Single Parent Joining The Army

[wannabesolider]

Hello!

Posting here mostly for traffic!

I am in the midst of a uni application for nursing, I am mostly certain I will be successful in gaining a place, I already have the grades (equivalent to 3 A's at A-Level). Once I have an offer I am debating whether to join the army and nurses are a high priority trade they are recruiting for, also the generous bursary they offer is appealing. I'm just looking for advice on whether it is feasible or just a pipe dream.

DD will be 3 by the time my degree starts and will be 6 before I commence army training and start serving, I do have childcare options for deployment between family and a nanny and then once old enough will look at the option to place her in boarding school.

Does anyone have experience as a single parent in the forces? Aibu to even think about it?

I am aware of the forces lifestyle as I was a military brat myself that went to boarding school (cheap private school fees is a bonus!). However, my parents were together until my mid teens and I was already at boarding school. My daughter's father has no involvement.

Also an army brat - you do know the boarding school fee help has all but gone? And was an army wife too so I DO know what army life is like. My ex left recently his 2nd wife is still serving - as an army nurse!

I've known a few serving single mums, not one has been happy with their decision and they left ASAP

Also is your child's father still in the picture? Such a move could prompt them to go for residency and he'd have a good chance of getting it. Most civvy judges don't understand army life

As a nurse you'll be in one of the trades most deployed too. Ex's 2nd wife is deployed approx every 18 months for 6 months at a time. They have 5 dc for whom he is main care giver and it's him they call for when they have a skint knee, nightmare or friendship fallout. She has experienced her children when they were under 5 not recognising her when she got back from deployment and even hiding from her

I have to agree that it rather sounds as if you don't actually want to be a parent, you want others taking care of your child as much as possible and this is the perfect excuse

that can only be a good thing!

No there are down sides to everything

Oh she would love it! you can't POSSIBLY know this while she is still too young to properly understand herself. She is not you, different kids respond differently to the life. My brother and I loved being army brats my sister absolutely hated it! BUT that was with 2 parents and frankly we were better off when dad was deployed (abusive)

Of the brat friends I'm still in touch with it's about 50/50 love hate. The haters did not often say so to their parents at the time and the parents when they did learn of this were incredibly sad and wish they had known as they'd have made different decisions.

You cannot parent virtually it's not parenting

If you do this, in all likelihood you will never have a truly close bond with your dd because you will have taught her to cope without you, to rely on gran rather than mum.

If it came to light in the 4 years of service that you initially sign up for that it wasn't for us and impacted her I would leave.

4 years in early childhood is a very long time, by the time you realise there's a problem and can change things the damage will be done, irreparable damage.

if you've raised her to not be whiny, she'll probably take to it.

Jesus! Yes we need SIX year olds not to be "whiny" - this is the kind of person would be raising your child op!

I think this post actually does a great job of proving what a terrible idea this is!

FYI recruiters ALWAYS play down how much you'll be away - I know because my dad was one for a time and it's what they're trained to do (pretty obvious I'd have thought) play up the positives, play down the negatives until you sign on the dotted line and your arse is theirs! They will promise the world until that point!

Deployment won't start when she is 6, it would be training. which is residential and communication with family during first half is heavily discouraged (as this is when most recruits are likely to quit through homesickness)

she will always be my priority

Not the impression you're giving here at all

however I know the people giving me shit probably have zero experience of the forces!

That may be true of some - but not all. Plus I'm willing to bet most DO have experience of parenting probably of more than 3 years!

Just because I don't want mollycoddle my daughter being a loving and present (physically and emotionally) parent ISN'T "mollycoddling"

Aren't you quite old to be joining up? What are the age limits? actually upper age limits are quite high now, currently upper age is 41.

What is the appeal of army nursing as opposed to NHS?

I think op is being blinded by the £42k bursary option.

But no amount of money makes up for time spent with your child while they are growing up.

The army promise to give you so many benefits and in all honesty, you're lucky if you get half of them when you're serving

Exactly!

Haha, 35.5 is the max age to join as a nurse I'm beginning to smell something...not quite right!

I won't work for the NHS, it's horrid, low pay, outrageous contracts

IF this is genuine you have a ridiculously idealised view of army careers!

Single parents in the military are entitled to a house either on or very close to camp so that their DC can live with them.

This has absolutely no bearing on the issues we are addressing with the op. A house is meaningless if there's no parent IN it with the child!

You're also assuming your mum will always be around and ABLE to care for your child. How old is she? As people age they get ill more often, become disabled etc has she cared for her for any length of time this far? She may decide she no longer WANTS to do it which is absolutely her right - this is your child not hers.

but I am yet to reach out to anyone from my background, given I've not spoken to then for 10+ years you've not even stated in touch with brat friends? Why? That's VERY unusual

something could happen to me no matter what I do? Shouldn't all parents have these considerations anyway?

By being in the forces the risk increases - that is hardly brain surgery level knowledge!

I don't believe you have the brain power and intelligence to be a nurse yet are that obtuse.

Yes I'm getting more suspicious!

