There are about 1.85 million children in the United States that have at least one parent in the service. One community I commonly forget that I am a part of is the military community. My father has served in the Air Force for all my life, and it was not until I was older that I realized how important that community is.
Growing up, my mom was alone a lot of the time. My dad was constantly deployed for months on end, and my mom was left back to take care of three kids on her own. We lived in Florida for a large portion of my life because that is where my dad’s base was, so we had no family around as my parents both were born and grew up in Pennsylvania. Even when we moved back to Pennsylvania, it was very difficult for family to come and help my mom. I remember sometimes as a kid; random people would be over our house or babysitting us. It was not until recently that we were talking about our childhoods as a family and my mom mentioned how important the military community was. Apparently, there are thousands of military family support groups out there. For spouses, children, or even grandchildren of military members. It is all over social media on how to reach out. You can post your situation and people come and give advice or recommendations or even physically come to help. My mom was telling my siblings and I that people used to bring food to us all the time to help and offer to babysit so my mom could go to work different hours or take one of us to our sports practice. It was insane to hear how important that was to our childhood.
With the class discussion of how online versus face-to-face communities, it would be difficult in this scenario to replace the in person aspect to online. We had people coming to being us food and babysit us, I don’t think a computer can replace that aspect. My dad was deployed once, for almost two years. I was not born yet, but my mom and brother shared how hard it was going so long without seeing him. People set up a surprise virtual visit for them that was broadcasted on a local news station. It is insane to see and hear how important communities can be. The online portion of this community still helps people every day. I remember when the Obamas were in office, they launched huge campaigns to do the same thing and try to help families in the service.
I look back and think that if it were not for the combination of in person and online aspects of this community, my childhood would have been a lot different. I think that communities work well when blended together with both aspects of online and in person.
The link posted below is where I got the number for how many children, but it is also a site for people to help children, teenagers, or families of military members.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications.
https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2019/05/01/how-support-children-teens-military-families/3644831002/
Every community serves a purpose, but the military community hits close to home. I didn’t grow up a military “brat” as my brother and I were the first of the family to enlist. We didn’t know what to expect or how impactful the military would become. I ended up marrying another military member and now our children will get the chance to experience the community.
A lot of times, people choose to join communities based on commonalities, but the military kind of forces everyone together and gives you a family. The book talks about a respect for diversity being a core value of community psychology and I think the military community offers great way to embody that (Gruman, Scheider, & Coutts, 2017). People join the military for a variety of reasons, but mostly under the same purpose of serving our country and protecting our freedoms. This allows for an extremely diverse population.
Military children get to experience lots of things that other children do not. They see parents gone, go through many moves, and meet tons of new people. While some people think it’s detrimental to their development, I think it provides them new opportunities to learn about other people and culture. Not only do adults get to experience and appreciate diversity, but children do as well. And as long as people stay in touch, you now have a support network that stretches across the globe!
Reference:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.