May 7, 2014 • 40 mins
Being married to the military comes with unique challenges, including deployment, frequent moves and stereotyping as a frivolous "Army wife." Cristen and Caroline examine what life is really like for military spouses, LGBT military families and female soldiers with civilian husbands.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and today we're tackling a topic that
has been requested by several of our listeners, and that
is military spouses. We also want to point out that
(00:24):
May ninth is Military Spouse Appreciation Day here in the US,
so a shout out to all of our spouses out there,
male and female alike. Yeah, And so, to kick things off,
as we often do on the podcast, let's talk about
who we are referring to when it comes to military spouses. Surprise, surprise,
(00:45):
it is largely women. Um. A lot of these statistics
are coming from the two thousand twelve Demographics Report for
the Department of Defense, which is some scintillating uh bedside reading. Yeah,
I must say it. It's a lot. It's a lot
of a lot of percentages, many percentages, and and women
(01:07):
make up of military spouses, right, and and military husbands
don't worry, we will not leave you out. But we
just wanted to throw out a few of those stats
to get started. But looking at who's married in the military,
fifty about fifty six percent of active duty military members
are married, which is down from six And if you
(01:30):
look at the gender split, fifty eight percent of active
duty men and nearly have fort of active duty women
are married. Now, when you look at inter military marriages,
six point three of the Department of Defenses active duty
members are in dual military marriages. Yeah, and female soldiers
(01:50):
are a lot likelier to marry soldiers compared to male
soldiers marrying other soldiers. So when it comes to ages,
not so surprisingly. When you consider how young people are
generally enlisted into the military, it follows that military spouses,
typically wives are a bit younger as well. Um, the
(02:13):
largest proportion of them twenty three point five percent are
between twenty six and thirty years old, and then just
under that eight percent are twenty five years old and younger.
But you do have military spouses of all ages. It
just so happens that it's a little more frontloaded. Yeah, exactly. Um,
(02:34):
And so you know, I mentioned that we had gotten
more than one request to to talk about military spouses,
mostly wives, and and why is that? And you know,
we did get letters from a lot of people talking
about some of the issues they faced as a military spouse,
but as krist and I were doing reading of our own.
It is so clear that if you were a military
(02:56):
spouse you face a lot of challenges. And a bit
one which has also been in the news a lot
over the past year or so is employment. Yeah, and
this is something from my civilian perspective I hadn't thought
about at all. I assumed that military spouse probably issues
of deployment, you know, just living within a military structure
(03:18):
probably pretty hard. And we'll get into those issues. But
employment is a massive one. At nine in fact of
military wives in particular are either unemployed or under employed,
and that was coming from a study out of the
Military Officers Association of America study that was published in
(03:39):
March two thousand fourteen, and so that represents more than
six hundred thousand women. And on top of that, nearly
five thousand active duty military families are food stamp eligible. Yeah.
And one thing um that's worth mentioning is that military spouses,
military wives in particular have to deal a lot of stereotypes.
(04:01):
And one of those stereotypes is that they are lazy,
or there's somehow freeloaders, or they don't want to work
with their opportunists and they just want the benefits that
come along with having a spouse in the military, when
the reality has a lot more to do with, like
Kristen said, the fact that when you're part of a
military family, you're going to move a lot, which presents
(04:22):
so many problems, including licensing issues. For instance, more than
half of active duty military spouses work in fields that
require state licensing or certification, and about licensed military spouses
have had to renew their license after a cross country move.
And this whole licensing thing is a big deal because
it is costly, and it's time consuming and often frustrating.
(04:44):
Think about if you're a lawyer moving from state to state,
you've got to take the bar how many times exactly?
And for that reason, almost six of military wives who
are surveyed feared that their partners active duty status would
scare off potential employers who are like, oh, no, you're
just gonna up and move in six months or less,
(05:05):
so we don't want to hire you. So there are
issues of employment gaps, the frequent job changes, and of course,
you know all of those cross country moves that these
military wives are having to deal with in their search
for employment. And on top of that too, there are
a lot of educational issues that are preceding this. UM.
(05:28):
There are a lot of them who only have either
high school diploma g e D or even less right
and just thirty have at least some college credit uh,
compared to one person who have a doctoral degree. And
when you look at the military spouses who are searching
(05:48):
for work, actively searching for work, UM, these people, when
they get into jobs, endure frequent employment gaps and earn
about thirty eight percent less than their civilian counterparts because
they're often not able to take advantage of maybe more stable,
high paying jobs where you would naturally, over the course
(06:08):
of a few years, rise up in the ranks, get promoted,
get raises, all that stuff. If you're moving, you don't
necessarily have that opportunity. For instance, UM, when I worked
in Augusta at the newspaper, there's four gordon there, and
one of the news writers was a military wife, and
whenever she and her husband would move, she would get
a job at the local town's newspaper. And so that's great,
(06:30):
and that's wonderful that she has that training and has
that ability to get a job at a newspaper. But
on the other hand, you know, if you're moving frequently,
you're not going to become the news editor, or you're
not going to become you know, enter into a higher
paying position. And on top of that, you know, if
you're not staying in one place for a certain amount
of time. Even though tools like social media can certainly
(06:52):
help bridge this gap these days, but you can't stick
around to build a professional network. That's another you know,
making those kinds of face to face contacts with people
in your field is also important. So that's yet another
challenge that a lot of spouses face. And so the
Department of Defense offers some very practical advice of hey,
(07:14):
why don't you consider more portable careers such as news
writing or marketing, teaching, nursing, you know, the types of
jobs where no matter where you go, there's a good
chance that people will need those skills sets. But even
though that's very practical advice, the Department of Defense hasn't
(07:36):
done necessarily the best job of going beyond just like, hey,
well you know, just get out, get out there can
good luck, right, Yeah, the Department of Defense would tell
you that their career advancement programs are great and a
wonderful resource. And I'm sure they are. However, um, more
than forty of military spouses report that they are either
(07:57):
dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with these d O D sponsored
employee assistance programs, while only twelve percent said the program's
actually helped them find a job. And like one of
the one of the articles we read, I think it
was from ABC News was talking to a military wife
who was an engineer, So you would think, like, oh, man, engineer,
you can get a great job. Well, you know, if
(08:19):
you moved to a small town. Not necessarily, And we
should mention though that as of when we're recording this podcast. Uh,
the White House just announced that First Lady Michelle Obama
and her initiative that she's been leading called Joining Forces,
is launching a new website to help specifically veterans and
(08:41):
military spouses with finding jobs setting up resumes. It sounds
sort of like almost like a monster dot com for
military folks. So here's hoping that that can be helpful.
So hopefully that will perhaps improve these numbers somewhat. Yeah. Well, Um,
a study in human performance back into thousand seven looked
at some of the factors that tie into what they
(09:04):
call job search self efficacy, basically your ability to go
out and get yourself a job. And they found that,
you know, there's some things that are positively related to
to your your success rate, and that's things like current
employment status, education level, financial resources, the kind of stuff
that you would typically think of what's negatively related to
military spouses being able to find work um and I
(09:26):
feel like this is true for a lot of families,
not just military families, but it's that whole family responsibility variable,
for example, the number of children you have, the financial
resources at your disposal. The big one is childcare conflict.
You know, can I work but also find someone to
take care of my kids? But if we move out
of the employment sphere and into more of the home front,
(09:51):
one of the one of the issues that comes up
for military spouses is the issue of infidelity, especially when
we're dealing with someone who has an active duty spouse
who might be deployed for twelve months at a time.
