By Jessica Ruttenber
A call to service is a call to sacrifice. Frequently, it is the family that makes the greatest sacrifice so that a loved one may serve. Their lives are filled with long separations and awaiting the inevitable move associated with a change in duty station. Often this is just after the family has finally settled in from the previous assignment. Their lives are filled with uncertainties; new schools, new jobs, friends left behind. Spouses are the glue that keep the family together when the challenge of service calls once again. There is no doubt our families are the true unsung heroes behind each successful service member.
Active duty members in a dual-military marriage face unique challenges balancing their careers with family. The armed services make an effort to match assignments for these couples when available. Unfortunately, given the member’s career field and available leadership opportunities, joint assignments may not be compatible with both members’ career goals. To continue serving, they may be forced to take separate duty stations with the “hope” of reuniting in their next assignments. Often these couples find themselves having to make the difficult decision of choosing whether to progress in their careers OR be stationed together.
Unfortunately, dual-military marriage is predominantly a “female issue.” In 2018, of the 671,591 married active-duty members in the Department of Defense (DoD), 12.9% were in dual-military marriages. Only 7.6% of men serving made up that dual-mil statistic. Almost half (44%) of active duty married women were dual-military.
That is not to discount that either gender may have a professional civilian spouse who has also influenced the family’s decision on whether to continue serving. Identified in their exit surveys, a spouse’s career path has been shown as causal to many members leaving the service. In Heather Penney and Miriam Krieger’s 2015 study, The Millennial Imperative, they state:
“Personnel management practices are predicated upon an outdated, 1950’s nuclear family model; the full-time domestic support of a portable, stay-at-home spouse is a necessary condition for most Airmen to be able to serve and promote without limiting factors on their career. Female officers are rarely partnered with such a spouse and thus often must sub-optimize their career, becoming less competitive for promotion and retention as a result.”
The study goes on to say American society no longer reflects the traditional nuclear model–women are a leading indicator for future retention problems in the millennial generation.
But let’s take a step back from the dual-military spouse and reflect upon who we marry. For both spouses to have successful careers with children, the parental responsibilities must not default to the woman. Your attitudes about family planning and equitable parental responsibilities will determine your success regardless of profession. We need to be more honest and have these difficult and less romantic conversations with our potential future spouse. Or, perhaps you are already married, and the complexity of work-life-balance is hitting you like a train. It’s never too late for your marriage to evolve and grow. Sheryl Sandberg discusses this in her book Lean In. She describes this search for balance in a chapter titled, “Make your partner a real partner.”
“According to the most recent analysis, when a husband and wife both are employed full-time, the mother does 40 percent more child care and about 30 percent more housework than the father. A 2009 survey found only 9 percent of people in dual-earner marriages said they shared housework, child care, and breadwinning evenly. So while men are taking on more household responsibilities, this increase is happening very slowly, and we are still far from parity. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, same-sex couples divide household tasks much more evenly.)”
No wonder many members throw the towel in and leave military service. That pace would run anyone into the ground and is not sustainable when combined with the additional demands of service. Don’t be afraid to seek support and change the status quo.
“My advice to someone with aspirations for a successful career in a serious relationship is to ask your partner in what situation would they consider changing their current career path for a relationship heading towards marriage? If the answer is a hard nothing, then swipe left and move on with your life.”
J-Rutt
When my first child was born in 2012, my husband and I took an assignment apart to continue advancing in our careers. Our daughter lived with me. Luckily, he was only 90 minutes away attending a one year school while I continued to fly at an operational KC-135 unit. One morning my 5-month old daughter became ill, and I had to fly a mission that afternoon. I called my husband to ask him to miss school and drive up and stay with her. On the other end of the phone was silence. It just then occurred to me despite all the non-stop over planning we did for her arrival; finding the best day cares, sleep training books, best bottles to prevent gas… we never talked about or considered who would have to miss work if something unexpected came up. Like many new partners, we were naïve.
In my husband’s mind, this responsibility defaulted to the woman. He came from a background where his mother stayed at home with the children. In my mind, I was piloting a mission, and his school could wait. Either way, we both would get push back from our units. To complicate this, we did not have family around to support us because, just like every military family, we move from base to base and continuously have to start anew. I highlight this to tell you that we had to evolve and we could have avoided a lot of conflict and misunderstanding with a little more preparation and expectation management.
