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By SARAH SMILEY
'Who Has It Worse' Is A Pointless Game
Last week's column, where I discussed the temptations of the civilian lifestyle, garnered some unexpected criticism. I had mistakenly assumed that most people understand and share the desire to raise their children in one location. I was wrong. Unfortunately, I sometimes am. (Just don't tell my husband.)Readers lashed out at me through e-mail and online message boards. I don't make a habit of reading these boards myself, but they never fail to come to my attention thanks to “helpful” friends and relatives: “Did you see that awful post someone wrote about you online?”
I was perceived as ungrateful for the opportunities the military has given our family. Not coincidentally, most of the critics were civilian. They mentioned my “free” healthcare as a reason why I should stop “whining” about moving every few years. They offered the military's pension as something that should all but erase the memory of long deployments, hazardous duty and multiple moves.
The critics, in fact, came across as jealous. Yes, jealous.
Other military families who read this will chuckle now. They will think: “Jealous of us?” The idea seems absurd, because we envy you when we see your husband coming home for dinner at night and ours is several time zones away. We envy you when our husband can't come home from overseas to see the birth of our first child. We envy you when your kids have lived in the same house and played with the same friends since kindergarten.
Ah, but the grass is always greener. This brings me to one of my pet peeves: the “who-has-it-worse” game.
We could sit here all day and argue about who has it worse. Sure, military families might not pay a deductible for their healthcare. We also enjoy no guarantees that our active-duty spouse will be home or even on the same continent for births, deaths, graduations and weddings. Unless you are Vice President Biden's son, who reportedly was brought home from
And sure, I might complain about moving and dealing with the military's unpredictable lifestyle. But it's true that for all the unknowns, ironically, there are many important guarantees. We may not know where the military will send us next, but we do know that we will have a home, a job, a chance at retirement and healthcare when we get there.
You see, this is why the who-has-it-worse game is dangerous. Someone always has it worse. That doesn't make your own struggles any less relevant or important. It's all about perspective.
One of my high school friends had been confined to a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy since we were in second grade. He died when I was 30 years old. At his funeral, my new shoes pinched my toes unbearably, making it difficult to walk. I felt guilty. How could I possibly complain (if only internally) about my sore feet when my friend, before he died, couldn't even feed himself?
I knew what my friend would have said to me if he could. He lived in a family and world of healthy walkers with long lives ahead of them. Yet, for all their blessings, they weren't without their own troubles. My friend knew that. He was the one in the wheelchair, but as trivial as it may have seemed to him, that didn’t make other people’s broken hearts hurt any less.
I am grateful for my ability to walk, but that doesn't mean that sometimes my feet don't hurt.
Maybe my critic's husband, unlike mine, comes home every night. Maybe they've stayed in a home long enough to build equity and pay off their mortgage. And still, they were complaining to me about their healthcare costs.
See what I mean? We could do several rounds of this stuff. There is always a worse case scenario. Knowledge of such might give us greater perspective, but it doesn't take away our immediate struggles.
It's important to note that military wives in particular feel compelled to retrain their feelings. “You signed up for this when you married him,” people tell us. Or “How dare you complain when your husband is serving his country.”
None of this makes us feel any better when we are packing up a house for the second time in three years.
If you perceived last week's column as ungrateful or whiney, it's time to step back and realize all the things you have that I do not. Then ask yourself if you have always remembered to be grateful for those things.
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Sarah Smiley is the author of “Going Overboard: The Misadventures of a Military Wife” (Penguin/NAL) and “I’m Just Saying…” (Ballinger), and her syndicated column “Shore Duty” appears weekly in military and civilian newspapers across the country. She lives in