Five Envies/Joys of My Life "Married to the Military"

A new twist on the "Five Hazards of..." that I've been doing lately.  I feel that a bit of envy is inevitable on these, but the hazard is whether you focus on the envy or can shift quickly to the joyful alternatives!

1. As an enlisted wife, I often envied the officer wives for their social clubs, not to mention their access to the physical Officer's Clubs (which on most bases are much nicer than the Enlisted Club, if the base even has one).  Then over time I realized they also moved WAY more often than we did.  While I enjoy moving, having to move every 2 years (or more!) would be a Major pain (sorry, I couldn't resist the obvious pun!).  There is joy in staying put a little longer, letting each place truly feel like HOME for a time.

2. As a deliberately unemployed military spouse, I sometimes envied those who were able to maintain a job or career as they followed their husband about.  That second income meant they often had nicer things, more little luxuries, more travel, etc.  Then over time I realized how priceless the time with my children is, and what a gift it was for them to have me always ALWAYS there for them, especially with dad's presence so hit or miss.  (As a flyer, my husband worked odd hours, and some years was gone as much as 70% of the time, in erratic and completely unpredictable patterns.)  It was definitely hard at times, and there is a long-term cost with that lack of employment experience for later jobs, but there is much joy knowing I was able to give them that stability in the face of such uncertainty. 

3. As a military dependent, I often envied my civilian counterparts who see the same doctor over many months or years, and really develop a relationship with him or her.  Of course that doesn't always happen, even for civilians, but it's a lot more likely in the civilian "stay put" world.  There were YEARS of military life where I never even saw the same doctor twice!  Then again, military insurance and coverage is often recognized as THE best coverage there is, and it was the primary reason my husband enlisted in the first place.  I don't know if joy is the right word, but it's definitely a huge comfort knowing that you wouldn't have the pain of a gigantic medical bill following the pain of trying to get an appointment, referral, and treatment for whatever your problem is. 

4. As a military parent, I often have envied the opportunities and stability of my friends' children who stay pretty much in the same place.  We would find a great piano teacher or youth club, then move to a place where we'd have to start all over, and sometimes had a very hard time finding anything to replace what we had before.  Moving so far away meant it could take months or years to find out about the opportunities in a new area.  (Civilians are often surprised at how sad the advertising is for things in their area--they live there for so long they just KNOW about stuff through neighbors and long-time friends!  We don't.)  This was especially true living overseas--many things we just didn't have access to over there (such as community colleges for dual enrollment), and other things we could have done we didn't find out about until too late.  But there is joy in all the places my kids have experienced.  How many of their classmates, when they are studying World History, can say "Oh yes, Pearl Harbor? I've been there. Worms, where the trial of Martin Luther took place?  Been there too."


5.  As a recently retired military spouse, I sometimes envy those who have been able to stay in one place for the past 24 years, with a mortgage that is now close to being paid off!!  But what a joy it has been to be able to experience so many different places!  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  :) 

And all of these can be switched, of course, for those who are NOT military (or not enlisted, or not staying home to care for their children, etc.).  That's the beauty of it--it pays to see a bit of both sides, and realize that we ALL have our own special joys and trials.  There's no faster way to stop envy in its tracks, imho--stop counting their blessings and start counting your own. 

Five Hazards of Being a Former Homeschool Mom

1. Books are like old friends.  Throwing out a favorite book takes on a similar emotional punch to throwing out photos of  your children!  This is even true with favorite curriculum books, and you find yourself trying to justify keeping them because "the kids might want to read it again some day!"  Yeah, I used the same justification to keep a few of my college textbooks, and I opened a grand total of ONE book ONE time, to look up something in my old Anatomy book to help high school son with a Biology assignment. :)

2. Like human friends, you not only want to keep the old (book) friends, but you always want to make new ones!  When you see or hear about a new curriculum for one of the subjects you enjoyed most, you immediately think how great it would be to try it... then you remember "oh yeah, my kids aren't home schooled anymore!" *sigh* Then you watch eagerly for your still-homeschooling friends to talk about it, so you can hear what it's like anyway.  ;)

3. Most employers don't recognize your years of homeschooling as work experience.  When (and if) you are ready to go back to a paying job, your resume tends to be pretty blank, getting filled in with random "skills" instead of work experience.  Granted you probably won't have any "co-workers" to use as references, unless perhaps you were involved in a co-op class with another teacher (and even then most employers probably wouldn't "count" them either).  Still, it is rather sad for those of us who are serious about educating our children to have our Careers considered invalid.  :( All we can do is put our life's work in the "personal" section of the resume, and hope that we can make it the interview stage, where we can have a chance to talk about our years of homeschool experiences (and how we can use all of that experience to benefit the future potential employer).