Fast forward 8 years, we have three children and both of us managed to keep promoting. My husband is an incredible father and, on more than one occasion, has pulled more than his weight when I handed him our children and deployed. Perhaps, being the primary and only caregiver of our children for long periods of time led him to the realization of the true workload of parenthood and gave him confidence. It also taught me I could let go of trying to do it all and my husband was more than capable of adapting to a more modern day role of fatherhood. Before he left command in 2018, he changed his unit’s weekly meeting to begin no earlier than 8:00 AM. His unit was 95% male and he made this change purposefully. The primary elementary school in the area started at 7:45 AM. As the commander, he did not want to push the burden of school drop-offs to spouses when such an easy adjustment could be made. He also created a playroom for the children in the unit and encouraged his squadron to bring their kids to work on school half-days instead of assuming their civilian spouse would automatically have to cover the logistics of those days. I’d like to say these types of considerations and acceptance is common, but it’s not.
At that same base, there were times on rare occasions, when I would bring my children to work when I was not flying and care was not available. I wish I could say that I was met with acceptance and support, but to be honest with you, I was not. There was a clear double standard for me. Some men missed work just as often, if not more so, to take their sick child to a doctor or a reoccurring appointment. My husband routinely took the lead and brought our oldest daughter to a weekly re-occurring medical appointment without adverse comment. Despite my average 50+ hour work week, I was counseled “out of concern” because I was occasionally coming in later in the morning. I made sure to never miss any important engagements and more than made up the time I was delayed due to supporting my children. But it was the “appearance” that concerned them. The men who missed work for their children were not counseled.
The priorities our leaders enforce are just as important as their leadership and acceptance. What kind of message are we sending to service members with our own policies? We have policies that allow women, but not men, to separate from service for having a baby. In Air Force Instruction 36-3208, Administration Separation of Airmen, it states, “women may find pregnancy and the expectation of motherhood incompatible with continued service.” The DoD also allows primary caregiver leave (6 weeks) and secondary caregiver leave (21 days) after having a baby. The female is almost always assumed to be the primary caregiver (after her 6 weeks of convalescent leave). Men often find resistance from their leadership when they try to become the primary caregiver. This mindset is effectively saying the responsibility of childcare is a women’s responsibility.
When our second child was born in 2014, my husband and I were stationed overseas. During this time, men were given seven days of leave for the birth of a child, I was given a total of six weeks. Having a newborn with an 18-month-old at home while overseas without support from extended family was challenging. My husband went to his leadership and asked if he could take 3 weeks of additional leave to help me out and was outright denied for no other reason it had never been done before. I ended up asking for 6 additional weeks of leave and was approved with no questions. Upon returning to work, I was re-qualified in the aircraft and was back accomplishing the mission.
Balancing raising children with a highly demanding job is difficult at the best of times. I love my children and desired to spend time with them, but I also found great satisfaction and fulfillment from my career and serving my country. However, with the lack of support and empathy, postpartum depression slowly crept in. It was a depression that I hid from others in part due to a growing fear that maybe I had dedicated my life to an institution not designed for me. Could I have avoided that depression had we been better supported? I can’t say for sure, but I know it would have helped a lot. All I knew at that time was I was coming up for a Lieutenant Colonel promotion board and I didn’t want to show any signs of weakness or be perceived that I had taken my foot off the pedal. I had already experienced being disadvantaged and discriminated against due to having a child. I was selected to interview for the executive officer position to the wing commander. It was canceled because I had just had a child, despite making it known to my leadership that I was willing and still wanted to compete for the opportunity. The interview I had scheduled for was canceled without my consent or consideration. The uphill battle of the addition of a new child, my spouse not being supported by his leadership to assist more, and my own experiences of the system prematurely denying me progression opportunities because of a newborn was a struggle to say the least.
Did I sacrifice alone? I did not. As my marriage evolved, my husband, a “fast-moving officer” selected early for promotion, started to make sacrifices to his career as well to keep our family together. No longer was my career the assumed back burner as it had been before. Although I am by no means destined for general officer, we have both been highly successful in making a positive impact on our Airmen and to the nation. We are both Lieutenant Colonels working in the Pentagon with three happy and healthy children. Who knows where we will be next. I would like to say our story of success is commonplace rather than the exception, but based on DoD retention and promotion data, it is not. My current boss is incredibly supportive of my family, and I hope with more supervisors like him and my husband, it will get even better.
