Building Military Communities: On Resiliency and Entitlement

Christmas.

I love Christmas.  I love the spirit of the year, the extra kindness people bestow on each other regardless of their religious affiliation.  I love the atmosphere of stores and the overall happiness of the time of year.

But increasingly, I’ve noticed something else that comes out at Christmastime.

It seems that more and more, Christmas is the most entitled time of the year.

Whether it’s free Christmas gifts or parties or events or childcare, within the military community when it comes to what is offered, it never seems to be enough.

I’m not talking about business’ offering discounts or free items to military families.  While I feel uncomfortable and unworthy most times people want to give me something like that, I recognize that a gift is a gift and many times it’s at the benefit of the person offering it. If someone wants to show their appreciation in that way, while I don’t always think it’s deserved, I do believe in honouring their generosity.

What I am referring to, though, is the services provided to military families through the various agencies who are mandated to provide those services.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, as I’ve seen people with sometimes completely valid and sometimes unbelievably entitled arguments on both sides of the issue of what they deserve, and I’ve realized something.

Free things don’t neccesarily build resiliency.

Resiliency is built in a strong and supportive community.  One that knows and looks out for each other.  One who’s members know when to admit they need help and have people they can ask.


Resiliency is found in communities that are strengthened through give and take.

Dh and I have been fortunate enough to be a part of communities like these.  It takes time.  And effort.  Lots of effort.  Effort to meet people.  Effort to get to know them.  Effort to make that first request for help, or to answer theirs. 
These are the communities where you trade children so you can go on a date night.  Where a friend comes and helps you move because you have done the same.  Where someone comes over and shovels snow when the other is hurt or alone.  Where you look after each other.

So when your friend’s family is travelling from Gagetown to Trenton over the holidays to catch a flight, they know that even if it’s been 5 years they can crash at your place for the night.  And you have the ability to manage that because your other friends have given you a moments rest weeks earlier by letting you stay with them while you were visiting.

And when you move to a new place, it’s that friend you sorta knew from your last posting that you can call and ask if you can make them your emergency contact for the kid’s school.  And that leads to a coffee date.  Which leads to a friendship that includes Christmas Eve plans and date night babysitting. 

It’s teaching people that when they are posted in, a priority needs to be building up a support network, however that works for them.  Whether it’s attending mom and me activities at the community center, plugging into a place of Worship or finding a book club, just as important as changing over your drivers licence, we need to be actively building our personal support network through friendships.  

And that’s hard.

I understand that for some, meeting people is really difficult.  And sometimes even with best efforts, those supports fail or never materialize.  And there are specific needs, support for children during deployment, counselling, help navigating a sometimes confusing system, help finding employment or dealing with special needs or operational stress or PTSD or injured members.  These are all valid services that should be provided by military support agencies.  And free childcare for some events is amazing, especially to get a young mom out of the house in a long deployment when she doesn’t yet have other childcare options.  I won’t pretend I’ve never taken advantage of that.

I’m also not niave. Sometimes those agencies fail.  There are abuses in the system or the system downright doesn’t work.  People slip through the cracks.  There needs to be those who will bring that constructive criticism to the forefront so it can be addressed and improved.

But I still believe that the number one need of military families is the ability, the strength and the opportunity to build up our own community.

That way when the house floods, the car won’t start, the kids are sick or all three happen at once, when your spouse has been gone for 3 months and you need an invite *anywhere* that isn’t your own living room in front of netflix, you have someone out there who can help.

And that kind of community is found through offering opportunities to build it.  Through teaching resiliency, through encouraging group activities and Spouse’s Nights Out and positive social media interactions and coffee dates and play groups.  Through the old-school mentality of taking care each other because in this community, sometimes each other is all we have.

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