suspicions a bit. So I did a little snooping, and discovered that I have in fact been living with a Flat Daddy for months. Apparently my significant other is somewhere in the Bahamas right now. No wonder we've been getting along. So I can tell you the pros and cons of having a Flat Daddy from personal experience. Flat Daddy is not so good at ball sports, and his driving leaves something to be desired. However, he is extremely easygoing, and a fabulous listener. He constantly tells me he loves me. He also goes great with the life-size cutout we have of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I think we'll keep ours.   Posted Apr 30 2007, 04:30 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: marriage, military families, flat daddies

• Save Your Marriage, In The Army!

  Wow, this study must have made the armed forces pretty happy. Apparently the longer a soldier is deployed the less likely their marriage will end in divorce. Except if you're an active duty officer or in the Air Force. Then kiss you marriage good bye, the more days these soldiers are deployed the more likely their marriage is to end in divorce. The study was run by Rand Corp., a non-profit analysis firm, and looked at records of about 600,000 military personnel to determine the likeliness of marital break ups. It seems to make sense the stress of being apart and single parenthood while one half of a couple is deployed would put strain on a marriage. But not so says the report, though they are quick to point out this new information "take nothing away from the huge burden on these families", but may show that service members are better able to handle the stress of deployment than members of the civilian community are able to handle the stress of day to day life.. I wonder what military families think of this study? I'm also wondering if the divorce rate (3% since 1996) among deployed service people has anything to do with the fact that it's hard to fight about stupid things, like how you hate it when he forgets to take the trash out, when you're not together.   Posted Apr 26 2007, 08:06 AM by Melissa Summers with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: marriage, studies, military families

• Department Of Defense Launches Shaken Baby Campaign

  The Department of Defense has rolled out a program aimed at stopping or reducing the number of shaken baby deaths in the military community. Each year about 10 to 20 infant deaths occur across military families. According to David W. Lloyd, director for the Defense Department's Family Advocacy Program, fathers and other males are responsible for 70% of all shaken baby cases. I vividly recall moments when my kids were little where I could, for a brief moment, understand how someone could shake their baby. Of course, I don't condone such behavior but I understood at 3:30 am while holding a screaming infant, how you reach that point. My husband and I had a code word: 'SHAKY' which meant a fresh set of arms and ears were immediately needed. The program aims to educate parents about the risks of shaken baby syndrome and to provide parenting classes and coping skills for dealing with a crying baby. Military parents can also access a 24 hour counseling line at 1-800-342-9647 Leslye A. Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy said, "Military parents are like all parents -- they need information and support about how to cope with the stress of living with an infant, especially a baby that won't stop crying." Military parents are like all parents....except they go to war and shoot people while fighting for our country. Posted Apr 19 2007, 08:09 AM by Melissa Summers with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, military, child abuse, military families, child abuse prevention

• Babble's Military Mom: Husband Is in Iraq but the Battles are at Home

  Last week, this video of a tearful kindergartner being surprised at school by his father who had just returned from Iraq, was making the rounds. The video is undeniably sweet and it's almost impossible to remain dry-eyed when you see the look of joy and relief the boy's face the moment he sees his dad. This is one of those situations where unless you are deep in the heart of it, you can't possibly imagine what these families must be going through. What must the waiting and worrying be like? How do you explain to children who have no concept of time that mom or dad will be home in 6 months, 9 months, a year? Giving us a glimpse of what it's like to be in a military family is Korinthia Klein, who wrote Babble's latest personal essay entitled The Home Front. Dad is stationed near Baghdad, mom is at home with their kids.  She now knows where the fusebox is, but most of all she just wants her husband to be safe. Check it out.   Posted Apr 03 2007, 07:01 AM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with no comments Filed under: military, babble essays, military families