Care.com Military Families: A Day in the Life

My husband is active duty, he's in the navy.
I am the spouse of an army reservist, he's served I think for seventeen years now
Our last deployment // he was gone from home for 15 months.

We have been in California, Japan, North Carolina, Florida, and now Virginia.
I think we're about to make our eleventh move.
We've moved all around the United States, north, south, east, west literally. My children have climbed the Great Wall of China


Oh my gosh. The biggest misconception about military spouses is that we sit at home and do nothing. And it's so hard being a military spouse.
A lot of people think that "Oh you're in the military you have a lot of things handed to you," you don't.
one of the misconceptions I guess that would be out there is "Well the navy just packs you up, I don't know why you're so stressed out about the move. They're just going to come--don't they pack you up and move all your stuff?" Well they do pack us up and they do move all of our stuff, but we now have to worry about the logistics of the area we're leaving and the logistics of where we're going


For me the biggest challenge is helping my kids adapt to a life they didn't choose // Post-911 babies are what our current military is dealing with and it's a very different world for these kids to grow up in. So in addition to the normal transitions of school and sports and friendship they're living with the very real fear about their parents and their safety

our life has to go on when we're here and it kind of goes on hold for him while he's over there // that is a real struggle trying to keep the marriage stable and in that way also trying to keep the family stable.

There's so many things that I care about--my family, my job, my career, the volunteer work that I do. So just setting priorities and making sure I have everything I need to keep my life together is my biggest challenge.


every military spouse is different from the next one--whether it's navy, whether it's army, whether it's air force, coast guard, marines--we're all different, we all have our own set of issues, we all have our own set of responsibilities.
We lead the same life you do // My kids go to school and they're active in sports and do everything just like your child does, (it) just sometimes it's just a little more hectic because our husbands get deployed at a moments notice.

I think for our children, knowing that they wont have the continuity of the same neighborhood, the same church, the same school, we work doubly hard I think to make sure that both my husband and I are involved in their lives
We're a very diverse community. We come from all over the country and the world // and I would just love for the civilian world to get to know us a little bit better.

I don't think I'd have it any other way. I'm really really really proud of my spouse and // being able to support my family the best that I can.
I think I'm more fearful of when my husband chooses to retire because of how many years I've been a military dependent // It's been a part of my life. The navy is my family.
I'm very, very proud of our entire family's service. // We really fell in love with these people who are our colleagues on active duty and I developed a tremendous amount of respect // It's probably one of the things that I'm most proud of about our life.

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[TaylorReynolds221]

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