4. When you stop, you can feel lost, even sort of abandoned.  It's the same as any mid-life "retirement" experience, I suspect.  (I know military retirement can be VERY difficult for many people, for example.)  After years of being busy almost every day all day, sometimes surrounded by "co-workers" (the community of homeschool moms, piano teachers, etc.) and always with your "clients" (your kids), suddenly you find yourself alone.  Your local homeschool community may not welcome you anymore, because you are no longer "one of them."  This is especially true if stopping homeschooling coincided with a move--these new people don't know you, and it could be seen as creepy and suspect if you just show up at the park when all the homeschoolers are there, but without children of your own. ;) You still have the house to upkeep, of course, but it is exponentially easier without children at home all day!  You may be job hunting too, but this can be a lengthy, discouraging, and extremely frustrating process.  Eventually, most ex-homeschoolers will find plenty of things to do with their time.  If she doesn't find (or want) a paid job, there are lots of opportunities for volunteer work.  There may be grandchildren, or church needs, etc.  But the transition can be a bit jarring, and take some time. 


5. Homeschooling really becomes a part of you, and you WILL miss it.  Every day. :)

Five Hazards of Being an American Who has Lived Overseas

I've decided to run with the "5 hazards of..." and make it a sort of Series.  :)  That said, here are the 5 hazards of having lived overseas:


1. You become a terrible "food snob."  It can be as frustrating to us as it is annoying to our friends and family when they go out with us to a foreign-themed restaurant and we moan and sigh about how "un-authentic" it really is.  And if the place you lived in was in Europe, your formerly-beloved good old American Hershey's will now taste like chocolate-flavored wax.  Of course the positive side of this is how lucky we are for all the fabulous food we have enjoyed!  And Americans who spent some time overseas can be great reviewers for restaurants, because we now know what "genuine" food tastes like from whichever country (or at least one part of that other country!).

2. If you still have friends after snobbing it up at the restaurants (LOL), you can irritate them further by commenting how much the weather or landscape or that building reminds you of your former home overseas, or how much you miss going to xyz.  It's not our fault--those are just former homes to us, just as you might mention memories of the place you grew up or how your mom did something.  But somehow it comes off as bragging when it involves somewhere "exotic," and once again we sound like snobs, even when we truly have no intention of doing so.

3. Ironically, while you can easily annoy so many people, sometimes you won't know ENOUGH to satisfy other people.  After all, you didn't go there as a tourist but actually lived and worked in the other Nation.  As a result, you may or may not have done the usual touristy things.  SO many people have asked us "oh did you visit here?"  No.  "Did you do this?"  No.  "Did  you buy that?"  No!  We were a little busy trying to just live, and raise our family.  And if you are like us, and were living overseas in some sort of "American bubble" (in our case the military community), you may not even be proficient in the language, which really annoys natives you meet from your former home.  Yes, we probably should have tried harder, and yes it is embarrassing to say we lived 4 years here and 6 years there and never learned either language (or only enough to get by).  :-/ But it is what it is, and no one can go back and do it over.  We aren't the only lazy expatriates who don't learn the language of the host nation.  On the bright side, we have enormous sympathy for foreign-language speakers here in the United States, and are much more likely to support subtitled signs and menus, etc.

4.  It becomes harder to clean out your old things, because you never want to get rid of those items that remind you of your former home. :)  It's sentimental value, yes, which is something we share with everyone, but it's more than that.  When a break a coffee cup, it's no big deal to get another one.  But when am I ever going to go to another Christmas market in Cochem, Germany?  I can't possibly throw out THAT cup; we must try to fix it!!  I don't care if that pen is dry, it says Okutama on it in japanese and I'll never ever be able to get another like it!  No honey, don't open that last bottle of wine--it's the very last one from Georgia (the Country, not the State!). 


5. You will miss it forever.  A little bit of different States in the U.S. will "rub off" on you as well, of course, but most States aren't as much different from one another as the other Countries where we have lived... and they are much easier to revisit.  Many Americans who have lived overseas will never again step on the soil of that other Nation that was their home for a time.  And of course even if you do, it won't be the same.  Then again, neither are you the same.  And that makes it worth it all.

5 Things different about Military Retirement (vs. civilian)

5 Things About Military Retirement that are Different 

from "real" (civilian) Retirement

1. The vast majority of military retirees will absolutely NEED to find a civilian job ASAP.  Many of them are young--in their 40s or even late 30s if they enlisted right out of high school!  Most will still have dependent children when they retire (though they may be high school or college students at that point).  Military pensions are a beautiful thing, especially in that they start immediately upon retiring, but they are not anywhere near enough to support a family!  (Also a large number of military retirees face huge pay cuts switching to a civilian career, so that pension is really a form of government assistance for our vets, to help them transition to civilian life and keep their heads above water!)