What happens when you are living separately like that. I
mean when when the General Patreus sex scandal slash affair
(10:16):
splashed across all of the headlines, you know that it's
sort of the the it's sort of embodied this stereotype
of the infidelity happening within military couples. Yeah, it really
is a huge stereotype. And um, military spouse Alison buck
Holtz talked to uh, some fellow military spouses for Slate
(10:40):
back in November, and this is right after the whole
Petraeus affair hit the fan. Uh. Everybody was talking about,
you know, loyalty both to your country and your military
as well as to your spouse. Um. And anyway, Buckles
was saying that most military spouses I've heard from say
plainly marriage is hard, regardless of the circumstances, but that
(11:03):
the military environment seems to exacerbate the normal tensions that
couples face, you know, whether that's money, whether that's children,
or whether that's as she says, extracurricular sexual activities. Yeah,
and she was talking to about how a lot of
the military spouses were reticent to talk specifically about that affair,
(11:25):
not so much out of loyalty to the military, but
loyalty specifically to petray Us his wife, because once you
get into you know, if you're living on a base
and you know you're these women are your primary social outlet,
and you do form the the spouses seem to form
loyalty is just among themselves, like within their civilian ranks.
(11:48):
I thought that was kind of interesting to see. Um.
But on on a related note, former military spouse Kate Sukal,
who wrote a book Dirty Minds, How Our Brains Influenced love,
sex and Relationships, talked about this concept called home team
versus away team, which she encountered while she was living
(12:09):
on a base in Germany. So it's basically like, Okay,
while your husband's living at home, then that's the home team.
And then when he when he goes away, then he
goes to his other secret family. Yeah, basically like he
might have. It could be just women that he has
sex with or whatever, but it could also be that
(12:29):
he has an entire yeah, like family overseas somewhere. But
one thing that wasn't brought up in any of these
articles I will say is there's no comparison of in
like rates of infidelity among military couples versus rates of
infidelity among couples wherein there's a lot of business travel,
you know what I mean, Or musician who's touring a
(12:50):
lot or whatever. It might be couples who are separated
for whatever reason, I'm sure the big influencing factor here
is not the military, but of a travel whatever that
travel is, whether it is a long business trip or
whether it is a deployment, right or I mean, like
if you are deployed and you're in the military, and
(13:11):
I'm sure it could be easy in a way to
start a relationship with someone who was also in the military,
who you know, might might be experiencing the same kind
of stress, possibly being shot at, possibly you know, knowing
secrets that you wouldn't be able to go home and
share with your spouse, right Well, Suchal says that it's
that whole culture of secrecy that makes it easier for
(13:34):
people to keep their friends infidelity a secret. So you know,
if you're buddy knows that you're cheating on your wife
or whatever, um, you know, he's going to protect that knowledge.
Well and on. I don't want to stay on a
similar note because it's definitely not uh, it's definitely more
(13:56):
serious than just basic infidelity. But one thing I was
curious about when when reading about military spouses was how
all of these conversations that have been going on about
the issue of sexual assault within the military, how that
relates to the issues that military spouses are facing. Because
the military spouses are hearing I'm sure about these issues
(14:17):
of sexual assault within the military, then it has the
ven diagram at some point has to overlap. Well. Coming
from the Department of Defense itself, Um, they do say
that they want to expand legal assistance for military spouses
and adult military dependence to be able to file confidential
(14:37):
reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and
a sexual assault response coordinator if and when abuse happens
in the home. Yeah, and just to clarify, when I
said those VENN diagrams overlap, I meant more in terms
of conversation conversations about the issue of sexual assault and
what to do about that happening among military spouses. I
(14:59):
was not going to imply that eventually military spouses will
abuse in one way or another their civilian spouses. But
in instances when that does happen, as in the case
of a woman named Bobby Hearn who is now divorced
from a marine, when those instances do happen, the military
also has been slow to respond, if at all, when
(15:25):
military wives have you know, reported issues of spousal abuse
or even spousal rape. Yeah, because there's that it's kind
of you know, closing closing ranks. It's it's kind of
that that desire to protect protect our own, you know.
There there's there's kind of anecdotally there's attitudes of like,
you know, maybe you should just do what's best for
(15:46):
your military husband, um and not report this. And so
there is a huge push to be able to protect
the civilian spouses of military members. Yeah, and it's not
only this issue of not reporting cases of sexual assault
or abuse, but if in one that does happen, similar
to sexual assault cases that happen within military ranks just
(16:09):
being shut down, just not being investigated. And you know,
they're all these initiatives now largely being led by a
Senator Kirsten gilla Brand and Barbara Boxer to try to
reform this and actually get have some kind of advocacy
for sexual assault victims that aren't people within their ranks. UM.
So they're trying to extend that to to civilian spouses.
(16:33):
And I mentioned Bobby Harran because she's sort of becoming
like a public face in a way of the civilian
side of the sexual assault issue within the military, because
you know, if it's happening. You know, it's not just
issues that are happening with em barracks, but also perhaps
within you know, people's homes on the base. And because
she's working with Gilla Brand to right, right, she's working
(16:53):
with Jilla Brand and Barbara Boxer. And she had been
repeatedly abused, allegedly and raped by her now ex husband,
and the Army did nothing, or i should say the
Marines because he was a marine. It did really nothing
to pursue the case or to separate the husband from
(17:14):
heron And it wasn't until the senators got involved that
all of a sudden, Oh, now the Marines are starting
to pay attention, right, And it's because of things like
this um that there was an article over on spouse
buzz dot com talking about how military families do need
to work together to support service members and the military,
(17:34):
but they write, we also need to give military initiatives
a chance to evolve and adapt and to speak up
when we see something awry. We need to encourage our
spouses to do the same too, regardless of the perceived consequences.
So let's talk a little bit more than about the
psychological effects of living in these environments, because as you
(17:56):
can imagine, living ah a military life or living a
life with a military spouse is a bit different than
just a run of the mill civilian life. And we'll
get into those issues when we come right back from
a quick break and meal back to the show. So
(18:23):
Kristen was just introducing the issue of the psychological and
mental health effects that military spouses encounter. And one study
looking at this area was back from two thousand six
in the journal Armed Forces and Society UM looking at
four military lifestyle demands which were risk of service member
(18:45):
injury or death, frequent relocations, periodic separations, and foreign residents,
and the relationships of those for lifestyle demands to the
four factors of psychological well being, physical well being, satisfaction
with the army, and marital satisfaction. They found that the
impact of separations, for instance, was negatively related to all
(19:07):
four satisfaction areas. So it's that separation that really has
a negative mental and emotional impact on military spouses, but
the impact of moving was negatively related to satisfaction with
the army, and fear for soldier safety was negatively related
to physical well being. And closing out those four military
(19:28):
lifestyle demands foreign residents was negatively related to physical and
psychological well being. So these are things that military spouses,
their service member spouses, and also their primary care physicians
need to keep in mind during these tumultuous times of
moving and stuff. Yeah, and one study finding that really
(19:49):
surprised me came out of the journal Military Medicine UM
in two thousand eight, and it found that military spouses
present with mental health concerns in including suicide, at the
same rate as service members. And the stigma that we
often hear about around mental health within the military, reluctance
to um come forward if you are dealing with issues
(20:12):
of anxiety depression PTSD. That stigma also extends, according to
the American Psychiatric Association, to military spouses as well, with
sixty six reporting that they fear seeking assistance would harm
the military career of their spouse. They think that if
they come forward and say I am horribly depressed, this
is terrible military life is killing me from the inside out,
(20:35):
that it will then, you know, somehow have a harmful
effect on what their spous their spouses rank. Yeah, that
surprised me too. So you're not only dealing with the
isolation of you know, your spouse being overseas maybe, or
or being away, but you're also dealing with that isolation
of feeling like you can't reach out UM and Similarly,
(20:55):
the New England Journal of Medicine and found that a
lot of military spouses suffer what they call secondary traumatic
stress UM. Basically that when they analyze the records of
about two hundred and fifty thousand spouses of US active
duty soldiers from two thousand three to two thousand six,
they found that multiple or prolonged deployments of service members
(21:19):
led to a greater risk of depressive anxiety, sleep and
acute stress reaction and adjustment disorders among those service members spouses.
