• Women are the fastest growing group within the military
and veteran populations.
• Women represent 12% of service members who deployed
in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation
Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
• 40% of military women have children; 12% are single
mothers.
• Transitioning from military service to civilian life poses
particular challenges for women because of their
traditional responsibilities for childrearing.
• No published studies focus exclusively on the parenting
stress and coping of OEF/OIF women veterans.
PARENTING STRESSORS
Changes in Child
Development
“We come back and all of a sudden our child is on a different developmental level and we’re trying to figure out how they got there, let alone
what we’re supposed to do next.”
Attachment Issues
“My youngest wouldn’t connect with me…I don’t know if she forgot me, or just resented me being gone, or was angry, or what she was
feeling.”
Role Changes/Renegotiation
“As a mother who had done all the bedtimes, stories, bath times, and little routines…there was a certain expectation that things would be as I
had left them… and when I came back, it was very, very different.”
Health-related Stressors
“I didn’t have the energy to play because I was in pain.”
Financial Challenges
“Not having a job after Afghanistan affected the way I parent...I want to do fun things with my kids. I can’t take them to Disneyworld so I have
to do research online to find free activities.”
Loss of Military Support
“Honestly, I felt safer in Iraq than I do now…and the reason is because I was with people of a like mind…people who understand what we are
going through.”
Re-establishing Family
Routines and Rituals
“I take them to the park, take them to the playground….we do fun things together.”
Reframing Maternal
Absence/ “Meaning-making”
“I explain how I went away to serve our country…show him Afghanistan on a world map…find ways to help him understand.”
COPING STRATEGIES
Drawing on Military-acquired “My (Navy) ‘people skills’ help me to deal with his teachers, his basketball coach, his Boy Scout leader.”
Skills
1) Determine parenting stressors faced by women veterans
who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan
2) Identify strategies employed by women veterans to cope
with parenting stress
3) Solicit women’s recommendations for easing the
transition to civilian parenting
• Five focus groups were conducted with 29 diverse
women veterans from the mid-Atlantic region.
• All participants served during OEF/OIF and 16 deployed
to Iraq or Afghanistan with at least one child under age
12.
• Topics of discussion included family and intimate
relationships, parenting, health challenges, and support
services.
• Only responses of the 16 veteran mothers were analyzed
for this study.
• A grounded theory approach was used to analyze
transcripts, with themes emerging from the data.
Accessing Social Support
“Now my mom lives with me so I can be there when she comes home…I can go to her school or volunteer.”
Parenting with Military
Discipline
“I was always ‘do this!’ ‘do it now!’… making chore lists, expecting perfection…and my mom said, ‘Stop treating them like little soldiers.’”
Disengaging/Withdrawal
“I hated doing that (pushing child away), but I just didn’t want him to touch me…didn’t want to get close to anybody anymore.”
• Parenting stressors stemmed from changes in women’s roles, health, resources, children’s development, and parent-child relationships.
• Consistent with the stress and coping literature, women veterans used problem-focused, emotion-focused, and appraisal-focused coping strategies.
• Mothers acknowledged the first four coping strategies as being constructive in managing parenting stress, helping to strengthen family relationships,
restore emotional balance, and seek appropriate assistance.
• The latter two strategies failed to head off future stress and proved maladaptive over the long-term.
• Women veterans recommended four strategies to improve their transition to civilian parenting:
1) Encourage the military to address parenting issues before separation from service.
2) Offer psychoeducational programs that address parenting and stress management.
3) Establish support groups for veteran mothers, including activities for children.
4) Educate family and health professionals to address the unique needs of veteran families.