Anybody who has ever been to any kind of military basic training knows that stupid cadence about getting a letter in the mail, going to war or going to jail. Anybody who raised their right hand after September 11, 2001, pretty much knew what they were getting into. Sure, lots of people join the military for “the college money” or to “see the world” or whatever other lame excuse they put in those television ads. There are even people who signed up for this just to do their patriotic duty. Whatever your reasons for joining, I hope that nobody can claim the excuse, “my recruiter lied to me.” Some way, some how, you’re gonna get that letter. There’s just no escape.
Go to war or go to jail.
Apparently some people didn’t get the memo, and if they did they obviously did not understand it. So, apparently, single parents are under this impression that just because you have a kid you’re somehow exempt from the whole going to war thing. I totally understand that being a mother/father is a full-time job (actually, it’s more like having a full-time AND a part-time job) but part of that job is having a job so you can actually feed the kid. When you’re single, taking care of Junior all by yourself, that job is even harder. I get that. I’m not insensitive to the trials and tribulations of raising kids all by your lonesome..
I am insensitive to the fact that people seem to think that having a kid is a get out of jail free card because of their failure to plan appropriately. A couple of weeks ago, I read in the paper about a single mother in the army who missed movement because she had no one to care for her small infant. This was after I read another article about a different mother who reported to duty with her two kids because there was no one to care for them.
As I’ve always understood it, having a baby is not something you just randomly decide to do. You don’t just wake up one day and say, “Hmm, I think I’ll have a kid.” Unfortunatley, that’s exactly what people do. They get caught up in the heat of the moment with their significant other (or one-night stand) and voila! they are pregnant and there’s this kid to take care of. I have never met anybody who has had a planned pregnancy. Every person I know just randomly had their kid. Most people, when they get pregnant, start planning afterwards. Some people make some pretty good plans because they are able to roll with the punches, but there are others who obviously don’t have a clue.
I’m going to bash this girl because she does’t have a clue. Her name is SPC Alexis Hutchinson, a young girl, 21 years old, single mother of a very good-looking little boy. She got her orders to deploy, but then decided that she wasn’t going to deploy because there was nobody to take care of the kid. Who knows where the baby daddy is. The girl initially asked her mother to take care of the baby, but then the mother was like, “Oh, wait, never mind. I already have too much to do.” The mother decided she didn’t want to take care of the kid a few days before the girl was supposed to catch her flight overseas.
What is wrong with this picture? There are so many things wrong that I don’t even know where to begin. You know she didn’t plan on having the kid, because if she did plan she would know exactly where the kid was gonna go in case she ever got deployed. Secondly, the child’s father is no longer involved. That’s a problem right there. And lastly, the mother totally crapped out on her. I don’t know why the mother said she would help in the first place when it sounds like she has too much on her plate anyway. The mother said it was going to be too much to take care of the baby because she was taking care of her own special needs child, her parents and a daycare. How could you not know that a baby in the mix was going to be too much? Whatever.
So SPC Hutchinson just decides that she’s not going to get on the plane. And what did the army do? They threw her ass in jail and now they are bringing charges against her. I’m glad they did. I know I sound like an insensitive bitch but I’m so tired of people using their kids as an excuse for everything in their lives. I used to have a friend who would always complain that she couldn’t work late because she had to get her kids from daycare. She couldn’t come to work early because she had to take the kids to take care. We have a job where we don’t just clock-out at 5 o’clock and go home. We can’t go home until we’re told to go home, and every time we have to stay late, she would run up to the leadership with her sob story about her kids in daycare and oh, look, she’s leaving before everybody else.
I don’t want the kids to starve at daycare, but the children are never going away and neither is this job until you quit or get fired. Why haven’t you come up with a plan to figure out what you will do with the kids just in case you have to stay? This is nothing new; it is not a special occurence. Not like during the presidential inauguration. That was random; who knew? Actually, they did tell us to be on the look out for something coming up, but I wouldn’t have been so irritated like I am now.
I don’t understand why I have to have sympathy for you because you can’t get your life in order. Why can’t I just make up some random excuse as to why I can’t stay late, or come early, or work extra? Why do I always have to pick up some single parents’ slack because they have to go change a diaper, heat a bottle, or fuss with their deadbeat baby daddy/mama?
I hope SPC Hutchinson doesn’t think she’s somehow special because she is just another unwed too young mother who can’t handle her business. I hope she doesn’t think I will feel sorry for her in the slightest if they do court-martial her and give her a dishonourable discharge. I will soon deploy as well, and I don’t want to be over there any more than anybody else does. I don’t have the excuse of a kid to get out of it, and even if I did have a kid, I’ll do whatever I could to make sure he’s cared for in my absence. That is what good parents do. I wouldn’t want to leave little Junior behind, but if my mother decides she don’t want to help out, well, I would have a plan B and a plan C, just in case. After that, well, I might just have to pack Junior up in my A-bag and take him to war with me. We’ll be the first mommy and baby crime fighting team, or something.
With kids, you need that sort of thing, anyway. You know how random children are. Since when do kids ever do anything according to the plan? Real parents know that. They do what they want and the parents just kind of trail along after them, with their backup plans in case Junior changes his mind.
At any rate, I deplore how the media picked the story up to turn into a sob-story on the girl’s behalf. They put up this heart-string cry-me-a-river picture of the girl and her baby to make us feel sorry for her that the big bad Army is throwing her in jail because she has no other options. You know what, if it’s that serious, why did you get pregnant in the first place? I don’t know the circumstances of that, but it seems to me that if you had the baby you knew what it involves. I just don’t think a lot of people actually consider all the ramifications of having a kid. It’s not easy. I don’t know any parent that’s like, “Oh, having a kid, piece of cake! It’s like a day at the beach.” If they’re saying that, they must only see the kid for seven minutes out of the day and someone else is doing all the dirty work.
This is not a rant against unwed, young girls having babies (although I despise that as well); this is a rant against people who fail to realise what entails having a kid. Sometimes you have multiple responsibilities. She raised her right hand before she laid down with this dead-beat who is obviously not helping her out, and now she’s trying to back out of the commitment she made because she can’t juggle two plates at once. News flash: you’re not the only single parent in the world. You’re not the only single parent in the army. So how do you make all of those men and women look because you’re too incompetent to take care of yourself and your baby? You’re basically slapping them in the face, making all their hard-work and sacrifice totally worthless. About five per cent of the active duty force are single parents. You might have asked around to some of those people: what are you doing? where can I get help? what are my options?
Before I even delivered Junior, I would be asking those questions. I would say to myself, “I’m about to hav a kid, and I’m still in the army, what do I do now?” So now SPC Hutchinson needs to come up with a new plan. When they put you in jail for the next TWO years, what’re you gonna do with Junior? It’s time to grow up and start making some tough decisions. That is the difference between a little girl and a woman, a real parent and some dumb hoe who had a kid.
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