And while spouses of service members who were deployed for
up to eleven months presented more frequently at military health
clinics UM and received mental health diagnoses at a higher
rate than spouses of military service members who were not deployed,
(21:43):
it's the spouses of service members who were deployed for
twelve months or longer who received the most mental health diagnoses,
which were at a rate of twenty higher than those
without a deployed spouse. See it's interesting to see the
results of these studies that are conducted in depend didn't
from the military because there's this massive Department of Defense report,
(22:05):
the one that we sided the fantastic bedside reading that
we sided at the top of the podcast. When you
look into what the d o D reports, it was
actually the exact opposite in terms of deployment. They reported
that the longer the deployment was correlated with the higher
predictability of the military couple staying together, which I thought
(22:29):
would have been the exact opposite. But they also sort
of under reported unemployment among military spouses. It seems like
all of the most negative aspects or underplay a little bit.
It would well that. I mean that ties into things
that we've talked about on the podcast before as far
as like how accurate is self reporting and how accurate
(22:50):
is self reporting when the person you're self reporting too
is your employer, right yeah, or your spouses employer right um.
But just to give a little context to deployment, to
to find out how many people are affected by this
of military spouses are separated from soldiers for twelve months
(23:11):
or longer, largely due to deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan,
and even when the soldier might come home and you expect, Oh,
then that's great, right, everything's totally fine. Actually, that readjustment
period of being home can be even more challenging than
the time of part because, as you can imagine, hopping
(23:31):
right back from a war zone back home is not
so smooth, as we have seen from the escalating rates
of suicidality alcohol abuse PTSD among soldiers returning back to
the home front. In terms of kids, the Department of
Defense reports that most of them cope fine, which again
(23:52):
grain of salt a little bit, because this is coming
from the Department of Defense. I can't imagine the US
military be like, the kids are suffering, what are we
gonna do, Let's bring everyone home. Oh wait, no, we
can't do that. But they did acknowledge that among the
oldest kids, apparently a tenth to a five reported serious
coping problems that you see with you know, behavioral issues,
(24:13):
problems with grades in school, etcetera. Yeah, well, I mean
that's a lot of emotional turmoil. Oh absolutely, I mean
I remember when my oldest brother was deployed to Iraq
the first time around for yie old Persian Gulf War
way back when, and even though the casualties for and
a length of that war were it was very small,
(24:35):
but still just like the stress level in our household
was massive, where my mother was always on edge. Absolutely well,
military husbands, we have not forgotten about you, although according
to Career Builder, you're feeling pretty invisible at the moment.
An article back in talked to male military spouses UM
(24:58):
who basically were saying that they feel really alienated basically
from the female dominated spouses club sometimes just called wives clubs,
and they struggle to find a community that knows what
they're going through. UM. A lot of guys said, you know,
I was handed a spouse manual that was pink, or
(25:18):
all the articles out there are telling women what kind
of high heels to wear for a homecoming celebration. That
doesn't really help me. Um. There's also the issue of
that whole gender role reversal, that it's it's the warrior
wife going off shooting the big guns and the husbands
staying at home changing the diapers, and the idea that
(25:38):
that stay at home dad nows is so hard to
adjust to, and perhaps because of those complications of the
gender identity of maybe feeling even more isolated as sometimes
lone male military spouse. The rates of divorce for uh,
(25:58):
female soldiers married to civilian male civilians is much higher
than when you flip it for the more traditional uh
you know, male military male soldier married to civilian wife.
In fact, the divorce rate from female military personnel is
more than twice as high um. And they think that
(26:19):
it might be because of the gender issues, but also
because women are likelier to marry someone else in the military,
and when it comes to civilian husbands, they're also less
likely to be employed than military wives, So that probably
only compounds all of those stressors that we've been talking
about even more so. Yeah, as Scott Stanley put it,
(26:41):
he's a military family expert and a professor at the
University of Denver. Um, people don't even know or understand
the male role when it's the wife who's deployed. And
he said that a lot of these men are sort
of swimming in a whole new part of the pool
without really knowing exactly where to go or what to do,
or what sort of support to seek. Because I mean,
(27:02):
if you just google military wives, there are a ton
of websites there's military spouse, There's like all this stuff
out there for wives to help you not spend too
much money at the commissary, to help you connect with
other military wives. But there's really not a whole lot
of stuff out there for dudes. Yeah, I mean, there's
even one military husband, in fact, I don't have his
name in front of me recently started a website called
(27:24):
Macho Spouse specifically to help out other military husbands in
his shoes because he was like, I don't you know
all this pink stuff and and ladies parties, I don't
know what to do and and even too. I mean,
these are similar issues that come up in conversations with
stay at home dads, where if you are taking care
(27:45):
of the kids and you want to play date, it's
not always so easy to reach out to military wives
because then, um, you know, it might send the wrong
message or something. So yeah, so there, I think there
are more re sources now. It's sort of catching up
to the rising role of women in the military. But
speaking of resources catching up to different types of military families,
(28:12):
one thing we also wanted to look into was how
the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell not so long
ago and the more recent repeal of the Defensive Marriage
Act has impacted LGBT couples in the military, whether or
not gay and lesbian military spouses are receiving all the
(28:33):
same kinds of benefits as their straight civilian counterparts. Yes.
Steven Peters, who's the president of the American Military Partner Association,
wade about this for Huffington's post, and he talks about
how you know, it's it's great that Don't Ask, Don't
Tell was repealed, but was questioning whether, like Kristen said,
(28:54):
are are the benefits actually catching up to the legislation
um because those gay military families aren't always given the
same support and benefits that their straight counterparts are getting.
