How one British family tackles military life

Anna, Tom and their children Grace and Ted

What is your favourite part about being a dad?

It has to be the sound of their laughter. That uninhibited joy that the small things in life can give them is quite something. However bad a day you might be having you can’t help but be cheered up by seeing them so happy. Then there is listening to their imagination run free – Grace’s current chosen career is to be a mermaid astronaut, whatever that is! She’s thought it through though – apparently going to get to the moon in a rocket because she’ll get too cold riding her unicorn….! 

What has been the biggest challenge of working in the military while also being a father?

The challenges have never been anything you wouldn’t expect when you sign up for military life, in fact for many of the obvious military life challenges (e.g. separation, late notice deployments or extensions) I have been far luckier than many of my colleagues. It is the context change that becoming a Father has on your life that has been the biggest surprise. I knew what I was signing up for in joining the military, I thought I knew what I was signing up for in being a Father - I didn’t. You can plan and prepare as much as you like but the birth of my daughter fundamentally changed me as a person, the way I thought about life and treated others. It makes the obvious challenges harder emotionally, but also brings new challenges you just would never consider. One example involved Anna’s maternity leave pay.

I was posted to Plymouth from Bristol when Grace was one month old. The job involved a 6-month deployment, departing when she was about 6 months old. Anna had planned her maternity leave with University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and was due to return to work at about the 10-month point. This was now no longer possible in Bristol due to our house move, compounded by the concurrent deployment. She was facing a new location, deployed husband and searching for a new job, with the added pressure that if she didn’t find one all her maternity pay would be reclaimed as there was a minimum return of service.

Over 10 years of employment with the NHS, but the move just fell at the wrong time. You’d have thought it easy to get a job in nursing, but the paediatric nurse employment opportunities in Plymouth are not quite the same as Bristol with its own specialist Children’s Hospital.

The military person always has a job when they move, but their spouse often has to work hard to rebuild their career every time. There are some great initiatives such as the military covenant that go some way to help, but unfortunately in this case, one government departments honest decision to relocate me, was just not understood by another that could not understand the circumstances. She had every intention of returning to work with the NHS when a job came up in the right geographic location, but this approach did not fit with the maternity policy and there was no flexibility. Fortunately a job did come up just in time, but the stress it put Anna under at an already stressful time was not necessary and could have been prevented with more flexibility in parental leave policies.

In summary, the biggest challenge is not one I have faced myself, but in trying to support my family through a situation whilst deployed. 

How do you and your partner balance being working parents? How do you split household chores?

The daily chores tend to sort themselves out and we play to one another’s’ strengths. I’m better at ironing, so I do that. Anna has more delicate clothes so she doesn’t really trust my ‘check the colour and sling it in there at 60 degree’ approach to washing. In making time for bigger chores and ensuring the children are taken care of, it pains to me to say we’ve found a weekly ‘diary meeting’ is the best way! Always done over a glass of wine we’ll check what’s on, check which of us can do it, and if needed make a joint priority call on where we’ll have to either ask for help (in good time) or say no to a commitment. This includes everything from chores, basic house renovation tasks (which fortunately we’ve just finished) to the day job and social commitments. It ensures a fair and agreed split. Very military and takes the spontaneity out of life, but it seems to work for us at the moment.     

What do you think are the best ways that the MoD can support families?

I do believe the MoD do their best to support families. Way more than almost all other employers I know. Their weight of effort is quite rightly attributed to those with deployed spouses. A lot of the support centres around the main employment bases and ‘married patches’. If you fall outside that area it is harder to immediately get the support but not impossible. There’s plenty there if you need and can find it.

I suppose if I had to pull out one area I’d link it to the previous challenge regarding spouses employment. Plenty is done, but some form of mentoring, upskillling, re-training (e.g. could I transfer my training credits to Anna?) might be useful. For example, when faced with the prospect of not being able to find employment in Plymouth and a 10-month maternity pay debt to the NHS, we began looking at ways to make money from Anna’s other skills. She was currently volunteering with Barnados as a breastfeeding support worker and this seemed a potential route for paid work. Some form of business mentoring and access to funding for training would have really helped her re-skilling quickly.

Anna, can you tell us about your experience returning to work after having Grace?

I think returning to work after a baby is a daunting experience for anyone but you’re correct it was made more daunting going into a new job in a new hospital and doing the type of nursing I hadn’t touched since training 10 years ago.

The actual reality of it though was much better than I’d thought and the soft skills I had developed in previous jobs served me well. The extra time off, it was 15 months in the end, had given me the luxury of settling our daughter into a nursery, so that was one less thing to worry about on my return.

My biggest realisation when settling back to work was how we’d entered a new era in our lives and priorities had changed. In previous roles I had always been pushing for promotion and broadening opportunities. Now I felt like I was quite happy to ‘just be’ for a while, give myself time to work out the family/work balance and re-focus when I was comfortable. They’re only young once so working with employers to find the balance that’s right for you is so important. 

What do you think your return to work will be like now? Any advice for new mothers?

I feel like this time will be a little different, I’m going back earlier, Ted will be 11 months when I return. He’ll start nursery the same week that I go back and due to Covid, settling in sessions will be much shorter and infrequent. This is something I feel quite anxious about. So the challenges of returning are still there, they’re just different this time. Our daughter has just started Primary School so juggling drop offs and after school pickups/clubs is something I’m hoping will become second nature. Luckily we live in a wonderful community and have family near so I definitely feel like I have back up!

The main lesson from the first experience would be, ‘they will be fine’ and try not to get so stressed over the little things. I used to be that Mum when dropped off our daughter, she’d be clinging to my leg and I’d have to peel her off to rush into work. I’d then call up 10 minutes later to check if she was ok, she always was. You’ll never shut off Mum brain and fully get into work brain, so don’t beat yourself up trying. Kids are always more resilient than you think and it tends to all work out in the end. If you want to phone up the nursery every 30 minutes just to check if they are still fine, then just do it. Put yourself and your little one(s) first.

Disclaimer: all views are our own and do not represent the MOD or NHS.