The Military Father: A Hands-on Guide for Deployed Dads (New Father Series) - Softcover

Armin A. Brott: Armin A. Brott has devoted the last 15 years to providing men with the tools, support, and knowledge to help them become the fathers they want to be——and their families need them to be. His seven critically acclaimed books for fathers have sold well over a million copies. Titles include The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be and The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year. He has written on fatherhood for hundreds of newspapers and magazines and is a frequent guest on such television programs as the Today Show. He also writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column (Ask Mr. Dad), and hosts a syndicated radio show (Positive Parenting). He lives with his family in Oakland, California.

Introduction
Over the years I’ve received more than a thousand letters and e-mails from fathers (and mothers) asking for advice on every conceivable parenting topic—everything from “What are some workouts I can do with my pregnant wife?” and “Help! I’m about to be a new dad but I’ve never touched a baby before” to “Should we pay our kids to do chores?” and “My teenage daughter came home with liquor on her breath! What did I do wrong?” Although each question is a little different, what the writers really want to know is how to build strong relationships with their children and be the best possible parents.

But starting in late 2001, I also began getting very different questions, things like, “I’m in the Marines. My unit is shipping out to Afghanistan next month, and I’m going to miss the birth of my baby. What can I do to remain close to my wife?” and “My husband is deployed in Iraq. How can I help him continue to be part of our children’s life when he’s 8,000 miles away?” and “I’ve been gone for so long. Will my wife and kids still need me when I come home?”

As a former Marine myself (I know, I know, once a Marine, always a Marine), these questions hit me especially hard. And I was reminded of the day, back when I was in boot camp, that my chief drill instructor barked to a fellow recruit who’d made the mistake of revealing that he had just gotten married, “If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a family, you moron, they’d issue you one!” Fortunately, things have changed quite a bit since then. (Although there’s still an awful lot of camouflage floating around.)

Until about 1973, the United States used an involuntary draft to bring in the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines needed to staff the military services. Almost all of them were unmarried men without children. But today, well over half of active duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel are married, and nearly 40 percent have kids. Given that the vast majority of these service members will be deployed at some point, there are literally hundreds of thousands of dads (and quite a few moms too) who will be separated from their family. Looking at that from another angle, nearly two million children—three-quarters of whom are under twelve—will be separated from a parent (and that doesn’t include the children of civilian contractors).

Like their civilian counterparts, deployed military fathers want to be involved, play an important role in their children’s lives, and feel needed and valued by their family. But they face some additional challenges: Is it possible to stay connected across time and distance? How can you build or maintain relationships with people you can’t even touch? If you’re divorced and your children are with your ex-wife, you may feel at an extra distance from your kids. How can you stay involved with them?

I wrote The Military Father to answer those, and many other questions. Perhaps more importantly, I also wanted to reassure every one of those deployed fathers (and mothers too) that he plays a vital role in his children’s lives—one that goes well beyond changing diapers, driving the carpool, and being a living, breathing ATM machine. And finally, I wanted to give deployed dads the tools they need to keep those relationships strong.

Of course, being thousands of miles and a dozen time zones away from each other complicates things. Teaching your child to ride a bike or throw a curve ball is going to be tough, and good-night kisses are out for a while. But with today’s technology, you may be able to read bedtime stories to your children, help them with their homework, tell them silly jokes, show them how much sand you dump out of your boots every night or dust you have to wipe off your sunglasses, teach them about geography, see their science fair projects and school plays, and remind them of how much you love them and how proud they make you.

Bottom line: you are irreplaceable. Being deployed is going to be an adventure. An exhausting, difficult, rewarding adventure. Sure, there will be all sorts of challenges, mistakes, and emotional ups and downs. But it can be done—and this book will help. It is possible to stay connected to everyone in your family, and it is possible to remain a major influence in their lives. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Who’s This Book For?
The Military Father is written primarily for dads serving on active duty, in the Reserve, or in the National Guard in any of the five branches of the U.S. military: Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard. However, there are two other very important groups:

Deployed civilian contractors. At any given moment, there are well over 100,000 civilians working in a variety of capacities alongside the U.S. military. The majority of these civilians are men, and quite a few are dads.
Dads who stay home while their wives are deployed—something that’s happening more and more often.
What’s in This Book?
Like the other volumes in the New Father series, The Military Father is organized chronologically, but rather than using the child’s age as a way to measure the time, I’ve structured the book around the three broad phases of deployment. Part I is devoted to predeployment. We’ll talk about how to prepare yourself, your kids, and your wife for your absence and how to put systems in place that will help keep those relationships strong while you’re away. In Part II, we’ll focus on what happens during the actual deployment, how to implement those predeployment plans, and specific ways to stay connected and involved with your wife and children. In Part III, we’ll look at what happens when you get home. Yes, the deployment is officially over, but sometimes it’s harder to reintegrate back into your family than it is to be gone. Each of these three parts includes several chapters.

What’s going on. Each of these chapters is divided into three main parts

What’s going on with you, where we’ll look at what you may be feeling and thinking, and how those feelings and thoughts may play out in your behavior.
What’s going on with your wife, we’ll focus on your wife’s emotional journey
What’s going on with your children, where we’ll explore what your children are going through.
The more you know about what’s happening emotionally and psychologically on all fronts, the easier it’ll be to help them and yourself cope with the deployment. (Oh, you'll still go through the ups and downs, but this way at least you'll be expecting them.) It will also allow you to keep your expectations reasonable and prepare you for how they—and you—will have changed over the course of the deployment.

Oh, and in case you were worried, being deployed isn’t all bad news—not by a long shot. The tax benefits and salary bonuses can help relieve some financial pressures, and deployments tend to be good for career advancement. Deployments may make you and your wife feel more competent and confident. After all, if you can make it through this, you can make it through anything. . . .

Staying involved, This is where we get into the concrete steps you can take to stay involved with your wife and your children. As with the What’s going on chapters, each of these is divided into three sections:

Looking out for number one. Knowing you’re making a difference in the lives of your wife and children will make you feel more like an integral part of your family. In addition, knowing they’re doing well will keep you...