But it's worth pointing out that Peters was writing before
the Defensive Marriage Act was repealed. Yeah, with the repeal
(29:15):
of DOMA, that eliminated the federal distinction between head reseexual
couples and same sex couples. And so now the official
line in the US military is that no matter what
your coupling looks like, married couples in the military will
all receive the same access to the subsidized housing child
(29:40):
care tri care, which is the military's healthcare. And before this,
I mean, this is a giant boon to LGBT families
in the military, because before this you weren't guaranteed if
you were a military spouse that you would be able
to live on base with your spouse. You would not
receive try care, you would not receive help with childcare,
(30:01):
and all of these, you know, very important benefits that
military families receive and should receive for you know, the
service that they're offering UM and so DOMA has been
huge to kind of circle, like I guess, sort of
closed the gap with don't ask, don't tell, actually enacted,
you know, and give them the benefits they were missing
(30:22):
out on. Although there have been issues, particularly within the
National Guard. This was reported on recently in The New
York Times about how on a state by state basis,
particularly ones where gay marriage is not legal, there have
been issues within the National Guard of issuing ID cards
to gay military spouses. Right this was an article in
(30:44):
The New York Times that pointed out that nine states Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia said that the issuing
of I D cards violated their state constitutions and would
not provide had them at National Guard facilities which fall
under state control. Oh. But in addition to these kinds
(31:06):
of efforts to sort of rectify the situations for l
GPT military families that have only until recently been you know,
receiving unequal benefits, if any benefits at all. Um, there
are several efforts to support military families, particularly in a
(31:26):
time where the military has endured a lot of budget
cuts which has trickled down to military families. Mean, we
mentioned earlier that five thousand active duty families are food
stamp eligible. Um. And if you are in a military family,
even though you might receive a lot of government benefits,
(31:47):
that does not mean that you probably aren't living on
a pretty tight budget. Right. And at the top of
the podcast, Kristen mentioned Joining Forces, which is that national
initiative lad by the First Lady and Jill Biden Uh
to engage society basically to help our service members and
(32:09):
their families get a leg up, basically give them the
opportunities and the support that they have earned. So they
have initiatives that involve education, employment, and wellness. Their goals
involve bringing attention to the unique needs of America's military families,
but also as they say, UH, to inspire, educate, and
(32:29):
spark action from all sectors of society to ensure that
veterans and military families have the opportunities, resources and support
that they have earned. I mean, and that sounds fantastic
for sure, and for I mean, for commissioned officers in
the military, the situation is a lot better. But you
have to remember too that these days, a lot of
times the soldiers who are enlisting typically come from lower
(32:52):
social and economic areas. They are typically not as educated,
they don't have as many resources walking in to this
as someone who is perhaps going straight into college, going
to go on that more traditional career path and so um.
And that it trickles down to, you know, their spouses
into their families. Mean, a lot of these UH couples
(33:15):
also have children they're caring for as well, and so
these kinds of resources are are very important to them.
I mean, they're even base wide baby showers that organizations
will host just to make sure that military wives have
enough diapers and onesies and all these things, because it's
(33:38):
not easy living on a military paycheck at all. Absolutely um.
And you know, one thing we were discussing, UH regarding
the whole employment issue was the fact that when you're moving,
it's hard to develop those professional networks that that can
help you get a leg up. Well, a judge who
is a military spouse started the Military Spouse j D
(34:01):
network as a basically support and professional network for lawyers
who are trying to maintain legal careers while supporting military spouses.
So it's not only a support network in terms of like, hey,
let's go get a drink and hang out and be friends,
it's also literally like a networking uh support group to
help you get a job when you move. And looking
(34:22):
from a more general perspective, military dot com slash spouse
has an entire checklist and overview about all the concerns, responsibilities,
services and resources that surround military families, particularly spouses and
Military family dot org how scholarship resources and Kristen mentioned
Macho spouse earlier the web. The web address for that
(34:43):
is male mill spouse dot org. If you are a
military husband wanting to hang out and play golf with
some buddies, Yeah, I mean, I think if there's one
big takeaway from this episode, it's that I think, on
the over the course of stuff, I'm never told you
We've talked about all different kinds of families and family
(35:05):
dynamics and this is this is just another one of them.
And I think from the outside looking in, you might
not initially be aware of all of the myriad issues
that are happening, you know, within these military homes. I mean,
I can't imagine relationships, Caroline, are challenging enough. I just
(35:31):
you know, to throw the military into that, to throw
a war into that, to throw just probably living in
a more remote area on a fort somewhere, I can
only imagine how challenging that has to be and how
dedicated you have to be to that lifestyle, to your partner,
to your family to make it work. So I cannot
(35:54):
wait to hear from our military spouses out there. What
issues are you dealing with? You know? Does any of
the stuff that we talked about ring true? Are you
an exception to any of these rules? Yeah? And if
there are any uh LGBT military spouses listening, um who
can fill us in on whether or not your needs
are truly now being met as they should be under
(36:18):
the letter of the law post don't ask, don't tell, DMA.
We also would love to hear from you, mom, stuff
at Discovery dot Com is where you can email us
or you can tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts, and
you can also message us on Facebook as well. And
we've got a couple of messages to share with you
right now. So we've been hearing a lot about our
(36:40):
two parter on women in video games, and we've got
a couple of those messages right now. This one comes
from Natalie, subject line Lady gamers and the Fallout series.
She writes, after listening to part two of Women in
Video Games, I was genuinely surprised you didn't touch upon
the Fallout series. My man friend and actually turned me
(37:00):
onto the game as he was a huge fan of
the PC games as a child. When I started playing
Fallout three and subsequently Fallout three New Vegas, one of
the most exciting aspects of the games was that I
got to customize my avatar. I could play as male
or female, and could also choose my race for ethnicity.
Being a Hispanic woman, nothing was more exciting than seeing
(37:21):
my clearly Latina avatar kicking butt on screen. The gamemakers
went even farther when it came to gender equality, especially
in New Vegas. There are various storylines in which you
interact with prostitutes and exotic dancers. They're always both male
and female characters in these lines of works. I had
never before seen a digital magic Mike doing his thing
(37:43):
until playing Fallout. There are also plenty of depictions of
women in power, female bosses, and women of military rank.
There's even a lesbian couple the protagonist interacts with. To
top it off, the villains in New Vegas are the
only misogynists I can remember in either of the two games.
As you can imagine, the series quickly became one of
my favorites. Not only are the games well made, but
(38:04):
the storylines are compelling and the action is pretty awesome.
If you get a chance, I would definitely suggest playing
this series, So thanks for the recommendation. Natalie. Okay, Well,
Lindsay has a letter that makes me want to do
a Hulk smash um. She writes them to say I
wanted to offer a personal story about being a woman
who loves her video games. For me, the sexism I've
(38:26):
experienced comes from those outside of the activity rather than
within it. My most recent example was when I was
serving a couple and happened to mention that I love
to spend my sundays eating pizza, watching football, and playing Madden.
The man of the couple and I had a brief,
enthusiastic conversation about video games and football, and he said, well,
the boys must love you. I laughed and began to
(38:46):
walk away, only to hear him lean into his girlfriend
and say, that's the kind of woman you want to
hook up with, not the kind you want to marry. Yeah,
and to that, I say, lindsay, it's probably because you're adorable,
and he wanted to for his girlfriend in case she
was jealous about your exchange about video games. But anyway,
she says. I consider myself fairly feminine. I love fashion,
(39:08):
my makeup, and baking, but I also love video games,
comic books, and I'm a martial arts instructor and competitor.
People often get hung up on the more masculine activities
I enjoy, making comments to some effect that I am
less suitable for a long term relationship because of them.
The fact that I'm a black belt received similar reactions.