From my personal experience, my mother never went away on deployment, ever, in her 19 years of service. My dad however, volunteered

Yes at this point I'm reporting as that's just not how it works in ANY branch of the forces - all my dads side of family are military, mainly army but also raf, navy and one marine.

I'm leaving my other comments for genuine people that may be interested but I'm not convinced .

Living with your daughter isn't "mollycoddling", it's mothering.

As you're not even qualified yet, maybe forget about it for the moment and rethink in a few years when you are qualified?

DH is in the Army (but not medical). I'll keep this factual, as honestly, I think you need to make your own decision.

We've been married 10.5 years. Our eldest is 9.5, our youngest is nearly 8. We are on our sixth home, preparing to move again. We have lived in three countries. Our children are on their third Primary school. We used three nurseries (plus the school preschool class). DH regularly misses birthdays, father's Day, mother's Day etc. He's missed Christmas. He spends months away.

Our children spent four years in Forces schools. Class sizes rarely get above 20, and can be as low as 6or7. (One DD was in a class of 29 for a while, and it was the biggest the school had ever seen. They had FIVE TAs to help the teacher. ) Their start to school was brilliant.

Housing... Well, it's cheap. But not always brilliant. The housing model is changing, so what the situation looks like in 3 years could be very different. They are encouraging people to opt out of quarters.

Although DH is not Medical, he did spend two years attached to s medical regiment. During that time, the regiment travelled to Kenya (training/aid) and Sierra Leone (Ebola).

Boarding school... CEA starts at 8 years. We started looking for Secondary options when our eldest DD was Yr3 (due to the Boarding School Fair). There were a range of options, and a lot of the schools have special Forces liaisons, and fee offers. Since then, it has become clear our eldest DD would not cope, but it was informative. I have friends with children at Duke of Yorks in Dover, and another 'State' boarding school, both are very happy apparently.

Friendship... It can be very intense, and a lot of fun. People help each other, especially on 'camps' (not so much on bigger garrisons like Catterick.)

So, 10.5years, 6 houses, 3 countries, moving again.... Away from the Army. The children and I are settling down. It was fun when they were young, now they need real stability. The eldest has made her thoughts on boarding school quite clear... It's fun in books, but she wants to live at home. DH will weekly commute. The Army encourages this arrangement. Our youngest would happily go to boarding school tomorrow.

The past year has been interesting as well. The Kenya families were evacuated back to the UK leaving pretty much everything behind, including pets. People have been stuck I countries away from their spouses and children. Deployments extended to cover quarantine. Every Army Medic is at 24hrs notice of deployment now.

It's great. And it's not. But it's different to how it was five years ago, in will be different again in five years. It's a lot different to your own childhood

Good luck whatever you decide

@VinterKvinna

Out of interest, why do you want to join the army? What it is you want from it you cant get elsewhere?

I think possibly this is the key question.

OP, with the greatest of respect (and I claim no great knowledge of military life bar anecdotally through work) if it is all you have known, and this is how you were parented it might be difficult for you to envisage how life would feel for a child with a very dependable home life without the threat of interruption through deployments/training/exercises.

I can only add anecdata but I have taught quite a few Forces children as the school I worked at was close to a large RAF base. The job didn’t come without a significant emotional cost to a lot of them. And this was mostly kids coming from 2 parent homes, often with one civilian parent. I wasn’t sure parents fully appreciated the emotional cost, especially where they themselves were military brats and wore that identity proudly, and sought to recreate it.

Good luck with your studies.

Can’t imagine a better way to completely destabilise my daughter

She doesn’t even have any siblings does she?

@SimonJT

My cousins wife was in the forces, she left when they decided to start a family as the number of children with parents in the forces who have attachment difficulties is very very high.

I'd love to see some research on this because as a person who was a military child, soldier, wife myself this is not something I ever heard discussed.

Most forces parents have a partner not in the forces which can provide greater stability for their child.

Boarding schools have changed and are evolving constantly as there's more and more research on what's best for children. These days weekly boarding is more common and there are more regular exeats etc. Your daughter may feel left out if peers are regularly going home to their parents.

In general your post doesnt feel like your daughters emotional needs are much of a priority for you. She may not love boarding school as you did (many children don't).

You want to know if it would work?
It might work for you but not your child
I can’t imagine dumping my child on someone else or putting them in boarding school so I could pursue a potentially dangerous career.

The way you throw "occasional deployment" around makes it clear to me that you don't understand the emotional impact they have on young children, your daughter is not you. Also the armed forces are more stretched than ever, there have been many, many personnel cuts and they still have to meet the same operational duties. Deployments are getting more frequent and longer.
Working as a nurse in the aftermath of a pandemic would mean you are in short supply- they need you to be operational, even if you've just got back from a deployment, if you're needed, you will have to go.
Have you considered working for the NHS? There is a shortage of nurses there and they sometime have signing bonuses, as the bursary thing seems to be so important to you. You can find bursaries for NHS nursing courses too.

[quote wannabesolider]@MommaGee prior to boarding school this would be my main concern and something I need to think about. I'm only considering it at this stage, yet people are acting as though I've already enlisted.

