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Advice for women on BMQ and other courses [MERGED]

Technoviking said:
Here's my 1000 word essay on how to survive Borden:

You're a man of few words, there's still 998 left.  ;D
 
I'm a mother of two boys. I've been wanting to join the army for a few years now, and I'm hell bent on doing it this year. My only issue is that I have kids. When I told my mom that I wanted to join, she said "you can't join! you have your kids to take care of!" I'm planning on becoming a Dental Technician.  Basically, I want to talk to other moms (single or married/in a relationship) who have been in or are currently serving in the military. How is it for you? How is it for your kids and spouse? I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for this question...if anybody knows where I could ask these questions, it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell me where to turn.
 
PuckChaser said:
You're a man of few words, there's still 998 left.  ;D
I subscribe to the principles of Military Writing:

Accuracy.

Brevity.

Clarity.

I think I met all three ;D
 
I'm concerned about this as well. Is your husband military? Mine is, and is very good with the kids, so I have no worries when I go away to train. Well, I'll always worry, thats what moms do LOL! From the information that I've gleaned from other moms in the military, most tell me that its the best thing they've ever done. They tell me its hard, like a constant fire drill, but they wouldn't change it. A friend of mine is a major, her husband is a captain and their kids are the same age as mine, so I was very interested in what she had to say.

I'm just waiting for some additional paperwork to send in once its complete, in the new year and my application should be on its way to Ottawa to be processed.

Looking foward to some of the answers from people here!
 
Hi there,

There are lots of moms (and dads) in the military.  I'm the mom of a now 11 y/o girl and I joined initially two years ago this month. It's been a long process.  I'll give you a brief synopsis of my journey: I left basic training halfway through on my first attempt due to illness and personal issues (one of which was my ex trying to get custody of my daughter).  I then made the decision to go reserve at that point so that I could have some control over where I would be posted and not have to deploy until 'we' were ready for it.  It took a while to get re-enrolled since I had not completed basic.  Then I had to basically give up custody for a full year so that I could go to Borden for BMQ and my QL3, as I chose to be in the Air Reserve which does all Reg force training.  I wanted this because I knew I would eventually want to do a Component Transfer to Reg again, and I always wanted to be in the Air Force.  However, it was not easy to give up full custody of my daughter in order to make that happen. 

All of that time away from my child was really hard on her and on me and some days, I didn't know if I could spend another day without seeing her beautiful face. I missed her birthday last year for the first time ever and it killed me, but many a military parent has experienced it and you will too, if you join...birthdays, Christmases and other holidays, major milestones in your child's life...you just have to accept that you're going to miss some of those things.  Fortunately, I have my daughter with me again full-time now.  My next course is in two months time (5 weeks away from home) so I am getting ready to once again leave my child behind, this time in the care of her step-father.  My CL husband is in the military, so he knows the drill so to speak.  Having a supportive spouse or supportive family members (parents) if you are single can make all the difference.  My next step will be that CT to the Reg force.  I am hopeful that things are going to work out and that I won't be risking losing my daughter this time around. 

My father was like your mother, military_mom...he believed mothers should be with their kids, not leave them to go away on military training. We had many an argument about it before I left. Unfortunately, he passed away before I left for my second basic training and he never got to see me graduate and move forward with my career. I can only hope that if he were still here, he would have come around and been proud of me for seeing it through.

Anyway, if you use the search function on army.ca, you will find other threads on this topic that you may find to be interesting reading. Good luck with your decision!
 
I'm not a military mom but I have had to be when my wife has sailed. same as she had to be the dad when I sailed. It's not how much time you spend with your kids it's what you do in that time. I have a son (currently a MCpl AVS in Greenwood) and a daughter (with a son) Neither one of them holds a grudge or feels they missed out on anything because one or both of us have been away.

Make you kids part of your life as well. We would sit down and map out where I would be and what I would be doing. I sent my sone a telegram from the ship on one of his birthdays. That was in the days of letter writing. These days you have MSN, Skype and all sorts of live chat sites. Stay in touch and keep them part of what's going on.

Good luck!
 
Retired FDO said:
I'm not a military mom but I have had to be when my wife has sailed. same as she had to be the dad when I sailed. It's not how much time you spend with your kids it's what you do in that time. I have a son (currently a MCpl AVS in Greenwood) and a daughter (with a son) Neither one of them holds a grudge or feels they missed out on anything because one or both of us have been away.

Make you kids part of your life as well. We would sit down and map out where I would be and what I would be doing. I sent my sone a telegram from the ship on one of his birthdays. That was in the days of letter writing. These days you have MSN, Skype and all sorts of live chat sites. Stay in touch and keep them part of what's going on.

Good luck!

LOL. I think we can call ourselves "ambisexual" in that we can be both the dad & the mom when required.

Here`s a couple of threads for the ladies below ... one is on single-parenting in the CF, but hell when one is deployed or away on trainging --- the other parent essentially IS a single parent:

Single Parenting in the CF

The Homefront

Old"er" woman just starting out...

I did it!!

 
Picture's are automatically worth 1000 words so he's actually over his word limit.
 
Lil_T said:
Looking forward to be the best damn clerk I can be.

Look after people's pay and process their claims immediately, so that they do not have to turn to prostitution in Ottawa hotels, and you'll achieve that easily.
 
Thanks for everybody's input. You have made me feel a little more confident in my choice to join the CF. Right now I'm not married, but do have a boyfriend of almost a year. I haven't told him yet about my decision, but have sort of talked about the army in general...he says he wouldn't be able to handle taking care of my two boys (6yrs old and almost 3yrs old) by himself, but I think he'd be fine. He'll have lots of help from my family and friends, as well as his family.

Thanks again.
 
Loachman said:
Look after people's pay and process their claims immediately, so that they do not have to turn to prostitution in Ottawa hotels, and you'll achieve that easily.
  ;D  well let's hope I can cut down on people having to prostitute themselves....


 
Loachman said:
Look after people's pay and process their claims immediately, so that they do not have to turn to prostitution in Ottawa hotels, and you'll achieve that easily.

you do know that some doo-doo will probably be coming your way.  ;D.................ah, and so young to leave us this early..... :eek:
 
Lil_T said:
Finally - after 16 1/2 months  :nod:  I graduated BMQ 9 Dec 10.

Does BMQ take 16 months to do now?? Or did they give you numerous tries?  :D

2012 will be brighter for you now!

ME
 
GAP said:
you do know that some doo-doo will probably be coming your way.  ;D.................ah, and so young to leave us this early..... :eek:

She's not so scary as all of you make her out to be, but I think that it's cute that you do.
 
Famous last words.....should it be your epitaph?  ;D
 
Sigs Pig said:
Does BMQ take 16 months to do now?? Or did they give you numerous tries?  :D

2012 will be brighter for you now!

ME

no, but breaking your leg in three places kinda tends to put things on hold for a little while.  :D
 
Congrats to you Lil_T!  I had complete faith in you and knew you would be successful!  Best of luck on your QL3!  (It will be much more relaxed than BMQ, but staying professional is key. :))
 
thanks so much  :)  I can't wait to get my 3s started.  I'm so glad I only have to spend 12 whole days on PRETC
 
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