Family first

[daftandbarmy]

"I joined to serve, not to be served."

CWO (retd) Gino Moretti
Former CA SM

Awesome.

I think there’s a Roman Army quote that goes something like ‘All we ask is to serve.’

In many ways we have probably oversold the ‘personal‘ at the cost of the ‘collective’.

That’s why I derive inspiration from the 20 year olds in the rifle sections: all they want to do is kick a$$. There’s a first class ‘reverse mentoring’ program in there somewhere

 

[brihard]

Not that long ago (~10years), the US Navy managed to achieve something you wouldn't expect: the best daycare and family care programs in the world, full stop.  Things have slid backwards quite a bit in the past 6-8 years, but this does establish that a very large military organization can do the right thing for its members by providing quality family support at all times and not just deployments.

However, and take this as a bit of a lesson learned, like all things it costs money and there was a strong push to dilute some of the best benefits (example- care for special needs children)  and then open the program up to other federal government DoD positions. So much so, that by 2020 the Navy families had in some cases been pushed out of their own spaces.  Recently, Esper (SecDef) stepped in to re-prioritize military families to be "first" in a care system that had been taken over by non-military members. Whether he will also restore the program to its previous levels of excellence is TBD.

That’s an interesting approach. Take it a step further- tie eligibility closely to deployability, however you wish to define that. There would be plenty of nuts and bolts to get into, but if family care were treated as a supporting capability to readiness, there could be interesting benefits. It would certainly remove some excuses.

 

[Kat Stevens]

That’s an interesting approach. Take it a step further- tie eligibility closely to deployability, however you wish to define that. There would be plenty of nuts and bolts to get into, but if family care were treated as a supporting capability to readiness, there could be interesting benefits. It would certainly remove some excuses.

So, DAG red, no daycare for you, one year?

 

[ModlrMike]

That’s an interesting approach. Take it a step further- tie eligibility closely to deployability, however you wish to define that. There would be plenty of nuts and bolts to get into, but if family care were treated as a supporting capability to readiness, there could be interesting benefits. It would certainly remove some excuses.

I'm not sure this would be the best approach. There's lots of bone-fide reasons to DAG red.

 

[Blackadder1916]

That’s an interesting approach. Take it a step further- tie eligibility closely to deployability, however you wish to define that. There would be plenty of nuts and bolts to get into, but if family care were treated as a supporting capability to readiness, there could be interesting benefits. It would certainly remove some excuses.

So, DAG red, no daycare for you, one year?

Equating "DAG" to deploying, then daycare could be the least of a single parent's (or a service couple deploying at the same time) worries.  At that time the struggle is not about finding somewhere to put the rugrat during working hours but to find someone who will completely take over  parenting duties.