Banned
Member Since: 8/24/2003
Posts: 4,785
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It's a tough one to call, and different from single parent hood to an extent, which in itself is surely very difficult and sympathetic, because the reasons for single parenthood are generally different and the partners have decided to split or one has left the other to fend for themselves and hence they might not be hoping for the best for the each other. Whereas, in this case, there are two parents and one goes to war leaving in the study shown above, the wives/mothers at home depressed and worried about her husband/ the father, about whether he is going to end up dead, if he isn't already, or maimed, hurt for life physically and/or mentally, will she be able to bring up the children herself and take care of herself too, if he's ever going to come back etc and if she will have to look after him too as well as the child/children.
I'm against, to an extent, people in the armed forces (and very high risk professions) having children, at least with having a partner it's a mutual decision to carry the burden of worry and consequence but at least there are no dependents which make it harder and more complex (and in the professions I'm talking about could make them a target. But obviously it's not that simple because a lot of those professionals choose to have/keep them anyway and because of that I think they need a much better support network. Many people go into the army or benefit from the army because of the family benefits you can get e.g. high standard education and healthcare, they look after widows etc. But it depends on where you are and they have family facilities, some partners and/or families live away whilst the army parent lives at a forces base and communications between the two aren't always easy or nice, for example I've heard of numerous partners trying to send post to their forces partners and it taking a long time to get through and when they call up to ask about it and speak to a rep, or queries in general, their forces partners have been told by superiors to 'keep their wives in check' and tell them to back off etc.
Sometimes forces partners will never get sent on dangerous assignments so it's not so bad but the worry is probably always there and enhanced if there is a war or something risky comes along. It could be said that they knew what they were getting in to and the risk, yes I agree with that, but going through it is going to be different and like I said, unless you can stop people in very high risk jobs having children then it's not so black and white and you have to help them. So whether the family left behind has the benefits of good forces care or not, I think they also need to develop or enhance psychological care/support for them when the forces partner is sent away, and not only rehab when they come back (which is something many didn't have for a long time, for many years here at least many ended up on the streets after service but I doubt those were ones with families) or if they die.
I also think that they should see if these results are more dominant in certain areas more than others because there might be other factors or a greater need for support, see if the same is affecting fathers that are left behind from forces mothers (it's not unheard of) and extend the support network to people who might not have child dependents but other dependents such as parents/family that rely specifically on them for monetary and health care.
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