If you didn’t already know, a dependent is a person who a military personnel sponsors. Typically, this is a wife, husband, son or daughter, but sometimes this also means a brother or sister. Living the lifestyle of a military dependent isn’t something everyone fully understands. It’s a role that many kids, and even adults, have lived for lengthy amounts of time. For many of us, it’s all that we know and civilian life is a bit daunting. True, being a military dependent has it’s rewards. But this lifestyle also has quite a few setbacks that are often overlooked.
1. Traveling has it’s ups and downs
The standard time to live in one place for military personnel is between three or four years. For a kid who is born into a family that is already active duty this means by the time you’re 16 you’ll have moved four times in your life. If you love traveling, it’s great! But if you’d rather stick close to family, moving around is a real pain.
On the plus side, you get to see so many places that some people never get the chance to even dream of. My family lived on a tropical island for four years and as much as I didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was the most beautiful four years of my life, surrounded by the most incredible flora and fauna and the clearest waters. Not many people get to travel to an island like this, let alone live there long enough to make the most incredible memories.
But on the other hand, adapting to your surrounds over and over again gets tiresome. The people are different in every single place and even though there are similarities, adapting takes a lot of hard work. Starting from the ground up making friends, finding jobs, starting schools, it’s a serious hassle.
2. Living to the military standard
Chances are, when your parent comes home, they tend to hold you to the standard that they are held to because they’re now use to living this way. Everything is spotless, everything has to be in order and your manners are always kept in check. Curt answers and unquestioned orders tends to be adopted by the dependent from the active duty parent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, seeing as how it makes things far more efficient later in life as well.
3. Schooling
In the earlier years of moving around, changing schools can be pretty easy. Every state has a different school system and has different expectations. In elementary school, it’s far easier to adapt to the teaching. Middle school posses a slight challenge. Moving schools in high school can be a disaster. My family moved from the west coast to the east coast, and I was missing four credits my senior year. I had to forfeit electives to double up on math and history classes because the curriculum was different, but I ended graduated on time. I only had to move once during high school. Imagine moving twice, or even three times. It’s a nightmare!
And as bad as trying to catch up can be switching schools can have its advantages. You meet people who want to help you and who want to see you succeed. You make friends with people who care about your well being and friends who are as dedicated to their work as you are.
4. Separation
You lose a parent for months on end. Luckily if it is just a standard deployment they come back. But the separation takes a toll. Most active duty parents don’t get a chance to be a part of their kids lives in a major way, and it’s not the ideal but it has to be done.
However when they come home, they’re the loudest cheerers in the stands, the most moved in the audience and the most celebratory bunch you’ll ever meet. It’s a unique experience for military kids. Think of all the homecoming videos you see on YouTube of soldiers surprising their kids, significant others or even just their pets. It’s something all military kids look forward to.
5. Insane amounts of privacy
When your parents work endless shifts, you and your siblings are free to just hang out and get to everything else later on. Often times, when you close your door because you want alone time to write in your diary about your newest crush or to try home workouts and end up just lying on a yoga mat instead, you aren’t interrupted. This is great because when you are being productive and finishing up school work or studying there’s no interruption and you can really get your work done.
One of the worst things about this is the fact that you’ve most likely achieved this privacy for the sole reason that you are completely and utterly alone in your house, so there’s no one there to be a bother. I recall welcoming the privacy, remembering how lonely it was and then checking the clock every few seconds to see how much longer until one of my parents would be home with me and my siblings. It gets lonely when your parent is out there saving the world.
6. Opportunity
Traveling around the world to live with your active duty parent has it’s perks. The places you go stick with you, and the people you meet come in handy. Later in life, someone you met when you were a kid could happen past a blog post you made and realize you’re an incredible writer and, by chance, this person is looking to hire a journalist. Or maybe you graduate from college and want to start a business career. One of your parents’ coworkers has become a small business owner and would love to take you under their wing. Everyone gets opportunities, but traveling and meeting the people you do in a military lifestyle creates a lot more opportunities for different fields.
7. Cultural Exposure
You don’t really get a say in where you move to when your parent is active duty. Sure, sometimes you can put the bug in their ear about a place and they can maybe speak to someone about a position in this area but, often times, you go where they need you and where they need you isn’t always somewhere you’d like to be.
This has a bit to do with the travel up’s and down’s. Some families travel outside of the country and this leads to the dependents being a little closer to the culture they have been exposed to. There will always be a dependent with a story that starts with “On time, back in (insert country name here)."
A lot of dependents learn another language. Sometimes they don’t come into play, for example I lived on Guam for four years and the language on this island is called Chamorro. Here in the states it’s virtually useless, but should I ever go back to this island I will easily be able to speak to the island’s inhabitants.
8. Living on a military base
When you live on a military base, there are quite a few benefits. There’s always the security of knowing you are in a compound guarded by well trained government personnel, which gives a profound sense of safety. But there’s also a downside to this. Military bases can easily be targeted for negative actions. I have had my fair shares of lockdowns in schools that were on these bases due to suspicious characters in the neighborhood.
There is always the constant flow of neighbors. Someone is always moving out and someone is always moving in. The communities tend to be very friendly, they are always looking out for one another and friends come easily in these situations, but these same friends are also constantly moving away.
9. Knowing you will always have a roof over your head
Regardless of how stable your family income may be, it is unlikely that military personnel and their dependents are unhoused. I can’t say that it is unheard of but in 19 years of being a dependent I have never once seen or heard of such an incident.
10. Veteran Benefits
It’s no secret that the military gives their workers and their families benefits that might not be given by other careers. We received things like education assistance, healthcare, home loans and insurance. These benefits really come in handy later on in life and are available to children dependents until they are 25.
11. Family Support
This is the biggest benefit of living a dependent life. Your family isn’t just your direct relatives. Your family is the men and women who live around you on or off the military bases. Your family is the teachers who know you are a military dependent and understand that you are struggling with your parent’s deployment. Your family is the people who you meet in one place that find you in another and still want to be close to you even though they saw your awkward phase. Your family is the people who work with your active duty parent and see the christmas cards and birthday pictures that get sent to your parent. Everyone becomes your family.
