Female Service members -- Is the Price to High??
I just received an e-mail and wanted to get your input.
The writer acknowledges that women are capable of serving in combat, but wonders if the price is too high? "I think about their priceless children and the sacrifices they are forced to make while their parent(s), sometimes both of them, are in Iraq. We have not yet seen how children are affected and if they will ever heal from it all. What will surface in later life for the children? I have seen the effect of an abusive childhood. Will the stress these children are in be even more devastating?"
The writer goes on to say that while the legacy of the Iraqi war will be that women are very able to do whatever they are called to do, it will also show that sending women off to war is just too devastating on the children.
Finally, she notes that women are 40 percent more likely to experience the devestating ramifications of combat than men. I don't know where she got this figure and whether it's true. But it raises the question of whether women are more vulnerable and less resilient to the horrors of war.
Hope you will weigh in on this discussion. I don't have the answers but I think it's interesting and important to explore.
Are you a mom who served in combat? How did your deployment positively or negatively impact your children?
And do you feel that you suffer from your experiences on the battlefield more than your brothers in arms who have had similar experiences.
Take good care!
kirsten
posted by Kirsten Holmstedt @ 4:25 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
I really don't think gender determines resilience in combat trauma, but I do believe that culture and upbringing are factors. More nurture than nature.
From what I've seen in terms of men and women coping with trauma, you do see trends in positive and negative coping mechanisms, but it really depends how much of the trauma is impacting the individual's day-to-day, professional, and interpersonal aspects of their personal life.
I could go on with this subject...how much space can I take up?
I'll just wait until someone else weighs in on the topic :)
I really hate how people frame the debate about women in combat around the children and how they suffer with one or both parents gone. They can't stop talking about women needing to be at home with the kids, but kids need fathers too, and nobody talks about the hundreds of thousands of men who are missing years of their kids' lives. Isn't the price too high for their kids too?
(These are, of course, probably the same people who whine about mothers getting custody in divorce more often than fathers. They're hypocrites.)
The debate about whether women should be in combat is a TOTALLY different issue than kids being separated from a parent for years and years because of deployments.
I think having kids and dealing with multiple deployments is a huge issue, but it's a family, non-gender-specific issue, not just women's issue, and I don't think it should factor into a decision against us being in combat.
I'm not sure gender is relevant to the effects of war... if this person's argument holds up, isn't it also safe to say that men's combat trauma affects children the same way? The increased rate of domestic violence in the military overall surely causes problems for children. To the kid, I don't think it matters if it's the mother or father going to war, either one or both being absent (with or without combat trauma as a consideration when they get home) greatly impacts children.
I am a single mother who served as a medic in Ramadi Iraq, my mission was Route Clearance. I am no more tramatized than the men I served with. Gender plays no part in how an individual deals with any situation, upbringing and conditioning play a far bigger role than gender.
As far as the children are concerned about my deployments I have had them in counseling before, during, and after to deal with the fear and anger which has helped them in day to day obstacles they encounter as well making them more well adjusted than your average children of two parent families who work all the time and spend little time with their kids.
I must say my children have had much bigger abandonment issues brought on by dead beat dads than they have ever had dealing with me doing something that they can be proud of.
The fact is if you are a SOLDIER your family will suffer with multiple deployments whether you are man or woman. The fact is if you are a SOLDIER you will have issues upon returning home. The fact is the children have no harder of a time in life if their needs are met than those children whose parents are just to plain busy for them or worse yet, just don't care enough to even be there for them.
I left the Marine Corps after having my first child because I didn't want to deploy and leave her. I have had friends and my husband do tours in Iraq. Gender does not matter, how you help your kids cope does. Doc_Jaymie has it right by providing counseling for her kids before, during and after deployment. It's more about what kind of parent you are than gender.
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