In the last 5 years, many of our DoD policies have improved. But we still have a long way to go. Women are a minority in the military. In 2018, the percent of women by service was Army 15%, Navy 20%, Marine Corps 9%, Air Force 20%, and Coast Guard 15%. The number of women in the service needs to hit critical mass, which is defined as a sufficient number of adopters of a social system that can influence the majority before meaningful change will occur. Studies vary, but 30% is the most agreed-upon number. Our numbers are slowly rising but until then very deliberate policy changes need to continually evolve with the millennial generation. What is worrisome is the low representation of women at the highest levels of military leadership, especially women who are racial or ethnic minorities. As of February 2020 there were 38 active duty four star generals (O-10). Of that there was only one woman. Of the entire general officer population (876) there are only 7.4% women. Senior enlisted are slightly higher, hovering around 13%. Women’s retention rates are almost half of men for varying reasons, but most of them are centered on the compatibility of a family with service. Women with occupations that are more physically demanding encounter more barriers to their progression during pregnancy.
On a side note, if you are going to travel this path, I highly recommend increasing your domestic support to give yourself margin. We would not be able to do what we do today without our incredible nanny, who is essential to providing us the margin we need. I would encourage you to seek and receive help where you are able to. No one has ever become less of a parent or a leader because they hired someone to clean their toilet. Studies show it’s about quality time, not the quantity of time with your children.
Was this easy for this military mom? Hell no! Would I do it again? Hell yes! Can you have a family and a successful career in the military? Yes, you can! A lot will depend on you and your partner becoming a team with equitable parental responsibilities. Become those that share the burden to avoid being run into the ground, burned out, or eventually forced into defeat. Despite societal conditioning and policies that urge you to slow down when a man would not, resist the urge to make your career the automatic backseat when facing these challenges. Policy and culture will eventually catch up, stop holding yourself back until it does. This is hard but doable. So take a bit of advice from Sheryl Sandberg and “Lean In” ladies.
And with that, I leave you with the words a senior leader whom I look up to and admire once told me. “I can only imagine a day where our daughters will take this all for granted. That would be a fine day, don’t you think?”
Yes ma’am. Yes, it will.
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Edited by Megan Biles
Featured Photo: Lt Col Nichelle Somers with her husband Lt Col Jason Somers. From the left children Lilah (5), Corbin (7), and Jett (3). Lt Col Nichelle Somers and her husband are Air Force pilots stationed at Kadena, Japan.
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NOTES:
Active Duty Master Personnel File, Military Academies. Defense Manpower Data Center, March 2020.
“Profile of the Military Community .” Military One Source. Department of Defense (DoD), Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy (ODASD (MC&FP)), under contract with ICF (https://www.icf.com/work/human-capital. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2018-demographics-report.pdf.
Melissa A. Milkie, Sara B. Raley, and Suzanne M. Bianchi, “Taking on the Second Shift: Time Allocations and Time Pressures of U.S. Parents with Preschoolers,” Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 487–517.
Heather Penney and Miriam Krieger, “Female Officer Retention and the Millennial Imperative, 2015 unpublished study.
Melissa A. Milkie, Sara B. Raley, and Suzanne M. Bianchi, “Taking on the Second Shift: Time Allocations and Time Pressures of U.S. Parents with Preschoolers,” Social Forces 88, no. 2 (2009): 487–517.
Scott S. Hall and Shelley M. MacDermid, “A Typology of Dual Earner Marriages Based on Work and Family Arrangements,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 30, no. 3 (2009): 220.
Between 1965 and 2000, the amount of time per week that married fathers spent on child care almost tripled and the amount of time married fathers spent on housework more than doubled. In 1965, married fathers spent 2.6 hours per week on child care. In 2000, married fathers spent 6.5 hours per week on child care. Most of this increase occurred after 1985. In 1965, married fathers spent about 4.5 hours per week on housework. In 2000, married fathers spent almost 10 hours per week on housework. The largest increase in the time spent on housework took place between 1965 and 1985. The amount of time married fathers spend each week doing housework has not increased much since 1985. See Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006). Analysis done by Hook (2006) of twenty countries found that between 1965 and 2003, employed, married fathers increased the amount of unpaid domestic work they performed by about six hours per week. See Jennifer L. Hook, “Care in Context: Men’s Unpaid Work in 20 Countries, 1965–2003,” American Sociological Review 71, no. 4 (2006): 639–60.
Letitia Anne Peplau and Leah R. Spalding, “The Close Relationships of Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook, ed. Clyde A. Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 111–24; and Sondra E. Solomon, Esther D. Rothblum, and Kimberly F. Balsam, “Money, Housework, Sex, and Conflict: Same-Sex Couples in Civil Unions, Those Not in Civil Unions, and Heterosexual Married Siblings,” Sex Roles 52, nos. 9–10 (2005): 561– 75.