2. Most military people are not even close to owning their home (mortgage free), so they won't have that investment to rely upon as part of their retirement savings (when they retire for real).  Many civilians still settle in ONE place, staying in the same home for 20-30 years, or until it is completely paid off, as financial advisors recommend in preparation for retirement.  Military moving around means most of us are starting from scratch when we "retire" from the military, often just buying a home in a new area where the retiree was able to find a civilian job, instead of celebrating the mortgage payoff.

3.  Civilian retirement means embracing free time, hours and days of NOT working!  Military retirement means moving from a job with generous holidays plus 30 days off per year, to a standard civilian job, typically 2 weeks off at most per year and few holidays.  The civilian job may possibly even structured as hourly wages, with clock watchers, instead of the very different military structure--sometimes working 12-hour days, sometimes 24-hour days, and occasionally even an 8-hour day or a 4-hour day, but never anyone worrying about exactly how many hours you are working each week, because it's always a lot and it's the job.

4.  Civilian retirement is often celebrated as freedom from "the rat race," and a celebration of living out the rest of your life stress free!  Military Retirement is STRESS in spades.

5. Civilian people may miss working, or feel a bit of loyalty to their old employer, but military retirees have red, white, and blue blood for life.  :)

5 Things in Small children NOT caused by parenting

5 Things in Small Children that are NOT caused by Bad Parenting 

(despite some opinions to the contrary)

1. Tantrums
Most people who believe these are caused by bad parenting are people who have had very limited interaction (if any) with very many kids under the age of 4.  Not every child has the classic tantrums, of course, but for those who do trying to stop one is roughly the equivalent of trying to stop a semi truck whose brakes just quit working on a steep hill.  Yeah, good luck with that.  There are a few things you can do to sort of minimize or shorten them that work sometimes.  Maybe.  But for some all you can do is let that truck roll on down the hill.  Thankfully, the kids do outgrow them, usually in a year or less.  I feel quite lucky that only one of my 3 children had the classic tantrums.  Not every parent is so lucky, so have some compassion! 

2. Food Pickiness
EVERY child goes through this.  Every.single.one.  Some are more picky than others; it's true.  And yes, most very strict parents can eventually make them eat things they hate by force feeding, severe discipline, or starving them until they become desperate enough to eat anything.  But that is NOT good parenting in my book, and {guess what} their kids were picky too (and still are in their hearts).  The majority of kids will grow out of the extreme pickiness with age and the most minimal measures to encourage them to TRY new things, no force-feeding necessary.  And for those who still won't eat broccoli, well maybe they can be President some day.  ;)  Everyone has food preferences and things they won't eat if they can avoid it--even adults!!  (For those who don't get the reference, George Bush Sr. hates broccoli to this day, and rumor has it refused to allow the White House to serve it when he was sitting President!)

3. Whining
Some kids just whine.  Yes, eventually you can teach them not to do it, although they will do it again if they are over-tired or feeling sick.  And I've also met kids with naturally whiny voices, which you can hardly blame on parenting!  Also, some kids don't even realize they are doing it, so it's incredibly difficult to re-train those types of children.  It takes time.  Sometimes lots and lots and lots of time.  Hopefully they will stop by the time they are 18, right? 

4. Being Loud
Lots of kids are naturally loud.  The quiet ones are the more unusual, in my experience.  And some kids just have naturally loud voices, even when they whisper.  They can be trained, of course, but it takes years of effort and practice for them to learn to restrain their voices.  My eldest son did it, and one of the youngers is still working on it (both have naturally loud and projecting voices!).  In the meantime, you may as well tell a thunderstorm to hush.  If you don't like loud children, I suggest you avoid places where children exist.

5. Not Responding to People
My own children are about as shy as a stampede, so speaking to people was never an issue for us.  Still, I recognize that some kids are just naturally shy.  I've met kids like this.  You can't force a child to speak if he doesn't want to--it usually doesn't work, and if you do force it the trauma may counteract whatever benefit you think you are getting from it.  Eventually they will hopefully be trained to work beyond their shyness to be polite and function better socially, but like the other things above, this times TIME, and lots of it.

Minor Disclaimer:  Note in the title that I do specify SMALL children.  The first one in particular really applies only to the classic "2-year-old" tantrums (which really can happen anytime from 18 months to almost 4).  If you have an 8-yo still throwing tantrums, then yes I'd agree that unless there is some mental illness involved there are probably parenting issues.  The 2nd and 3rd should mostly be outgrown or trained out of them by the time they are teens, though of course even adults can have specific food aversions that are sometimes described as "picky," and some people have whiny voices their entire lives (even if they aren't a character named Janice on the TV show Friends!).  The last two, honestly, can sometimes be lifetime struggles (for the naturally very loud or naturally very shy person)!