I've had men who were hitting on me physically move
away when I mentioned what I do. I've also had
(39:30):
men and women ask me if it is hard for
me to find a guy. The assumption is a man
would not want to be with me because I could
beat him up again. Overall, I find little sexism within
the activities I participate in that are traditionally more masculine,
and far more judgment outside of them. The worst part
is that the assumptions aren't about me as an individual,
but about my value as someone's future wife. So I'm
(39:54):
sorry you have to deal with that, Lindsay, but thank
you for writing in, and thanks again to everyone who's
written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us and if you want links
to all of our social media presences, every single one
of our podcast, blogs and videos, there's one place to go,
and it's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For
(40:17):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and today we're tackling a topic that
has been requested by several of our listeners, and that
is military spouses. We also want to point out that
(00:24):
May ninth is Military Spouse Appreciation Day here in the US,
so a shout out to all of our spouses out there,
male and female alike. Yeah, And so, to kick things off,
as we often do on the podcast, let's talk about
who we are referring to when it comes to military spouses. Surprise, surprise,
(00:45):
it is largely women. Um. A lot of these statistics
are coming from the two thousand twelve Demographics Report for
the Department of Defense, which is some scintillating uh bedside reading. Yeah,
I must say it. It's a lot. It's a lot
of a lot of percentages, many percentages, and and women
(01:07):
make up of military spouses, right, and and military husbands
don't worry, we will not leave you out. But we
just wanted to throw out a few of those stats
to get started. But looking at who's married in the military,
fifty about fifty six percent of active duty military members
are married, which is down from six And if you
(01:30):
look at the gender split, fifty eight percent of active
duty men and nearly have fort of active duty women
are married. Now, when you look at inter military marriages,
six point three of the Department of Defenses active duty
members are in dual military marriages. Yeah, and female soldiers
(01:50):
are a lot likelier to marry soldiers compared to male
soldiers marrying other soldiers. So when it comes to ages,
not so surprisingly. When you consider how young people are
generally enlisted into the military, it follows that military spouses,
typically wives are a bit younger as well. Um, the
(02:13):
largest proportion of them twenty three point five percent are
between twenty six and thirty years old, and then just
under that eight percent are twenty five years old and younger.
But you do have military spouses of all ages. It
just so happens that it's a little more frontloaded. Yeah, exactly. Um,
(02:34):
And so you know, I mentioned that we had gotten
more than one request to to talk about military spouses,
mostly wives, and and why is that? And you know,
we did get letters from a lot of people talking
about some of the issues they faced as a military spouse,
but as krist and I were doing reading of our own.
It is so clear that if you were a military
(02:56):
spouse you face a lot of challenges. And a bit
one which has also been in the news a lot
over the past year or so is employment. Yeah, and
this is something from my civilian perspective I hadn't thought
about at all. I assumed that military spouse probably issues
of deployment, you know, just living within a military structure
(03:18):
probably pretty hard. And we'll get into those issues. But
employment is a massive one. At nine in fact of
military wives in particular are either unemployed or under employed,
and that was coming from a study out of the
Military Officers Association of America study that was published in
(03:39):
March two thousand fourteen, and so that represents more than
six hundred thousand women. And on top of that, nearly
five thousand active duty military families are food stamp eligible. Yeah.
And one thing um that's worth mentioning is that military spouses,
military wives in particular have to deal a lot of stereotypes.
(04:01):
And one of those stereotypes is that they are lazy,
or there's somehow freeloaders, or they don't want to work
with their opportunists and they just want the benefits that
come along with having a spouse in the military, when
the reality has a lot more to do with, like
Kristen said, the fact that when you're part of a
military family, you're going to move a lot, which presents
(04:22):
so many problems, including licensing issues. For instance, more than
half of active duty military spouses work in fields that
require state licensing or certification, and about licensed military spouses
have had to renew their license after a cross country move.
And this whole licensing thing is a big deal because
it is costly, and it's time consuming and often frustrating.
(04:44):
Think about if you're a lawyer moving from state to state,
you've got to take the bar how many times exactly?
And for that reason, almost six of military wives who
are surveyed feared that their partners active duty status would
scare off potential employers who are like, oh, no, you're
just gonna up and move in six months or less,
(05:05):
so we don't want to hire you. So there are
issues of employment gaps, the frequent job changes, and of course,
you know all of those cross country moves that these
military wives are having to deal with in their search
for employment. And on top of that too, there are
a lot of educational issues that are preceding this. UM.
(05:28):
There are a lot of them who only have either
high school diploma g e D or even less right
and just thirty have at least some college credit uh,
compared to one person who have a doctoral degree. And
when you look at the military spouses who are searching
(05:48):
for work, actively searching for work, UM, these people, when
they get into jobs, endure frequent employment gaps and earn
about thirty eight percent less than their civilian counterparts because
they're often not able to take advantage of maybe more stable,
high paying jobs where you would naturally, over the course
(06:08):
of a few years, rise up in the ranks, get promoted,
get raises, all that stuff. If you're moving, you don't
necessarily have that opportunity. For instance, UM, when I worked
in Augusta at the newspaper, there's four gordon there, and
one of the news writers was a military wife, and
whenever she and her husband would move, she would get
a job at the local town's newspaper. And so that's great,
(06:30):
and that's wonderful that she has that training and has
that ability to get a job at a newspaper. But
on the other hand, you know, if you're moving frequently,
you're not going to become the news editor, or you're
not going to become you know, enter into a higher
paying position. And on top of that, you know, if
you're not staying in one place for a certain amount
of time. Even though tools like social media can certainly
(06:52):
help bridge this gap these days, but you can't stick
around to build a professional network. That's another you know,
making those kinds of face to face contacts with people
in your field is also important. So that's yet another
challenge that a lot of spouses face. And so the
Department of Defense offers some very practical advice of hey,
(07:14):
why don't you consider more portable careers such as news
writing or marketing, teaching, nursing, you know, the types of
jobs where no matter where you go, there's a good
chance that people will need those skills sets. But even
though that's very practical advice, the Department of Defense hasn't
(07:36):
done necessarily the best job of going beyond just like, hey,
well you know, just get out, get out there can
good luck, right, Yeah, the Department of Defense would tell
you that their career advancement programs are great and a
wonderful resource. And I'm sure they are. However, um, more
than forty of military spouses report that they are either
(07:57):
dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with these d O D sponsored
employee assistance programs, while only twelve percent said the program's
actually helped them find a job. And like one of
the one of the articles we read, I think it
was from ABC News was talking to a military wife
who was an engineer, So you would think, like, oh, man, engineer,
you can get a great job. Well, you know, if
(08:19):
you moved to a small town. Not necessarily, And we
should mention though that as of when we're recording this podcast. Uh,
the White House just announced that First Lady Michelle Obama
and her initiative that she's been leading called Joining Forces,
is launching a new website to help specifically veterans and
(08:41):
military spouses with finding jobs setting up resumes. It sounds
sort of like almost like a monster dot com for
military folks. So here's hoping that that can be helpful.
So hopefully that will perhaps improve these numbers somewhat. Yeah. Well, Um,
a study in human performance back into thousand seven looked
at some of the factors that tie into what they
(09:04):
call job search self efficacy, basically your ability to go
out and get yourself a job. And they found that,
you know, there's some things that are positively related to
to your your success rate, and that's things like current
employment status, education level, financial resources, the kind of stuff
that you would typically think of what's negatively related to
military spouses being able to find work um and I
(09:26):
feel like this is true for a lot of families,
not just military families, but it's that whole family responsibility variable,
for example, the number of children you have, the financial
resources at your disposal. The big one is childcare conflict.
You know, can I work but also find someone to
take care of my kids? But if we move out
of the employment sphere and into more of the home front,
(09:51):
one of the one of the issues that comes up
for military spouses is the issue of infidelity, especially when
we're dealing with someone who has an active duty spouse
who might be deployed for twelve months at a time.
