Akinah B...
Edgren MHS
Living as a military child is not easy. It has many complex benefits and advantages, for some people. People worry about what their life is going to be like since they are military kids. People also ask military kids, “What do you like about your parents' job?” or “What do your parents do for a living?”. Then, kids stop, wonder, and think. Then kids tell people, “My parents do…” or “My favorite thing that my parents do is…” so it's kind of a lot of pressure for that one little kid. But for me, I don’t care what happens in my military childhood because I, Akinah Battle, am always up for anything.
For me, I like to be a military child. Many bad people are trying to do bad things that give them the appropriate consequences. So I’m grateful that my dad is part of the military because I know he will try to keep me safe, no matter what. I feel like when my dad is out, deployed, he thinks of me and my family because the only reason that he joined the military is to PROTECT us. Not to just volunteer to do these things for fun. Many people are in the military, keeping us safe, but they don’t think about whether we are safe more than my dad does. Another reason I like to be a military kid is that when we move, we get to go to a lot of different countries/continents/cities. So I think that this is like an advantage of my dad being in the military and me being in the military.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t like to be in the military because when my dad has work in another part of the planet, it worries me that he might get hurt or will be doing something dangerous that could get severely hurt. When my dad is deployed or going to work in another place, it makes me kind of upset since he won’t be there for a ton of events in my life. Another thing that I don’t like about being a military kid is that when we are moving, I made a ton of friends in that base that I might not see anymore. We might have a really good connection with other people and we still might keep in touch, just not in person for a while.
Some people don’t know what branch their parents are in, sometimes they don’t think about how they feel about being a military child, but sometimes they do. Well, I know I do. My dad works in the Air Force and is part of the OSI ( Office of Special Investigations ). When he was a kid, his mom was in the military, and as my dad got older, his mom gave him opportunities and my dad eventually made the choice of going into the military. He has been in the military ever since 2010 and he has been in the military for 14 years. In the last three months or so, he applied to be an officer, and the Air Force people accepted him. So next March, he will be going to school for officer training. My siblings and I are military kids and my mom is a military spouse.
Based on my experience of being a military child for 8 years of my life, I would say there are so many benefits and challenges to being a military child. Sometimes I might feel like I don’t want to be a military child because of my friends or move because I like that place. But I am grateful that I am a military child because I have protection from my dad and other people who are in the military. Being a military kid, I think I can say that I have a growth mindset since I don't mind that I am a military child because that's how life works. Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is not promised, so just enjoy the moment now, as a military kid, of course.