Writers Who Kill

 

Celebrating the Military Child – by Rosalie Spielman

I had a friend Snapchat me this morning a picture of her five-year-old attending an early Sunday morning birthday party at a bowling alley. My reaction was “ew.” (I do not miss those little kid birthday parties one bit! Plus, Sunday morning?!) Maybe not the nicest reaction, but it got me reflecting on the differences between “littles” and “bigs.”

I’ve got “bigs” now. One is a freshman in college, and the other just took the SAT. They are moving on from the little heartbreaks of childhood to the bigger, more relatable, and less laughable ones of adulthood.

I always liked to say, “little kids, big toys; big kids, little toys.” For everyone who has ever stepped on a Mega Blok versus a tiny Lego, the pain is very real. Littles want every plastic piece of crap they see, while bigs want computers, phones, cars… So less pain to the barefoot nighttime wanderer, but more pain to the bank account.

But opposite of my old phrase is another: “little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems.” Little kid problems are big to them but can be ridiculous to us. Didn’t get the right doodad from the gumball machine? Whaaaaa! But for bigs, not getting into the college they wanted, getting into a car accident, getting their heart broken… So far, I haven’t had to help my bigs navigate those realities and disappointments in life. I know getting through those type of heartaches are part of becoming an adult. But as parents, we want to shield them from it anyway. But we can’t protect them from those learning experiences any more than we can stop them from growing.

For my kids, as military children, the heartaches can be, for lack of a better phrase, really hard. For one of my husband’s combat deployments, the kids were four and two years old. Not to minimize Daddy’s role in their little lives, but for them, he was just “at work.” For me, it was fifteen months of hard toddler wrangling work. They were blissfully unaware of the situation, while I got an email a week from my husband, if I was lucky. Their problems were not getting the right shape of chicken nugget or their sibling getting the ducky that they wanted to play with at bath time.

But a different deployment, almost ten years later, my mini-bigs knew what was going on as well as what could happen. It was hard calming their fears, reassuring them even though I wasn’t reassured. Thankfully, by that point, FaceTime was the norm and we got to talk with Dad nearly every day. But their problems then were more heartbreaking than the chicken nugget not looking enough like a dinosaur. But regardless of the issue—getting excluded by the mean girl neighbors, not making the goal in soccer—worrying about their dad was surely forefront of their minds. And that heartache is a hard boo-boo to bandage.

My kids were certainly not alone. More than two million kids have had a parent deploy since 9-11. Half of those, like mine, have had a parent deploy more than twice. Military service members and their spouses make a conscious choice to be those things, to serve. Military kids don’t get the choice.

April is Month of the Military Child. It was established in the 1980s to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of children on the homefront, designated as a Defense Department commemoration by the then Secretary Casper Weinberger.

The dandelion is used to represent those military kids: Dandelions can 

adapt and survive in many climates, wherever the wind carries them, 

and they are resilient with strong roots.

To my military kids, though you’re big now, I send you hugs and kisses. You had an extra challenge to overcome when you were still little, and you never once complained about being a military child. (That did come later though, teen years, yay!) You’ve had an experience unique to those of your peers in this civilian community we live in now, but you are better and stronger for it. You know I love you no matter what! 

But I am sure glad you don't have birthday parties at a bowling alley on a Sunday morning anymore.

Spaghetti and The Yeti