Strong, Safe, and Secure: Negotiating Early Fathering and Military Service Across the Deployment Cycle

Abstract

Military fathers of young children often endure repeated separations from their children, and these may disrupt the early parent-child relationship. Postdeployment reunification also poses challenges; disruptions that have occurred must often be repaired in the context of heightened emotions on the part of each family member at a time when fathers are themselves readjusting to the routines and responsibilities of family life. The current study employed qualitative research with the central aim of informing a richer understanding of these experiences. Interviews were conducted with 14 military fathers of young children who had experienced separation from their families during deployment. Narratives were coded using principles of grounded theory, and common parenting themes were extracted. Fathers shared their hopes that their young children would develop qualities of strength, confidence, and self-sufficiency. They also discussed difficulty in supporting the development of these qualities in their young children due to problems dealing with the negative emotions and difficult behaviors that their children exhibited. Reliance on their parenting partner was commonly cited as an effective strategy as fathers transitioned back to family life. Implications for intervention programs include the provision of parenting and self-care skills and inclusion of the father's parenting partner in the intervention.

Strong Military Families Intervention Enhances Parenting Reflectivity and Representations in Families With Young Children

“…Service members who have deployed have elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with studies reporting 4 to 17% prevalence rates for U.S. Iraq War veterans (Richardson, Frueh, & Acierno, ), but substantially more may suffer from subclinical symptoms. For example, while most participants in a small study of military fathers who participated in a parenting support intervention did not meet cutoff criteria for a probable diagnosis of PTSD on a standard self‐report checklist, nearly half had subclinical, but elevated, levels of trauma symptoms (Dayton et al., ). Over half of spouses of service members report negative emotional reactions (anxiety, loneliness, sadness, worry) related to their partner's deployment separation (Wexler & McGrath, ).…”

“…Adjustment back to home life and day‐to‐day parenting often involves co‐managing their children's emotions. Many service members have reported difficulty helping their children regulate their emotions, and note that their children's negative emotions can trigger difficult memories from their military and combat experiences (Dayton et al., ). Military parents have reported that they have difficulty reestablishing connections with their younger children upon reunification, nurturing and being emotionally available to their children, and managing their child's emotions (and staying calm themselves) when their child is upset (Walsh et al., ).…”

“…Since 2001, roughly 2.7 million American troops have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and 48% of these service members have a child under 6 years of age (U.S. Department of Defense, ). Military families display remarkable resilience despite the many challenges they face, and yet the normative stresses associated with managing parenting roles across the deployment cycle can lead many families to struggle (Dayton, Walsh, Muzik, Erwin, & Rosenblum, ; Lincoln, Swift, & Shorteno‐Fraser, ). When one parent deploys, the nondeployed parent is more likely to report high levels of parenting stress, mood symptoms, and adjustment difficulties (Bender, ).…”

Impact of deployment on military families with young children: A systematic review

“…Seven studies reported the salaries of the service members, and these data also ranged widely across studies, even within military branch. For example, 66% of the Army National Guard fathers participating in the study by Dayton et al (2014) earned less than $50,000, and 50% were unemployed. In contrast, the median reported income of Army National Guard families participating in the study by Gewirtz et al (2014b) was $80,000.…”

The effect of video‐mediated communication on father‐infant bonding and transition to fatherhood during and after Satogaeri Bunben

“…Yogman and Garfield () explained that the level of involvement of physically absent or nonresident fathers with their children is influenced by several factors, including age, level of education, employment status, geographical distance, fathers' mental health status and social support. To date, research related to fathers' physical absences early in their infants' lives has focused either on fathers' experiences of separation from their hospitalized newborns/infants (Garten, Maass, Schmalisch, & Buhrer, ) or deployed military fathers (Dayton, Walsh, Muzik, Erwin, & Rosenblum, ; Schachman, ; Willerton, Schwarz, Wadsworth, & Oglesby, ). Garten et al () compared the frequency and duration of parental visits to neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and found the frequency of parental visits declined significantly over time, while the duration of visits remained constant.…”