We military spouses spend a lot of time worrying about our children. According to the surveys, the thing military spouses worry about most in military life is how deployment is going to affect kids. We worry that we are bungling the whole thing in a way in which Jackie O could never approve. We worry that our children will forget what their dad looks like if he deploys even one more week. We worry that the deployment is changing the chemical composition of our child's brain so that she will only wear black until she is 46. We worry that if we serve Cheerios for dinner (again) Michele Obama will swoop down and demand that heads of broccoli float among those wholesome Os.
We worry too much. Instead we ought to focus on that fact that military spouses really ARE the kind of people who believe in keeping kids unbungled. The research backs us up. Time after time deployment researchers have found that the better their caregiver (read: mom) copes with deployment, the better the kids cope with deployment. Good enough is good enough, Mom. So put those kids to bed and put your feet up. (Unless it is only 9 a.m. when you read this. Then you still gotta put in your time...)
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Navy wife Jacey Eckhart is Editor of SpouseBuzz and author of I Married a Spartan?? The Care and Feeding of Your Military Marriage available on iTunes, Amazon, and on www.jaceyeckhart.com.
