Content Warning: This article contains personal reflections on military life, deployments, and the challenges faced by military families and children. Some readers may find the experiences described emotionally triggering. Please read with care.
April marks the Month of the Military Child, a time dedicated to honouring the resilience and sacrifices of children growing up in military families. While service members wear the uniform, their children often serve in quieter, deeply personal ways – navigating deployments, frequent moves, and long separations from a parent.
This year, one Army wife and mother chose to recognise the month through a heartfelt letter to her two-year-old daughter. Though her daughter is still too young to understand the meaning behind her father’s uniform or the weight of goodbye hugs, her mother hopes the letter will one day serve as a reminder of the strength she has shown since infancy – and the pride her family holds in her as a military child.
My darling Beanie,
I am writing this letter to you, when you are just two years old. You are the most special little girl, full of wonder, sass and joy. You bring to me a sense of completion and even in this short time we have had together, I know forever, you will be my best friend.
I am also writing to you, because right now, it is just us two here at home. Your Daddy is away in Kenya, or “The Lion King”, as you have affectionately decided to call it. He has been away for a few weeks now and we have quite a few left, the longest time in fact since you’ve been born. You’re finding it quite hard, and I am too, so perhaps this letter, will be something we read together when you are older and reflect on our shared emotions, because, we have a lot of them.
So much has happened to us in the last few months. Before Christmas we got through another period when your Daddy was away on exercise, and shortly after that we began packing up our house to move. We decided to move back to where your Mummy and Daddy grew up, a long way from everything you knew, and we did this because, if I am honest, I was struggling. Being married to someone in the military isn’t always that easy, but I imagine by the time you can read this, you will have figured that one out. We left our friends, your nursery, all that we had grown together as the three of us, but also, our life together as a family has now completely changed. Daddy and I now live married unaccompanied, an oxymoron if you’ve ever read one. I never envisaged my marriage would see me living apart from the person I love, and splitting our family, but something had to change in our life. I was finding it too hard to juggle work full time, whilst looking after you on my own when he is deployed. Our closest family was over three hours away, and instead of it “taking a village” to raise a child, there was just me. If we were to stay in our old house on the garrison, our network would have broken down too, with our friends all posting on and the support diminishing further. With your Daddy due to be away a lot this year, the thought of continuing to struggle alone was too overwhelming. I often think I should have given up work, and that guilt sits in my stomach, but I also want you to see a strong role model who has a career she worked hard for and is proud of. But how many of my friends who are married to the military have this same dilemma. I pretty much see it in them all, leaving jobs, struggling to find new ones, pay cuts, careers on hold. Sacrifice extends beyond the serving person, I truly believe and advocate that point.
You, my darling, are full of wonder. You are intelligent and curious, and we have just hit the “why” stage as your mind continues to grow. Normally, it’s trivial things like asking me why birds fly, or why you need to go to sleep – hard to answer, but I find a workaround. Last night, you again asked me why your Daddy was away. I answered he was in “The Lion King”, because you normally nod your head and understand. But last night, you asked me again, “why?”. I said it was your Daddy’s job as a soldier to work away, but again you asked me “why?”. I tried to explain, that it was because your Daddy is a good man, who wants to help the world, but of course, you don’t quite understand that yet. Instead, you cried. You cried out “I want my Daddy” and I bit my tongue, when everything inside me wanted to scream “I do too, baby”. This morning, as you do every morning, you ask to find Daddy in our bed. I told you as I do each time, that Daddy is away with the elephants and the lions, but instead of nodding and telling me he might also be with the zebras, you buried your head in my chest and cried. And so, I sit feeling the overwhelming sense of responsibility to protect your innocent mind from the sadness you are feeling. But I also feel so lonely in this moment. I couldn’t ring your Daddy to tell him you were sad, because that would just be unbearable for him and he’s also unreachable. But I also couldn’t ring him, as a wife to a husband, to tell him how I felt I was breaking and he isn’t here help. How I feel I am letting you down, or how I feel engulfed by loneliness and suffocated by the feeling of responsibility to be all you need in the absence of your Daddy.
This life is one I chose, I know that. But I also know I could never have anticipated, over the many years I have been a part of it, what it truly meant. There is a trend going around at the moment that says, “younger me would be proud of who I am today”. Right now, I am not sure younger me would be proud of who I am. I feel exhausted if I am honest. My career has been carved out by military moves, my healthcare journey held up by the same postings and my relationship tested because of the sacrifices and obligations of service life. But then, I suppose, I am doing my best. I am trying to be the best mother I can be, I am holding a house together, working full time to champion our community and make improvements for our future. And in certain moments, I realise, perhaps I am not doing the worst job. This weekend, whilst we sat at the dinner table, I looked over and saw your Daddy’s empty chair and sadness swept over me and my eyes began to water. In that moment, you reached across the table, with your perfect tiny hand and asked me to hold it. You knew exactly what I was feeling and what I needed right then. I am raising the most resilient little girl, and I am married to the most incredible man. So actually, maybe younger me would be proud of who I am, but instead, I like to think that future me, would be proud of the mother, the wife and the woman I am trying to be right now and for showing up for you every day, my darling, in every way I can.
Love,
Mummy
The story serves as a poignant reminder that military service extends beyond the individual in uniform. Behind every serving personnel stands a family learning to adapt, endure, and grow through uncertainty. Military children, in particular, embody resilience long before they fully understand the sacrifices they make.
As the Month of the Military Child shines a light on their experiences, this mother’s letter captures what many military families feel but may struggle to put into words: deep gratitude for the courage of their children and unwavering pride in the role they play. It is a tribute not only to one little girl, but to military children everywhere who serve in their own remarkable way.
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