What happens when you are living separately like that. I
mean when when the General Patreus sex scandal slash affair
(10:16):
splashed across all of the headlines, you know that it's
sort of the the it's sort of embodied this stereotype
of the infidelity happening within military couples. Yeah, it really
is a huge stereotype. And um, military spouse Alison buck
Holtz talked to uh, some fellow military spouses for Slate
(10:40):
back in November, and this is right after the whole
Petraeus affair hit the fan. Uh. Everybody was talking about,
you know, loyalty both to your country and your military
as well as to your spouse. Um. And anyway, Buckles
was saying that most military spouses I've heard from say
plainly marriage is hard, regardless of the circumstances, but that
(11:03):
the military environment seems to exacerbate the normal tensions that
couples face, you know, whether that's money, whether that's children,
or whether that's as she says, extracurricular sexual activities. Yeah,
and she was talking to about how a lot of
the military spouses were reticent to talk specifically about that affair,
(11:25):
not so much out of loyalty to the military, but
loyalty specifically to petray Us his wife, because once you
get into you know, if you're living on a base
and you know you're these women are your primary social outlet,
and you do form the the spouses seem to form
loyalty is just among themselves, like within their civilian ranks.
(11:48):
I thought that was kind of interesting to see. Um.
But on on a related note, former military spouse Kate Sukal,
who wrote a book Dirty Minds, How Our Brains Influenced love,
sex and Relationships, talked about this concept called home team
versus away team, which she encountered while she was living
(12:09):
on a base in Germany. So it's basically like, Okay,
while your husband's living at home, then that's the home team.
And then when he when he goes away, then he
goes to his other secret family. Yeah, basically like he
might have. It could be just women that he has
sex with or whatever, but it could also be that
(12:29):
he has an entire yeah, like family overseas somewhere. But
one thing that wasn't brought up in any of these
articles I will say is there's no comparison of in
like rates of infidelity among military couples versus rates of
infidelity among couples wherein there's a lot of business travel,
you know what I mean, Or musician who's touring a
(12:50):
lot or whatever. It might be couples who are separated
for whatever reason, I'm sure the big influencing factor here
is not the military, but of a travel whatever that
travel is, whether it is a long business trip or
whether it is a deployment, right or I mean, like
if you are deployed and you're in the military, and
(13:11):
I'm sure it could be easy in a way to
start a relationship with someone who was also in the military,
who you know, might might be experiencing the same kind
of stress, possibly being shot at, possibly you know, knowing
secrets that you wouldn't be able to go home and
share with your spouse, right Well, Suchal says that it's
that whole culture of secrecy that makes it easier for
(13:34):
people to keep their friends infidelity a secret. So you know,
if you're buddy knows that you're cheating on your wife
or whatever, um, you know, he's going to protect that knowledge.
Well and on. I don't want to stay on a
similar note because it's definitely not uh, it's definitely more
(13:56):
serious than just basic infidelity. But one thing I was
curious about when when reading about military spouses was how
all of these conversations that have been going on about
the issue of sexual assault within the military, how that
relates to the issues that military spouses are facing. Because
the military spouses are hearing I'm sure about these issues
(14:17):
of sexual assault within the military, then it has the
ven diagram at some point has to overlap. Well. Coming
from the Department of Defense itself, Um, they do say
that they want to expand legal assistance for military spouses
and adult military dependence to be able to file confidential
(14:37):
reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and
a sexual assault response coordinator if and when abuse happens
in the home. Yeah, and just to clarify, when I
said those VENN diagrams overlap, I meant more in terms
of conversation conversations about the issue of sexual assault and
what to do about that happening among military spouses. I
(14:59):
was not going to imply that eventually military spouses will
abuse in one way or another their civilian spouses. But
in instances when that does happen, as in the case
of a woman named Bobby Hearn who is now divorced
from a marine, when those instances do happen, the military
also has been slow to respond, if at all, when
(15:25):
military wives have you know, reported issues of spousal abuse
or even spousal rape. Yeah, because there's that it's kind
of you know, closing closing ranks. It's it's kind of
that that desire to protect protect our own, you know.
There there's there's kind of anecdotally there's attitudes of like,
you know, maybe you should just do what's best for
(15:46):
your military husband, um and not report this. And so
there is a huge push to be able to protect
the civilian spouses of military members. Yeah, and it's not
only this issue of not reporting cases of sexual assault
or abuse, but if in one that does happen, similar
to sexual assault cases that happen within military ranks just
(16:09):
being shut down, just not being investigated. And you know,
they're all these initiatives now largely being led by a
Senator Kirsten gilla Brand and Barbara Boxer to try to
reform this and actually get have some kind of advocacy
for sexual assault victims that aren't people within their ranks. UM.
So they're trying to extend that to to civilian spouses.
(16:33):
And I mentioned Bobby Harran because she's sort of becoming
like a public face in a way of the civilian
side of the sexual assault issue within the military, because
you know, if it's happening. You know, it's not just
issues that are happening with em barracks, but also perhaps
within you know, people's homes on the base. And because
she's working with Gilla Brand to right, right, she's working
(16:53):
with Jilla Brand and Barbara Boxer. And she had been
repeatedly abused, allegedly and raped by her now ex husband,
and the Army did nothing, or i should say the
Marines because he was a marine. It did really nothing
to pursue the case or to separate the husband from
(17:14):
heron And it wasn't until the senators got involved that
all of a sudden, Oh, now the Marines are starting
to pay attention, right, And it's because of things like
this um that there was an article over on spouse
buzz dot com talking about how military families do need
to work together to support service members and the military,
(17:34):
but they write, we also need to give military initiatives
a chance to evolve and adapt and to speak up
when we see something awry. We need to encourage our
spouses to do the same too, regardless of the perceived consequences.
So let's talk a little bit more than about the
psychological effects of living in these environments, because as you
(17:56):
can imagine, living ah a military life or living a
life with a military spouse is a bit different than
just a run of the mill civilian life. And we'll
get into those issues when we come right back from
a quick break and meal back to the show. So
(18:23):
Kristen was just introducing the issue of the psychological and
mental health effects that military spouses encounter. And one study
looking at this area was back from two thousand six
in the journal Armed Forces and Society UM looking at
four military lifestyle demands which were risk of service member
(18:45):
injury or death, frequent relocations, periodic separations, and foreign residents,
and the relationships of those for lifestyle demands to the
four factors of psychological well being, physical well being, satisfaction
with the army, and marital satisfaction. They found that the
impact of separations, for instance, was negatively related to all
(19:07):
four satisfaction areas. So it's that separation that really has
a negative mental and emotional impact on military spouses, but
the impact of moving was negatively related to satisfaction with
the army, and fear for soldier safety was negatively related
to physical well being. And closing out those four military
(19:28):
lifestyle demands foreign residents was negatively related to physical and
psychological well being. So these are things that military spouses,
their service member spouses, and also their primary care physicians
need to keep in mind during these tumultuous times of
moving and stuff. Yeah, and one study finding that really
(19:49):
surprised me came out of the journal Military Medicine UM
in two thousand eight, and it found that military spouses
present with mental health concerns in including suicide, at the
same rate as service members. And the stigma that we
often hear about around mental health within the military, reluctance
to um come forward if you are dealing with issues
(20:12):
of anxiety depression PTSD. That stigma also extends, according to
the American Psychiatric Association, to military spouses as well, with
sixty six reporting that they fear seeking assistance would harm
the military career of their spouse. They think that if
they come forward and say I am horribly depressed, this
is terrible military life is killing me from the inside out,
(20:35):
that it will then, you know, somehow have a harmful
effect on what their spous their spouses rank. Yeah, that
surprised me too. So you're not only dealing with the
isolation of you know, your spouse being overseas maybe, or
or being away, but you're also dealing with that isolation
of feeling like you can't reach out UM and Similarly,
(20:55):
the New England Journal of Medicine and found that a
lot of military spouses suffer what they call secondary traumatic
stress UM. Basically that when they analyze the records of
about two hundred and fifty thousand spouses of US active
duty soldiers from two thousand three to two thousand six,
they found that multiple or prolonged deployments of service members
(21:19):
led to a greater risk of depressive anxiety, sleep and
acute stress reaction and adjustment disorders among those service members spouses.
