How long have you been a part of the military? This doesn’t have to be as active duty. You also can be “just” the spouse or “just” the dependent. Whether it is one day or 30 years, you will learn quickly that the military has many programs and regulations in place focused on your well-being. There are travel advisories, briefings for traveling, safety bulletins, alert systems, minimum standards for childcare and education positions, and exceptional family member programs. The list goes on and on.
Even the PT test, one of the most dreaded days of the year, was put in place to ensure that active duty members are healthy and able to maintain their jobs, not only for personal safety, but for the safety of those working around them.
The military is constantly researching and developing new programs aimed at safety. While it may not always seem like it, the military spends a good deal of time protecting its people. Actually, the military overprotects because they care about us.
To protect is to keep safe from harm or injury. To overprotect is the tendency to protect someone, especially a child, excessively.
Let’s think about that second definition. Can you really put protect and excessively in the same sentence when talking about children?
As moms, we wear our hearts on our sleeves when it comes to our kids. More accurately, our children become our hearts from the second they are born. It can be painful to bump our heads, make a mistake in front of a crowd, and get snubbed by a “friend,” but it is downright terrible to watch your child experience those same things. You would rather switch places with them than watch them suffer.
So what do you do? You take the tools you have and work them to the best of your ability to keep your child safe.
You overprotect because you are the mom.
Let’s put these two things together to make the military child.
Arguably the strongest child out there, the military child is put through a lot. He or she faces frequent moves, a deployed parent, shifts in social support, changes in schools, and huge amounts of the unknown.
Again, you do the best you can to make sure your child is safe. You research new schools, look for new playgroups, find camps in your new city, look for new friends, read books on transitions, talk to professionals, the list goes on.
In short, you worry.
You double and triple check the movers’ work when they reassemble the crib and baby dresser. You test the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in the new house. You keep an eye on your kids as they play outside in the new yard in your new neighborhood.
And you worry.
You meet with parents before your child goes to play with a new friend. You are the one to drive them to the friend’s house because, let’s face it, you only trust yourself to install the car seat and correctly tighten the 5-point harness system. You try to keep things like “the old way” for the kids but slowly let them experience the new way. You ask all of the questions and hope you find the right answers.
And you worry.
You keep them close in every new situation because the unknown is scary.
You overprotect because you are the military mom.
April is the Month of the Military Child. The military overprotects our families and we, the strong, the mighty military moms, overprotect our military children.
We are proud to partner with Britax this month to show how Britax overprotects as well, helping our job feel a little bit easier.
Not only do Britax car seats meet all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, they go above and beyond to provide extra levels of safety. The brand also conducts more tests than required including side-impact testing for car seats and extended rolling-road and durability testing for strollers. For a military family always on the move, it’s comforting to know and trust a brand that is dedicated to keeping our kids safe — through infant car seats, convertible car seats, booster seats and strollers.
Even with Britax providing the safest product, it takes a mom to overprotect and make sure that product is being used correctly. Britax overprotects so you have one less worry. The company is committed to developing some of the most innovative products on the market, and they won’t rest until every baby is grown.
