Babies and Military Life

tidice18 · October 2015

Hey everyone! First off, I want to apologize if this has already been posted (I've been searching and haven't found anything, so I hope I'm okay!). My husband and I decided to start trying to have our first child (Yay!). I've been an Army brat and now I'm an Army wife (been married for 3 years), so military life is not new to me. However, I find myself a little freaked out to start having a family; there just seems to be a lot of questions my husband and I cannot answer. We currently live over 3,000 miles away from "home" and it is highly unlikely our families will be able to help us once the baby is born. We both work full-time and I now find myself worrying about childcare after the baby is born and how I am going to continue to work after my 6 week pregnancy leave. I am hoping to get some sort of guidance or reassurance. I know having a baby changes things, but I am not certain how much it changes things, especially for moms, when it comes to military life. I guess what I'm trying to ask is this: How doable is it to be a military spouse, mom, and work? (My mom was active duty, switched to reserves, retired, then raised us. My dad was active duty, so this is all new territory for me.)

Thanks in advance!

meggyme · October 2015

While I'm only newly pregnant, my plan is to be a working mother. We live near family now but will most likely move across country from them soon after the baby is born. It is certainly doable, but This is a question really only you can answer. I would suggest that you look to other spouses in your husband's command and you might find some women doing exactly what you're worried about that can give you perspective. But even if other women have been capable of doing it doesn't mean it's right for you and your family, so you will have to do some soul searching with your husband. Being a military mother brings a lot of challenges that most women don't have to experience, but also a lot of heartwarming moments they will never know either.

I guess the short answer is if it's something you really want to do you can do it, otherwise you will adjust and prioritize what matter most.

kristib1027 · October 2015

There are a bunch of women who handle being a wife, mom, working and sometimes even school. Hell there are single and married active duty mothers. Obviously it's doable. There is a CDC at most bases for a reason and if you look into it there are often many women who nanny at decent rates. my life as a mother is the same now that my husband is in the military as it was when wasn't in. Military life doesn't change things for you unless they are deployed and your doing more of it on your own and being a military spouse is no different than being a spouse to any other career field. We support the same and love the same, we just move around a bit more or have to do things from a distance.

TomekiaB · October 2015

I think working is really a lot of the luck of the draw as far as where your DH assignments go. At 5 years of marriage we've lived places where my career was fine and other places where it was really hard to find any job related to my career (I'm in healthcare). One good thing about having a baby though is as long as you are close to your military installation their are typically lots of parenting and childcare resources. Depending on your husband's job the expectations on you as a spouse can also make it hard to work--which is obviously old fashioned but the military is nothing if not old fashioned! From what I've seen the childcare and parenting resources are more readily available and dependable than the career resources.

SLGILL1978 · October 2015

It's very doable. My husband is active duty and I work full time. I just made sure when I started working before babies entered the picture, that I had a nice flexible, family oriented type of job. I lucked out in the daycare department. My babysitter is also a fellow military wife.

Babies and Military Life

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