I spent my childhood on military bases around the country and overseas. Through the years, I attended more than a few military events, mostly changes of command, a ceremonial changing of leadership for military groups of varying sizes and functions. They are fresh with a military band, slow-marching flag carriers, and all the pomp and circumstance you can handle.
And in each speech, without fail, the new commander gave great thanks to his wife for her sacrifices. Beyond being home alone with the children while he is deployed, many military wives sacrifice their careers (my own mother did).
The sad reality is that — if you are moving every 1 to 2 years, it wrecks your resume continuity and makes it near impossible to maintain a steady corporate career.
As a military family, you don’t find out where you are moving until a few months beforehand — if you are lucky. There are even cases of a few weeks notice which leads to significant strife in the family. It should come as no surprise that divorce rates in military families are nearly double the national average (currently at 4.8% annually versus 2.5% for the general public).
The figures on unemployment are even worse. The average unemployment rate is around 4% currently, while the percentage of military wives who are unemployed hovers around 21%.
Candidly, even 21% feels like a generous figure — because the vast majority of military wives I met and spent time around weren’t employed, and it was through no fault of their own. And let’s be clear, this is mostly women dealing with these problems. Of all the spouses of active duty military personnel, nine out of ten are women.
The family challenge as well
This is a huge burden, especially because military personnel are routinely deployed for 6 and 12 months at a time (my father was gone for 50% of my childhood, and missed both me and my sister’s births). The mother becomes a defacto single mother during these stints, which is not only expensive, but often renders employment a non-option.
Even if they have grandparents nearby to help, or if they find affordable childcare — the jobs that are even available aren’t usually high paying jobs that match the spouse’s skills. Many military wives are highly educated but the areas they move to are often away from cities where these specialized positions — such as architectural, technical, and HR jobs — are located. Thus, the only positions are often on base, which include retail and cashier jobs. It’s a tough pill to swallow and generally isn’t worth it.
But — this isn’t to say there are zero options for military wives looking to work. It just takes a bit of creativity and initiative.
There are other paths for those looking
My mother is very entrepreneurial and, in many ways, is much more interesting than my dad (no offense, dad). After launching several businesses while moving constantly, including a flower shop and a hay distribution business, she realized that becoming a real estate agent gave her the needed flexibility to work while moving constantly.
This also allowed her to be a parent while my dad was away. As a funny aside, she frequently drove us to and from swim practice, often on the phone with clients. She often barked at my sister and me when we were fighting in the backseats, going into her devil voice, “If you two don’t stop fighting I’m gonna come back over that seat!”
Only for her phone to ring, and her to pick up the phone and, in her angelic voice, say, “Hello! This is Jan!”
She did that full-time for 20 years, and still has her license. It proved to be a fruitful, though cyclical business (make sure to save for a rainy day). To those considering it, I would remind you that it takes time to get your book of business rolling, but if you network, and stay moving forward, you stand a chance of establishing a solid income.
To the point, consider jobs that allow you to transfer to new areas and hit the ground running.
Additionally, rising levels of hybrid and remote work are a huge boon for military wives. And even for jobs that aren’t fully remote, they make extended commutes more tolerable. One of our military family friends has a job that’s 90 minutes away — but she only has to drive to work one day a week, which makes the commute easily tolerable.
There are ample jobs programs as well, including the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, which has helped more than 275,000 military spouses find work. There’s also Blue Star Families, which has tons of resources to help military wives.
Companies, like Hilton, routinely launch campaigns to help hire more military spouses, hiring thousands in a given year. A simple search of “companies hiring military spouses” can generally point you to a few options.
To the military wives reading this, I’d caution you to stay away from multi-level marketing schemes, which are known to go after people with non-traditional schedules and abilities to work full-time. These opportunities are often not worth the squeeze, and can cause you to burn bridges in your natural network.
Consider investing in your skills
Most military careers don’t extend for life. And even if they do go for decades, a time will eventually come when children are less dependent on you, and the opportunity to work more might arrive.
Which is why investing in an education now can help — because it’s often free through the GI Bill. To those who don’t know what this means: All active duty personnel get education credits to pay for their degrees based on how long they serve. And you can often give these credits to your spouse if you want to.
My dad, who served for more than 30 years, was able to transfer his GI Bill to my mother and she used it to go to culinary school and become a chef through Le Cordon Bleu. This has helped them immensely in their post military life (more on that soon).
And to the military husbands who are soon retiring, consider letting your wife have her turn with her career. My uncle Bob and his wife Carol launched a business, Liberty Bakery, a boutique bakery in Jacksonville, Florida. They both wake up at 4 AM everyday and start baking. Uncle Bob works the window and is a local favorite. As a 30 year war pilot, I suspect he’d have never guessed he’d be known for baking cookies.
My parents launched a vineyard eight years ago, Bleufrog Vineyards. The “frog” is an homage to frogman (Navy SEALs) and the “bleu” harkens to mom’s culinary education.
My dad openly says they launched this vineyard because mom had already sacrificed so much for his career and that it was her turn to have a go at work.
I was initially skeptical of the venture and was sure they’d blow all their retirement savings. But the vineyard is booming, with tons of customers on the weekends, and live music.
The monthly SEAL newsletter, The BLAST, featured them in Spring of last year:
The point being — all it takes is a little thinking outside of the box, and a willingness to take a chance on your ideas. Entrepreneurship is a ton of work, but can be incredibly rewarding.
My hope is that the military continues investing in programs to support military wives — because even our national security readiness is dependent on these families staying healthy and functional. But even more important — it’s the right thing to do. And to the hiring managers seeing this, please consider hiring a military spouse.
Thank you to all those who serve, and especially, their families. I know well that it isn’t an easy sacrifice.