And while spouses of service members who were deployed for
up to eleven months presented more frequently at military health
clinics UM and received mental health diagnoses at a higher
rate than spouses of military service members who were not deployed,
(21:43):
it's the spouses of service members who were deployed for
twelve months or longer who received the most mental health diagnoses,
which were at a rate of twenty higher than those
without a deployed spouse. See it's interesting to see the
results of these studies that are conducted in depend didn't
from the military because there's this massive Department of Defense report,
(22:05):
the one that we sided the fantastic bedside reading that
we sided at the top of the podcast. When you
look into what the d o D reports, it was
actually the exact opposite in terms of deployment. They reported
that the longer the deployment was correlated with the higher
predictability of the military couple staying together, which I thought
(22:29):
would have been the exact opposite. But they also sort
of under reported unemployment among military spouses. It seems like
all of the most negative aspects or underplay a little bit.
It would well that. I mean that ties into things
that we've talked about on the podcast before as far
as like how accurate is self reporting and how accurate
(22:50):
is self reporting when the person you're self reporting too
is your employer, right yeah, or your spouses employer right um.
But just to give a little context to deployment, to
to find out how many people are affected by this
of military spouses are separated from soldiers for twelve months
(23:11):
or longer, largely due to deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan,
and even when the soldier might come home and you expect, Oh,
then that's great, right, everything's totally fine. Actually, that readjustment
period of being home can be even more challenging than
the time of part because, as you can imagine, hopping
(23:31):
right back from a war zone back home is not
so smooth, as we have seen from the escalating rates
of suicidality alcohol abuse PTSD among soldiers returning back to
the home front. In terms of kids, the Department of
Defense reports that most of them cope fine, which again
(23:52):
grain of salt a little bit, because this is coming
from the Department of Defense. I can't imagine the US
military be like, the kids are suffering, what are we
gonna do, Let's bring everyone home. Oh wait, no, we
can't do that. But they did acknowledge that among the
oldest kids, apparently a tenth to a five reported serious
coping problems that you see with you know, behavioral issues,
(24:13):
problems with grades in school, etcetera. Yeah, well, I mean
that's a lot of emotional turmoil. Oh absolutely, I mean
I remember when my oldest brother was deployed to Iraq
the first time around for yie old Persian Gulf War
way back when, and even though the casualties for and
a length of that war were it was very small,
(24:35):
but still just like the stress level in our household
was massive, where my mother was always on edge. Absolutely well,
military husbands, we have not forgotten about you, although according
to Career Builder, you're feeling pretty invisible at the moment.
An article back in talked to male military spouses UM
(24:58):
who basically were saying that they feel really alienated basically
from the female dominated spouses club sometimes just called wives clubs,
and they struggle to find a community that knows what
they're going through. UM. A lot of guys said, you know,
I was handed a spouse manual that was pink, or
(25:18):
all the articles out there are telling women what kind
of high heels to wear for a homecoming celebration. That
doesn't really help me. Um. There's also the issue of
that whole gender role reversal, that it's it's the warrior
wife going off shooting the big guns and the husbands
staying at home changing the diapers, and the idea that
(25:38):
that stay at home dad nows is so hard to
adjust to, and perhaps because of those complications of the
gender identity of maybe feeling even more isolated as sometimes
lone male military spouse. The rates of divorce for uh,
(25:58):
female soldiers married to civilian male civilians is much higher
than when you flip it for the more traditional uh
you know, male military male soldier married to civilian wife.
In fact, the divorce rate from female military personnel is
more than twice as high um. And they think that
(26:19):
it might be because of the gender issues, but also
because women are likelier to marry someone else in the military,
and when it comes to civilian husbands, they're also less
likely to be employed than military wives, So that probably
only compounds all of those stressors that we've been talking
about even more so. Yeah, as Scott Stanley put it,
(26:41):
he's a military family expert and a professor at the
University of Denver. Um, people don't even know or understand
the male role when it's the wife who's deployed. And
he said that a lot of these men are sort
of swimming in a whole new part of the pool
without really knowing exactly where to go or what to do,
or what sort of support to seek. Because I mean,
(27:02):
if you just google military wives, there are a ton
of websites there's military spouse, There's like all this stuff
out there for wives to help you not spend too
much money at the commissary, to help you connect with
other military wives. But there's really not a whole lot
of stuff out there for dudes. Yeah, I mean, there's
even one military husband, in fact, I don't have his
name in front of me recently started a website called
(27:24):
Macho Spouse specifically to help out other military husbands in
his shoes because he was like, I don't you know
all this pink stuff and and ladies parties, I don't
know what to do and and even too. I mean,
these are similar issues that come up in conversations with
stay at home dads, where if you are taking care
(27:45):
of the kids and you want to play date, it's
not always so easy to reach out to military wives
because then, um, you know, it might send the wrong
message or something. So yeah, so there, I think there
are more re sources now. It's sort of catching up
to the rising role of women in the military. But
speaking of resources catching up to different types of military families,
(28:12):
one thing we also wanted to look into was how
the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell not so long
ago and the more recent repeal of the Defensive Marriage
Act has impacted LGBT couples in the military, whether or
not gay and lesbian military spouses are receiving all the
(28:33):
same kinds of benefits as their straight civilian counterparts. Yes.
Steven Peters, who's the president of the American Military Partner Association,
wade about this for Huffington's post, and he talks about
how you know, it's it's great that Don't Ask, Don't
Tell was repealed, but was questioning whether, like Kristen said,
(28:54):
are are the benefits actually catching up to the legislation
um because those gay military families aren't always given the
same support and benefits that their straight counterparts are getting.