3 Things I miss and don't miss about Homeschooling

My boys tell me often how much they miss homeschooling, but these are just for me!


3 Things I do NOT miss:

1. Paperwork!
I stink at lesson planning.  Big time.  I'm so thankful for all the curriculum available today that comes with all the lessons plotted out with what to do when, but even with them the homeschool teacher still needs to fit it into your own family's schedule, and determine anything that might be best skipped for your individual children, or something that needs added in, etc.  Then there is the annual learning plan for each child, the keeping of records (with or without the dreaded portfolio), grading, re-grading, etc.  The pile of paper never seemed to go down!!

2. Heavy Responsibility
When you are your child's primary teacher and sole administrator (principal, counselor, nurse, and almost every school specialist all rolled into one!), that's a lot of responsibility weighing on your shoulders!  When your child goes to a school--any school--you are delegating the responsibility for educating your child almost entirely to them.  Mom takes the role of helper in the educational process from there on out, sometimes little more than a cheerleader (for a child who will do homework independently).  If the child isn't learning something, the school works to fix the problem, and all you need do is give permission (and sometimes not even that).  If your child fails a test question given by a random stranger, they want to know what school the child attends, and the stranger may even offer sympathy or advice to get the school to fix the problem.  When you homeschool, if your child is having a bad day or just hasn't covered some subject or other yet, the random stranger treats you like an idiot.  And that stranger abuse is nothing compared to the stress we place on ourselves every day as homeschool moms, wondering if we are doing the "right" math program for this child, or covering subjects in the "proper" order, or spending enough time on this or that, etc.

3. Less Adult Socialization
I believe there is a tiny bit of truth to the socialization myth about homeschooling, but it's the MOM who is missing out, not the child.  There are such wildly divergent approaches and purposes and styles of homeschooling that sometimes it can be difficult to really "click" with other homeschool moms in person.  Even when you do connect with one, you usually only see her during a certain co-op or park day or group, because we are SO busy running our kids around to all of their social activities (not to mention the occasional hour or two at home to actually do schoolwork, LOL)!!  Now that my kids are in school, and granted partly just because they are now older, I now have more time to hang out with my own friends (without them!).  I'm also working a job at the time I am eriting this, so there is adult interaction there also.  Yay, socialization!  :)


3 Things I DO miss, every day in every way:

1. More Time with my Kids
While I can appreciate the humor in commercials that joke about "back to school" time being the best time of the year, I don't like that they are in one place and I'm in another for SO many hours of every day now.  Yes, I'm a real mom and they are real kids and they do get on my nerves sometimes.  But I also adore them, and love to spend time with them.  I miss reading with them and discussing what they are learning all day long--we have so little time to do that now.

2. FREEDOM in our Schedules and Planning
We are slaves to the public school schedule now, and I hate it.  I do so miss being able to make appointments during the day instead of fighting for the very few after-school times with every other parent who uses that doctor or dentist, etc.  I miss being able to go to parks and museums and so forth on school days when the crowds are low, and just making up that time on a Saturday or a day that the schools have off.  I miss being able to wake up at a decent hour, and do school when we are good and ready, instead of having an alarm blast us all out of bed at an ungodly early time so we can stagger off to other buildings to work or learn.  I miss being able to plan vacation time when it's convenient for us.  I miss taking 3 weeks off for Christmas.  I miss having days off be genuine days off, instead of being filled with homework and appointments that we couldn't get done any other time.  I miss being able to drop everything to go see "once in a lifetime" kinds of things like Air Force One taking off, or simply talk a walk outside just to look at God's Creation and see what we can see!

3. The Learning itself
While I don't miss the lesson planning, grading, and other paperwork, I DO miss shopping for curriculum, and trying out new things, and learning right along with my kids!  I miss the discussions with other moms about this curriculum or that, and why this one worked where that one didn't.  I miss having the freedom to change gears even mid-year because something isn't working... or to spend more time on something they enjoy.  I really REALLY miss the field trips!  :)  We have had some genuinely fabulous field trips!  And as much as I don't really like reading all those papers and essays, I do like seeing their minds work, and hearing orally them explain something they have learned and are excited about.  I do still get a small amount of that after school hours, but I miss having it more.  This of course overlaps very much with both #1 and #2, but the time and freedom are huge, and even one of them more than makes up for all 3 of the things I don't miss.  Even though I don't miss those things above at all, I would embrace them all again in a heartbeat if we had the chance to homeschool again.  :)