Quote:
Originally Posted by Webstral
I agree with the idea that single parent soldiers are a problem for the force. However, I’m wary of any policy that issues marching orders to any single parent soldier automatically. For one thing, Congress will squawk that the policy is discriminatory against women. Female members of Congress will bleat that divorce essentially will oblige a female parent and soldier to choose between soldiering and parenthood. Husbands therefore will gain control over the careers of female soldiers by threatening divorce, therefore threatening female parents and soldiers to make the terrible choice. The female members of Congress would have a point.
Of course, putting them in the rear permanently imposes on everybody else who isn’t a single parent soldier. In the 1980’s, this was not a big deal. However, after 9/11 and the start of the year-out/year-home cycle, the problem with granting some soldiers permanent nondeployable status reared its ugly head.
There is a solution that the Army has been loathe to put into practice: allow single parent soldiers to have 1-2 family members considered dependents. The military is firmly wedded to the ideal of the nuclear family. This is a wonderful ideal, but it’s not realistic. If a female soldier parent finds herself divorced, rather than throw her and the Army’s investment in her skills out the door, give her a grace period to bring in a family member or two who become new dependents. These people then play the role that the spouse is supposed to play in terms of child care, etc. If the single parent soldier is unable to meet the deadline, then she gets the boot. The candidates for special dependent might be mother, father, brother, sister, adult child, or even grandparent. I’d be open to discussing whether uncles, aunts, and cousins ought to be considered.
Here’s the bottom line for me: children are a forever commitment, marriages end, and the force needs skilled professionals to stay in. Any jackasses can run off to Vegas and get married, thereby entering a special legal status that makes massive impositions on the military. Having kids is even easier. A force based on fidelity and commitment needs to recognize which commitments are more durable than others and work with the lasting ones to keep its skilled personnel in the force. If that means being flexible about who is called a dependent and gets to enjoy the privileges of post life, so be it.
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*edited to fix typos and clarity*
Bullshit. <--------- I still stand by that. This just adds a dependent increasing the BAS and BAH for the Single Mom further increasing costs. This also assumes that there is a dependent relative capable of providing child care, willing to provide child care, and dependable to do it at a moments notice. That dependent would also have to move with Single Mom on each transfer to a new assignment.
That is more crowd pleasing for the masses. A populist view that every one should be cared for, and it is the duty of someone else to care for them.
That someone else is frequently named as a governmental entity.
Bullshit. It is the
taxpayer. Other Soldiers and Civilians are working harder and taking home less because some self centered twat can't take adult precautions and not cause a pregnancy. Males are not immune from this scorn either.
The purpose of an Army is not to provide affordable childcare.
The purpose of an Army is to fight their Nations Wars and win them.
Cut
the
Fat.
Your idea creates entitlement for some other sub par slacker to set themselves up at the government trough. Not Fair.
Indeed it creates another dependent to care for the Child. One the Single Mom will receive supplementary pay for just to care for two.
I am all about pay and incentives! A twenty year retirement sets so many out with a pension at age 38! Current medicine makes having children, even having In Vitro with ova harvested at age 18, very, very possible. Frozen ova and sperm would be a minor cost and a huge savings compared to all the childcare costs incurred by an organization meant to fight wars. Even paying women a bonus for the implantation of a long term birth control device like norplant for instance is preferable to all the facilities on post now.