But it's worth pointing out that Peters was writing before
the Defensive Marriage Act was repealed. Yeah, with the repeal
(29:15):
of DOMA, that eliminated the federal distinction between head reseexual
couples and same sex couples. And so now the official
line in the US military is that no matter what
your coupling looks like, married couples in the military will
all receive the same access to the subsidized housing child
(29:40):
care tri care, which is the military's healthcare. And before this,
I mean, this is a giant boon to LGBT families
in the military, because before this you weren't guaranteed if
you were a military spouse that you would be able
to live on base with your spouse. You would not
receive try care, you would not receive help with childcare,
(30:01):
and all of these, you know, very important benefits that
military families receive and should receive for you know, the
service that they're offering UM and so DOMA has been
huge to kind of circle, like I guess, sort of
closed the gap with don't ask, don't tell, actually enacted,
you know, and give them the benefits they were missing
(30:22):
out on. Although there have been issues, particularly within the
National Guard. This was reported on recently in The New
York Times about how on a state by state basis,
particularly ones where gay marriage is not legal, there have
been issues within the National Guard of issuing ID cards
to gay military spouses. Right this was an article in
(30:44):
The New York Times that pointed out that nine states Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia said that the issuing
of I D cards violated their state constitutions and would
not provide had them at National Guard facilities which fall
under state control. Oh. But in addition to these kinds
(31:06):
of efforts to sort of rectify the situations for l
GPT military families that have only until recently been you know,
receiving unequal benefits, if any benefits at all. Um, there
are several efforts to support military families, particularly in a
(31:26):
time where the military has endured a lot of budget
cuts which has trickled down to military families. Mean, we
mentioned earlier that five thousand active duty families are food
stamp eligible. Um. And if you are in a military family,
even though you might receive a lot of government benefits,
(31:47):
that does not mean that you probably aren't living on
a pretty tight budget. Right. And at the top of
the podcast, Kristen mentioned Joining Forces, which is that national
initiative lad by the First Lady and Jill Biden Uh
to engage society basically to help our service members and
(32:09):
their families get a leg up, basically give them the
opportunities and the support that they have earned. So they
have initiatives that involve education, employment, and wellness. Their goals
involve bringing attention to the unique needs of America's military families,
but also as they say, UH, to inspire, educate, and
(32:29):
spark action from all sectors of society to ensure that
veterans and military families have the opportunities, resources and support
that they have earned. I mean, and that sounds fantastic
for sure, and for I mean, for commissioned officers in
the military, the situation is a lot better. But you
have to remember too that these days, a lot of
times the soldiers who are enlisting typically come from lower
(32:52):
social and economic areas. They are typically not as educated,
they don't have as many resources walking in to this
as someone who is perhaps going straight into college, going
to go on that more traditional career path and so um.
And that it trickles down to, you know, their spouses
into their families. Mean, a lot of these UH couples
(33:15):
also have children they're caring for as well, and so
these kinds of resources are are very important to them.
I mean, they're even base wide baby showers that organizations
will host just to make sure that military wives have
enough diapers and onesies and all these things, because it's
(33:38):
not easy living on a military paycheck at all. Absolutely um.
And you know, one thing we were discussing, UH regarding
the whole employment issue was the fact that when you're moving,
it's hard to develop those professional networks that that can
help you get a leg up. Well, a judge who
is a military spouse started the Military Spouse j D
(34:01):
network as a basically support and professional network for lawyers
who are trying to maintain legal careers while supporting military spouses.
So it's not only a support network in terms of like, hey,
let's go get a drink and hang out and be friends,
it's also literally like a networking uh support group to
help you get a job when you move. And looking
(34:22):
from a more general perspective, military dot com slash spouse
has an entire checklist and overview about all the concerns, responsibilities,
services and resources that surround military families, particularly spouses and
Military family dot org how scholarship resources and Kristen mentioned
Macho spouse earlier the web. The web address for that
(34:43):
is male mill spouse dot org. If you are a
military husband wanting to hang out and play golf with
some buddies, Yeah, I mean, I think if there's one
big takeaway from this episode, it's that I think, on
the over the course of stuff, I'm never told you
We've talked about all different kinds of families and family
(35:05):
dynamics and this is this is just another one of them.
And I think from the outside looking in, you might
not initially be aware of all of the myriad issues
that are happening, you know, within these military homes. I mean,
I can't imagine relationships, Caroline, are challenging enough. I just
(35:31):
you know, to throw the military into that, to throw
a war into that, to throw just probably living in
a more remote area on a fort somewhere, I can
only imagine how challenging that has to be and how
dedicated you have to be to that lifestyle, to your partner,
to your family to make it work. So I cannot
(35:54):
wait to hear from our military spouses out there. What
issues are you dealing with? You know? Does any of
the stuff that we talked about ring true? Are you
an exception to any of these rules? Yeah? And if
there are any uh LGBT military spouses listening, um who
can fill us in on whether or not your needs
are truly now being met as they should be under
(36:18):
the letter of the law post don't ask, don't tell, DMA.
We also would love to hear from you, mom, stuff
at Discovery dot Com is where you can email us
or you can tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts, and
you can also message us on Facebook as well. And
we've got a couple of messages to share with you
right now. So we've been hearing a lot about our
(36:40):
two parter on women in video games, and we've got
a couple of those messages right now. This one comes
from Natalie, subject line Lady gamers and the Fallout series.
She writes, after listening to part two of Women in
Video Games, I was genuinely surprised you didn't touch upon
the Fallout series. My man friend and actually turned me
(37:00):
onto the game as he was a huge fan of
the PC games as a child. When I started playing
Fallout three and subsequently Fallout three New Vegas, one of
the most exciting aspects of the games was that I
got to customize my avatar. I could play as male
or female, and could also choose my race for ethnicity.
Being a Hispanic woman, nothing was more exciting than seeing
(37:21):
my clearly Latina avatar kicking butt on screen. The gamemakers
went even farther when it came to gender equality, especially
in New Vegas. There are various storylines in which you
interact with prostitutes and exotic dancers. They're always both male
and female characters in these lines of works. I had
never before seen a digital magic Mike doing his thing
(37:43):
until playing Fallout. There are also plenty of depictions of
women in power, female bosses, and women of military rank.
There's even a lesbian couple the protagonist interacts with. To
top it off, the villains in New Vegas are the
only misogynists I can remember in either of the two games.
As you can imagine, the series quickly became one of
my favorites. Not only are the games well made, but
(38:04):
the storylines are compelling and the action is pretty awesome.
If you get a chance, I would definitely suggest playing
this series, So thanks for the recommendation. Natalie. Okay, Well,
Lindsay has a letter that makes me want to do
a Hulk smash um. She writes them to say I
wanted to offer a personal story about being a woman
who loves her video games. For me, the sexism I've
(38:26):
experienced comes from those outside of the activity rather than
within it. My most recent example was when I was
serving a couple and happened to mention that I love
to spend my sundays eating pizza, watching football, and playing Madden.
The man of the couple and I had a brief,
enthusiastic conversation about video games and football, and he said, well,
the boys must love you. I laughed and began to
(38:46):
walk away, only to hear him lean into his girlfriend
and say, that's the kind of woman you want to
hook up with, not the kind you want to marry. Yeah,
and to that, I say, lindsay, it's probably because you're adorable,
and he wanted to for his girlfriend in case she
was jealous about your exchange about video games. But anyway,
she says. I consider myself fairly feminine. I love fashion,
(39:08):
my makeup, and baking, but I also love video games,
comic books, and I'm a martial arts instructor and competitor.
People often get hung up on the more masculine activities
I enjoy, making comments to some effect that I am
less suitable for a long term relationship because of them.
The fact that I'm a black belt received similar reactions.
I've had men who were hitting on me physically move
away when I mentioned what I do. I've also had
(39:30):
men and women ask me if it is hard for
me to find a guy. The assumption is a man
would not want to be with me because I could
beat him up again. Overall, I find little sexism within
the activities I participate in that are traditionally more masculine,
and far more judgment outside of them. The worst part
is that the assumptions aren't about me as an individual,
but about my value as someone's future wife. So I'm
(39:54):
sorry you have to deal with that, Lindsay, but thank
you for writing in, and thanks again to everyone who's
written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us and if you want links
to all of our social media presences, every single one
of our podcast, blogs and videos, there's one place to go,
and it's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com. For
(40:17):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how Stuff Works dot com
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