Childcare issues beyond the pale: Army mom arrested
I heard this morning on NPR about Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook who joined the service in 2007. When she had Kamani 10 months ago, the little boy's father chose not to help raise him. Shortly after her baby was born, her unit in Savannah, Georgia got deployment orders to Afghanistan.
Soldiers with children are required to submit a dependent care plan before they can be deployed; Alexis had done so. Her mother, who lives in Oakland, California, agreed to take care of the boy; but she has in her home an ailing mother and sister, as well as a special-needs daughter and, during the day, up to 14 children in an in-home daycare. After two weeks of watching Kamani, Alexis' mom threw up her hands and sent the little boy back to his mother.
Alexis told her commanding officer her problem, and says she was given 30 days to develop a new plan; but then the deployment date was moved up and she panicked, without options. What looks like the miscommunication of a young, freaked-out mom occurred; she thought she'd lose her baby if she showed up for the airplane to Afghanistan with her child, so she hid.
Within a day, she'd turned herself in, and was arrested for failing to deploy. Her little boy was taken from her for the night, and the next day her mom arrived to take him back to California. Now Alexis is facing prison time; she may be court-martialed, although for now the deployment is on hold until the military sorts it out.
According to the Army, if Alexis had arrived at the airfield with her little boy on schedule, she wouldn't have been deployed. She says her commander told her that, if she didn't find care, her little boy would be placed in foster care. Even putting aside the he-said, she-said, it's a terrifying story (especially given my own possession of a husband scheduled for deployment, now, in the early spring) and shows just how great a toll the Army takes from young families and, most especially, their children.
Because by any indication the alternatives for Kamani all fall short. Where the boy is now, in his grandmother's home, is obviously too busy and demanding; can the primary caregiver devote even a tenth of the attention and energy an infant requires? As a young single mom far from home and with only a few years' experience in the Army, it's likely that Alexis has no friends with enough space in their lives and homes to care for such a small child. And if she were to find an acquaintance to take the boy? Would the burden mean the little boy would be resented, not necessarily neglected but most definitely not loved sufficiently? Would you take the 10-month-old of even a moderately good friend, for a year?
It's too much, I think. Too much for babies to have their only parent deployed for a year. Too much for babies to live without their mothers to fight unwinnable wars for so long. It's just too much.
Yes, it is too much, and it's a terribly sad situation. Nobody wins.
However, with that being said.....being in the military is a CHOICE. With that, you have to take the good and the bad.
Posted by: care | November 19, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Okay, well, I would like to know if anyone more well-versed in activism than me knows what we can do to help Alexis Hutchinson? Call our Congressperson/senator? Another organization that is advocating for her.
And yeah, while being in the military is a "choice" maybe the previous poster hasn't realized that recruiters are very aggressive in places like poor rust belt towns, rural America, with at risk minorities, attracting a disproportionate number of people who are trying to keep it together and for whom the military offers a bit of a chance to get out of their environment or out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Posted by: gee | November 19, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Its a very sad story, but I do have faith that good will come of it. There do need to be rules for these things in place. I personally think that while being in the military is a choice, it is also a choice for the military to accept people or not and they probably should keep better tabs on peoples' situations and probably honorably discharged her before this became an issue. A cousin of mine was in the military stationed in Hawaii and she got pregnant twice- neither of the dads stuck around and she was honorably discharged. Granted, I think she was being stupid, but being a single mom in the military is nearly impossible when you have young babies. Her oldest son was left with his grandma for 6 months while she was deployed (from age 2 months to 8 months) that's rough. Maybe a rule of not letting mothers of infants under a year deploy? I'm not sure what the answer is but there need to be things in place for this.
Posted by: Kelsey | November 19, 2009 at 11:45 AM
I think it is sad, mind boggling, and overwhelming. I'm shocked at how little value can be placed on a small child's quality of life.
That said, I WOULD take a friend's infant for a year. Most definitely. My husband would be harder to convince, but we would help. I think we'd even help someone we didn't know, or at least, I would want to.
There are lovely people out there.
And yes, what can we do from here to help out?
Posted by: Liz | November 19, 2009 at 12:29 PM
I was also horrified and saddened by this story, but I was proud of Alexis for not shutting down, but for staying with her son. This is a difficult situation though, because I think it brings up things that often some people don't want to admit: it's different to be a child's mother than it is to be the father. There are lots of fathers in the military who are deployed with infants or pregnant wives.
There are plenty of ways that mothers should be able to serve in the first year of the child's life so they can be available to breast-feed and be the primary care giver for the child. However if you start saying that about mothers in the first year, you also have to say that for the father (outside of the breastfeeding!) if you're going to not discriminate on gender, based on the way gender discrimination is interpreted. I think maybe the way this will be resolved is not the mother/baby being together angle, but the fact that the family plan fell through and she wasn't given reasonable time to find another solution. Unfortunately. Personally I think that the first year of the child's life, mother and child being together should be promoted and prioritized with policy. If mother can't/won't/doesn't care, the next should be dad, next grandparent, etc. We have medical associations saying that it's important to breastfeed for the first year, but we don't support it much with policies.
I believe that in the Portland Police Dep't, female officers with new babies are on desk duty for a minimum of 6 months after returning to work, and perhaps reduced hours. I don't know how they get around the gender issue.
Posted by: Rosemary | November 19, 2009 at 12:37 PM
I'm with Liz. I'd definitely be willing to help out a friend by taking her infant for a year, and I'd certainly want to help an acquaintance, but my husband would be harder to convince.
I too would like to know what we can do. If anyone comes up with an idea please share it.
