My Unusual Parenting Dilemma

As many of you know, I'm a parent. I'm the proud mother of a 5 year old darling little girl.

At least, she's darling most of the time. Then there's the (what seems to be) never-ending behavioral issues that seem to manifest themselves whenever Daddy comes or goes.

One of the difficulties in being the Wife of someone in the Military is that because of separations caused by their service, it is relatively disruptive to children. I had one Army Wife say "well, it's nice that his deployments are shorter and that when he goes out on Underways he comes back within 4 to 6 weeks". No, actually, it's NOT nice

For those who are unware: When the Army, Air Force or Marines deploy, they're gone 12-18 months with at least 2 weeks R&R thrown in. When the Navy Deploys, it's for 6-9 months with no R&R's scheduled which means they don't get to come home AT ALL. They also spend 2-6 weeks every few months on what are called Underways which are specifically for training. They can do these as often as the Captain of their particular vessel and his Superior feel is necessary to keep them "ready". This means that in one Calendar year, my Husband can be gone for almost the entire 12 months. Currenlty, my Husband will have been home a grand total of 16 out of 52 weeks this year Not thus far, that's what he'll have been home from January 1 to December 31st.

You see, whenever my Darling Husband leaves, I face behavioral issues with DD. She starts acting out, misbehaving, pulling "stunts" that are simply unacceptable within our household. And after a few weeks, when I finally get things calmed down and her refocused and her behavior modified back to appropriate, DH comes home. And the cycle starts all over again!

Imagine you have a dog. You adopt this dog with your partner. This dog has perfect behavior and mannerisms as you've both taken great care in this dogs training and upbringing. Then your Partner must disappear completely for several weeks and the dog that was such a lovely hound suddenly pee's in their crate every night; howls whenever you leave them alone, chews up things other than his or her chew toys despite never having been a chewer previously. Then imagine after working and working and working on letting the Dog know that everything is alright, that the rules are still the same and the expectations are no different after a period of weeks, you finally get the dog to calm down and return to it's "normal" self. Then within days your Partner returns and suddenly the dog is once again questioning what is going on and acting out, chewing up your Partners favorite and most expensive pair of shoes, peeing on the carpet and generally disrupting life as you knew it, only to calm down after another week or so after realizing that everything is alright and that the rules and expectations are, yes, still the same.

Then imagine doing it several times a year. Only instead of with a dog, it's with a child.

Yes, it's frustrating. It's not that I don't love my husband and it's not that I don't want him home - I DO! It's just extremely frustrating to go through this every so many weeks. And with an ever-changing schedule, it makes life that much harder.

Now, I'm told that the behaviors I'm seeing are "typical" for kids. Many even say "if that's the worst of it, be thankful!" or "That's ALL she's doing? My kids do that all the time!". That's fine, except these are not things she normally does and not things that are acceptable in our home. We don't talk back to our parents - especially not at age 5 (and it's not acceptable when you're older either. Yes I know all kids do it, even I did it, but it wasn't acceptable to my parents either. Trust me, I got my butt whooped for it!). We don't accommodate developmental regressions. We don't condone stealing - even from your own family members! - or lying. The rules don't change just because Daddy's gone or because Daddy comes home. But her behavior certainly does.

I miss my Husband more than anything when he's away. The difficulties with our child only exacerbate the situation and reiterates for me the need to have a Partner in all of this. Luckily, my DH and I are usually on the same page about this particular issue. It doesn't, however, make it any easier on the home front.