There’s one thing I’m really fighting for - and I think we ought to all be fighting for - and that is “compassionate reassignment.” For mothers, that’s a critical thing to think about. I think the children should come first, women second. I know that women are feeling that it’s a women’s issue to be treated like men in this war, to have the right to perform duties that up to now have been performed by men. But it shouldn’t be a women’s issue. It should be a woman’s choice, if she has small children, about whether she really wants to go there, or whether she couldn’t be reassigned within reach of that family - in a way that didn’t undermine her status.
They should be keeping in touch with their children in every possible way. I love the way the media is using that opportunity to have parents talk back and forth across the ocean. I would send videotapes back and I’d telephone a lot.
I think every child in this country is watching the newspapers and seeing mothers being taken away from their kids. And every child I’ve talked to wonders, “Is my mommy going to leave me?”. I heard [of a 4-year-old boy whose mother asked him], “Do you have any questions?” [He replied,] “Well, when are you leaving?” She doesn’t have any intention of leaving, but to this child, there is that danger. And I think this goes very deep for kids all over the country. There are some things that parents need to say that are very critical: “I’m not going to leave you. In spite of the fact that some parents are having to leave their kids, I’m not leaving you.”
I would say that trying to shut [the TV] off or trying to keep it a secret in a family is dangerous. [Kids] know what’s going on. Most of them are in classes where at least one person has a family member overseas. So we’re not going to protect them from it. What we can do is share it with them and share it in a way that gets their questions to the surface. I would set up special times every week at least, and maybe every day, when you sit down together and say, “Well, now it’s time for us to talk about what’s going on overseas. What are your questions?”. In those sessions, I would also add some other things. I would start looking for belief systems that really matter and talk about those. You know: “In our family we believe in so-and-so.” You believe in an afterlife or you believe in religion. I would share those openly now as backups to balance this other side of what we’re having to accept.
The school can play a very important role in giving kids a chance to share with each other and bring up questions. Schools can give them some intellectual understanding [of what’s going on]. I would certainly recommend that parents, schools and teachers get together frequently and discuss these issues and come to an agreement about how to handle it.
You remember all the self-destructive behavior that went on in the late ’60s and the ’70s?. We can be prepared for all that because I think that is what war does to kids. The disillusioned flower children, the Me Generation, the drug epidemic that we’re still paying a price for - I think that really started in that war. I just wonder: how are we going to get through this without paying another price like that?
I think this is where, as a family, we can share values and ways of coping with stress and with all of our feelings about having to be aggressive as a nation. You can learn family solidarity and family values. That’s one level. The next level would be as a nation: can’t we all stand together and say, “In spite of what we have to do over there, we do care about families over here and we care about kids over here.” And then I would use some way of handling women and mothers in the military as a symbol of that kind of caring.