Classic MN hysteria.[/quote]
You’ve lost it now using ‘hysteria’ to describe the responses. Talk about blinkered!

I for one think this is a totally selfish thing to consider given that your daughter only has 1 parent. If you were already serving in the forces then became pregnant as a single person it would be totally different as you would already have an established career behind you. But you dont. You’ve not even begun training. What job do you currently do?

You talk about the salary compared to being an NHS nurse, but you’d need to add on the costs of a nanny or boarding school if you were in the forces, so I should imagine that would make the salaries fairly equitable in real terms. In the NHS, there is the opportunity to work part time should your DD need you more - is that even a thing in the forces?

To train as a nurse in the forces dont you have to be based in Birmingham where the Defence school of healthcare education is based? Do you live there now or would you have to move?

How old is your mum, and is she fit and well enough to be the primary career of a young child? For a number of years?

Whilst doing what you want isn’t impossible, I think you’re naive if you cant see just how challenging it would be as a sole parent to a small child, both on you and on your child. University as a sole parent is hard enough - I know because I did it.

Having a dream is great, but FFS be realistic. This isn’t just your life youre talking about, its your daughters too.

I'd actually likely be working more hours and be away from her more as a whole.

I'm sorry, but this simply isn't true. Utter bullshit. And I speak as someone who works in the NHS married to armed forces for over a decade. This is NOT true.

From my personal experience, my mother never went away on deployment, ever, in her 19 years of service. My dad however, volunteered.
this is anecdotal. There are thousands of people that don't have this experience.
If you are a nurse, you WILL deploy. The military is not how it was 19 years ago. Multiple deployments a year are THE NORM in the RN, the army I'm not sure about but your experience is not the case in 2021.

I can't understand why youd want to abandon your child, who has already been abandoned. So for most of her childhood she hasn't got a parent around.

What if something happens to you?

I'm sorry but there's more to parenthood than making enough money to send your child to boarding school. YOU are her parent and should be the biggest influence. I think you're projecting your childhood onto her, poor mite.

And if I may, getting snippy and defensive might ‘work’ on mumsnet. Good luck with doing that during basic training (and indeed going forward) when you get told something you disagree with/think pointless/don’t want to do.

There are very very few trades that put up with that

[quote wannabesolider]@Aquamarine1029 to see other people's thoughts on whether it could work, not for people's opinions on boarding school.[/quote]
Surely your daughter being dumped in a boarding school and being passed around like a game of pass the parcel at a young age is part of "it".
You buggering off to be on assignments away for months on end is part of "it" - maybe you should have thought about it before having children? But then if you aren't much of a parent anyway, and don't want to be, then maybe she'll be better off away from you.

Perhaps consider what your relationship with your child will be like after 18 years of someone else bringing her up.

Boarding schools are not the places they once were, but they can't replace having a loving stable family, and I've seen some mightily screwed up kids whose families outsourced their teen years and carried on with their lives by parking them at boarding school.

It's shared experiences that create a relationship. If you don't have any then your mother/child relationship will be a notional concept. Is that what you want?

No, you shouldn't do it. You talk about 'benefits' of the army, but the tradeoff is barely seeing your child. You will sign a contract which means you may be away for several months at a time, potentially without much time to even call her. You can provide stability for her and a good life as a nurse.

[quote wannabesolider]@Fallox I do have concerns it won't look like the information I already have.

From my personal experience, my mother never went away on deployment, ever, in her 19 years of service. My dad however, volunteered.[/quote]
So you're planning to take the bursary, school fees subsidy, salary - and not actually be deployed ever?

Aren't you quite old to be joining up? What are the age limits? actually upper age limits are quite high now, currently upper age is 41.

Haha, 35.5 is the max age to join as a nurse I'm beginning to smell something...not quite right!

I googled the UK age restrictions upon reading this thread and it said 35 years 6 months was the upper age limit for signing up.

Sounds really selfish - and what if we have another war and you get deployed to a war zone - what would that be like for your child. You are her only parent - that makes a difference.

@Backbee

think army would maybe be better than airforce. You move as a unit in the army, and your support network moves with you.

Not the case anymore. The RAF offers far more stability for families. Shorter deployments, longer postings, more likely to get preferences etc.

Didn’t realise this, thanks. Sounds like RAF could be worth considering over Army then.

I genuinely enjoyed my childhood, and have a great relationship with my parents OP so don’t be put off if it’s what you really want to do. It could give you both great opportunities.

I think just doing nurse training as a single parent will be tough enough. Have you got childcare for night shifts, weekends, early shifts which start at 7am? I’d wait to see if you get through that before making any other plans. The attrition rate for a nursing degree is high.

(Boarding) gives independence amongst other things - that can only be a good thing!

This is a bit of a myth I went to boarding school. When I went to university I was no better or worse at coping with independence than all the other students the vast majority of which had been to day schools.

@Backbee combat medical was the initial trade I was looking at, however from what I've seen so far they are more mobile then nurses so.

I have considered both of those options yes, I'm not set on anything yet. I wanted to know if it was feasible