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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]26 year Marine wife here.  I assume it’s similar for all services, but Marine wives really take care of each other, from Day 1.  [b]Childcare is never an issue, whether through the CDC, or calling up a wife in the same unit. [/b] All sorts of activities for kids and families bases abound and are extremely cheap or free.  Because we’re all in the same boat (pun intended), no one adopts a negative or woe is me attitude.  Wives of senior NCOs are a Godsend to a new wife whether officer or enlisted.  They know the ins and outs of Marine family life and how to get stuff done.  MCCS has also improved a ton.  You move a lot, but base resources are all pretty similar so after a couple PCSs it becomes old hat.  It is a bit of a cloistered life, but in a way it has to be as only another military wife knows what we go through and speaks the same language.  I wouldn’t want to have lived any other way.[/quote]

Another Marine wife here (though not as long as you.  My husband was in 25 years and we were married for 16 of those years.)

Our husband must have never been stationed at the same base/unit!
There's no way we would just call another wife from the unit to watch your kids unless it was an extreme emergency.   In fact, it was explicitly told to us in key volunteer training to NOT offer to watch the kid's of other spouses (and not to lend them money, not to buy them groceries, etc.)

The CDC at Pendleton in the mid 2000s almost never had drop in care available when I called (even trying to book a few weeks in advance for a medical appointment.)  Although I will admit the drop in care at main naval hospital in San Diego always had availability when I had appointments down there.   
Not sure about other bases, because with the exception of Pendleton, we never lived close enough to base for it to be practical.  [/quote]

I think this first pp watches too many episodes of army wives lol. [/quote]

Eh, I lived on base (Air Force, not Marines) and would offer to watch my neighbor's kids so they could take care of things, especially if I knew their spouse was TDY or deployed, or for my single mom friends. Sometimes the kids would just show up to play with my kiddos, and vice versa, and we ended up having a fair amount of spontaneous, low-key BBQs/picnics/shared meals when the kids were playing outside. When I had my youngest, for example, a few of my military friends (active duty or civilian spouses) offered to watch my older kiddo if needed, as sometimes we don't have extended family who can come help out. It's nice because it's a ready-made community that you step into and you get to know people quickly. Everyone's in the same boat and people are more likely to extend an offer to help out than your average non-military family from my experience. I wouldn't have cold-called someone from my unit, but if one of my airmen needed a hand I was more than happy to help them out with something. I agree that it wouldn't be appropriate to be loaning money or buying groceries for a family- that really indicates that there is a financial issue and it should be addressed and assistance offered via leadership; but i definitely hired a coworker's responsible teenage children to pet-sit or baby-sit, for example. 
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