Posted by: KYouell | November 19, 2009 at 05:19 PM
As I single mom, I would just DIE inside if I had to leave my daughter, who has only me, with a friend or family, even now when she is 4. Then again, I went into having a child with open eyes, and I did not join the military. In many cases, the situation changes and the availability of the parent for deployment should be taken into account. I am sure there are many married fathers out there who are caring for their children alone while the mothers are deployed. I wonder what the story would look like for a single father. Just curious.
Posted by: Debby | November 20, 2009 at 04:54 PM
Debby, I wrote a long piece on DailyFinance about single parents in the military (it won't be published 'til Sunday), and told a story about one of my husband's friends, whose wife left him with their two daughters. he's now in Iraq, and his mom sold her business and moved to a new home with him so she could care full-time for the girls, who are both still quite young (three and five, I think).
I went through every single one of the members of my husband's unit with him, and he couldn't come up with a single example (but us) of a parent who was still partnered among the enlisted (non-officer) ranks; most of the situations were that the soldier had sole custody. in every example we discussed, there was either a current or recent (while the children were babies or toddlers) deployment.
I don't think anything I've written lately has made me sadder.
Posted by: sarah gilbert | November 20, 2009 at 05:07 PM
I wrote a long post that I guess didn't go thru this morning. To summarize,
The site that broke her story has an update:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/792/1/
Also, they note this:
"Unlike most service members Courage to Resist assists, Alexis was not refusing to deploy. She was not looking to speak out against war. She was simply asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son Kamani."
The article states, "Please call your congress members and senators—especially if they are on the Committee on Armed Services—to request that they take action on behalf of parents in the military. What is happening to Alexis and Kamani Hutchinson should not be allowed to happen again."
You can find that info here:
House Armed Services Comm members:
http://armedservices.house.gov/list_of_members.shtml
Senate Armed Services Comm members:
http://armed-services.senate.gov/members.htm
And to find your congressperson/senator:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Posted by: gee | November 20, 2009 at 05:16 PM
For women in the military and women veterans, the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) http://www.servicewomen.org/ might be a place for support and/or legal connections. It's a nonprofit staffed by women who have served in just about all the branches of the military and national guard.
As for choices, I know I made choices at 17 that I wouldn't have made at 25. Many young people feel like they don't have a lot of options, and like gee said recruiters work very hard to convince them that the military is the only choice for them.
Posted by: caylor | November 20, 2009 at 05:49 PM
I'm wondering if the military offers any kind of "foster care" type program. If they're deploying folks who might need help caring for dependents, they might need to begin thinking along those lines. I have a hard time saying that having a child gives you a pass for the responsibilities you agree to when you join, but I fully understand how life changes as you're living it. The military isn't a job you can just leave when you realize it no longer fits your life. It would probably be good if the military began to look at things like only deploying one family member at a time, but that would end up costing alot of money in training people who couldn't do the job they'd been paid for all along.
I don't know the answers, and certainly feel for the people affected by this, just from a point of compassion for another mother. I quit my job when I realized I couldn't be away from my babes for a work day, let alone a year or more.
Posted by: A mama | November 20, 2009 at 07:05 PM
It is not likely that Alexis will be sent to prison. But failing to be at your assigned post is a serious matter, particularly during wartime. She knew that, as do all members of the military. Alexis was pregnant for nine months and her child was ten months old at the time of the incident. She had plenty of time to sort things out. There comes a time when people have to be responsible for their own choices and not expect the taxpayers to bail them out when they make poor choices.
Posted by: vet | November 21, 2009 at 07:57 AM
vet - Did you read the article? She did what she was supposed to do. She had a plan but the person she had arranged to care for her son pulled out and she had only a *few days* to find someone who could take a 10 month old for an entire year. You try to do that and see how easy it is. Find someone willing, who you can trust completely with the most precious and vulnerable person in your life who you have total responsibility for. Regardless how you feel about whether she should have a child or be in the military, the fact is she is and she is not the only one. The children of our military should not be punished and we, as a *society*, have a responsibility to care for the most vulnerable among us. Dismissing this *family* because "poor choices" were made would be yet another poor choice.
Posted by: pdxmama | November 21, 2009 at 12:57 PM
She had nine months of pregnancy and ten months after the child was born to arrange care, knowing every minute that she could be called on to deploy and that the father had walked away from her and the child. Her failure to provide for her child is her failure, not society's failure. So now "society" is supposed to rally behind her while another soldier deploys in her place, perhaps another soldier with a family? Are you volunteering?
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Posted by: C | November 23, 2009 at 08:10 PM
vet - Again, did you read the article? She had her required plan in place. She sent her son to the person who had agreed to care for him while she was gone. She did it, it was done. Then her son was sent back to her by the person who had agreed to take him. The military does not require single parents to have a backup plan (perhaps they should). She simply asked for time to find someplace else for her son and she was given 3 days -- an impossible situation. We, as a society, should demand the best for *all* our children, including the children of our military -- even if we disagree with their parents' choices.
Posted by: pdxmama | November 27, 2009 at 03:23 PM
We're not talking about boarding a cat here. She sent her son to her mother and her mother sent the child back. You call that a plan?
Are we supposed to sit back and let Qaeda attack us because soldiers can't find baby-sitters? I don't believe she should be prosecuted, even though she could be prosecuted for not being at her post. That's about all society owes her.
Posted by: vet | November 28, 2009 at 08:48 AM
This shouldnt be blames on the Army it should be blamed on the command. The minute they saw that she did not have a family care plan they should have started the paperwork to discharge her from service. Everyone keeps saying that she "did what she was supposed to do", but she was not where she was supposed to be and that is the issue..........
Posted by: KGladd | January 01, 2010 at 01:15 PM