How do army wives with 5 kids manage? I can barely take care of 2 kids w a spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 7 and am a military spouse. We do not live on post so I don’t have that support base that comes from living close together. My older don’t raise my younger, and my standards may be lower with regards to cleaning the house but certainly not with regards to reading to and educating them. My older kids are quite accomplished even in DCUM land.
I gave up a career and not really sure how you could do it and work unless your employer was extremely flexible. Just sick days, school days off, and appointments would all make me a terrible employee.
When my kids were young, I kept a very scheduled house. Otherwise I just did it. I agree it’s sometimes easier when the spouse is gone. I have fond memories of tossing a blanket on the living room floor and having picnics instead of spending an hour cooking a meal the little ones wouldn’t eat anyways.

I only had 4, but also never lived on base. I've seen this type of thread come up on DCUM several times over the years and the part about all the wives supporting and helping each other always comes up.
It might be like that on base, but a lot of families live off base. I don't know about now, but when my husband was in the wait list to get into housing was sometimes over a year long. We moved to Quantico in 2006 and they told us it would be 18+ months to get base housing (for a field grade officer.)
Living off base it can be a lot more isolating, and even though you can use the facilities and go to events on base, it can be a lot more difficult if you have to drive far, go through the security at the gate, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Standards are lower. They tend to not be educated, so they’re not going to spend a lot of time on enriching games, reading, cooking nutritionally-balanced food, thinking about their development, writing self-serving and obnoxious posts on the internet, and what activities would best develop them. Which is fine, most kids don’t need that level of support. We educated UMC tend to over-do it.

[Anonymous]

Not sure how people deal with 5 kids logistically, but for me parenting two has always been easier when husband is not home. It is much less stressful to just do things my way.

[Anonymous]

If you are on base there is more of a built in support base. I think that for the most successful families, women don't mind this. There is a lot of autonomy when your spouse is gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 7 and am a military spouse. We do not live on post so I don’t have that support base that comes from living close together. My older don’t raise my younger, and my standards may be lower with regards to cleaning the house but certainly not with regards to reading to and educating them. My older kids are quite accomplished even in DCUM land.
I gave up a career and not really sure how you could do it and work unless your employer was extremely flexible. Just sick days, school days off, and appointments would all make me a terrible employee.
When my kids were young, I kept a very scheduled house. Otherwise I just did it. I agree it’s sometimes easier when the spouse is gone. I have fond memories of tossing a blanket on the living room floor and having picnics instead of spending an hour cooking a meal the little ones wouldn’t eat anyways.

But you can't disagree that educating 7 kids vs 2 is a whole different ballgame. Even if you had 8 hours in the day they won't get as much time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 7 and am a military spouse. We do not live on post so I don’t have that support base that comes from living close together. My older don’t raise my younger, and my standards may be lower with regards to cleaning the house but certainly not with regards to reading to and educating them. My older kids are quite accomplished even in DCUM land.
I gave up a career and not really sure how you could do it and work unless your employer was extremely flexible. Just sick days, school days off, and appointments would all make me a terrible employee.
When my kids were young, I kept a very scheduled house. Otherwise I just did it. I agree it’s sometimes easier when the spouse is gone. I have fond memories of tossing a blanket on the living room floor and having picnics instead of spending an hour cooking a meal the little ones wouldn’t eat anyways.

But you can't disagree that educating 7 kids vs 2 is a whole different ballgame. Even if you had 8 hours in the day they won't get as much time.

I don’t home school. But you can read a book to three little kids at once. But yes, overall less one on one time. I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its actually easier with little kids and a deployed husband sometimes. You can give them waffles and fruit for dinner and let them eat it in pajamas rather than having to make a big dinner for your husband. My husband would get stressed out by a messy house but life was a bit more casual while he was gone, etc I sleep trained two babies by letting them cry it out during deployments without him insisting on picking them up.

So it's easier when your husband is a lousy parenting partner.

Otherwise, it's not easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its actually easier with little kids and a deployed husband sometimes. You can give them waffles and fruit for dinner and let them eat it in pajamas rather than having to make a big dinner for your husband. My husband would get stressed out by a messy house but life was a bit more casual while he was gone, etc I sleep trained two babies by letting them cry it out during deployments without him insisting on picking them up.

So it's easier when your husband is a lousy parenting partner.

Otherwise, it's not easier.

I didn’t read her post that way at all. You ever do a group project at school and think you could’ve done it quicker yourself without so much chatter getting everyone to agree? Kind of like that.

[Anonymous]

DH is retired Air Force and had a few deployments but nothing like what my Army friends had to endure. I never found that it was easier with him away but there wasn't anyone to help so you just had to power through stuff... clean the puke up, deal with the flat tire, fix the leaky toilet. Eventually there was a routine and a structure but it wasn't easier.

The hardest part was the transition period before the routines were established, and it was just as hard when he came back as when he left, honestly.

Lots of pressure to "bloom where you're planted" (gag), at least with the groups of people we were around. Maybe that's an Air Force officer wife thing and other services are more real, I don't know.

It's simple to make appearances look great though, so you would have never known from Facebook that I didn't sleep for days on end because 3 kids & I got Norovirus one after the other and then the heater broke at 2am when it was minus 20 outside. You might have seen the carpet picnic dinner and the kids in PJs though and just thought we were doing our we're-making-the-best-of-it deployment thing, never wondering why they still weren't dressed for the day.

[Anonymous]

No military experience, so I cannot speak to that. I will say, though, that half of my challenges raising kids surround disagreements with my DH about how to do it. Not to say it would be easier without him around (and, I obviously keep him around for other reasons, too--we love each other, etc.). But the work of having to do everything myself would be at least partially offset by the ease of getting to make all the decisions myself.

[Anonymous]

I can only speak for myself, but I definitely have a feeling of don’t sweat the small stuff. For me, when you have to go redo wills and stuff at JAG, that hits me hard. When your intact family feels vulnerable, it’s hard to get upset about the three year old’s recent tantrum.

[Anonymous]

They have access to fantastic, incredibly cheap child care. How cheap? As low as 160 dollars a month for full time care (sliding scale based on income). Plus drop-in daycare for 5 dollars an hour. Essentially free healthcare for the whole family, and a housing subsidy. Obviously, all in exchange for a really risky job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have access to fantastic, incredibly cheap child care. How cheap? As low as 160 dollars a month for full time care (sliding scale based on income). Plus drop-in daycare for 5 dollars an hour. Essentially free healthcare for the whole family, and a housing subsidy. Obviously, all in exchange for a really risky job.

You need to qualify "access to." I haven't looked at base daycare recently, but there aren't always available openings. As for the drop in daycare, in my case it was rarely available. There was very few spots, and most of them would be booked in advance by "regulars." You could book up to 30 days in advance and some people would do that as soon as the daycare opened. If I needed childcare doctors appointment, all the "drop in" spots had already been reserved for weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have access to fantastic, incredibly cheap child care. How cheap? As low as 160 dollars a month for full time care (sliding scale based on income). Plus drop-in daycare for 5 dollars an hour. Essentially free healthcare for the whole family, and a housing subsidy. Obviously, all in exchange for a really risky job.

It’s not fantastic and often not available. This sounds like something you “heard”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have access to fantastic, incredibly cheap child care. How cheap? As low as 160 dollars a month for full time care (sliding scale based on income). Plus drop-in daycare for 5 dollars an hour. Essentially free healthcare for the whole family, and a housing subsidy. Obviously, all in exchange for a really risky job.

That would be for the lowest level enlisted service members. And yes it's low for a reason.