MIlitary Life Demands: Marital Quality, Distant Parenting, and Child Well-Being Among Deployed Service Members

Abstract

Since the dawn of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), combat deployments have become longer and more frequent. The adjustments that go along with such deployments are a source of stress, not only for service members, but also for children and spouses. In spite of the need to better understand the effects of deployment on military children and families – and to provide suitable and appropriate support for them – rigorous research is limited. This study utilized data from the 2006 Active-Duty Spouse Survey (ADSS), a survey of 1,616 parents married to members of the U.S. Armed Forces with dependents 18 years of age or under. This research examined the effects of combat deployment on marital quality, the process of distant parenting, and child sociobehavioral outcomes. The results revealed that the ability to balance work and family life, and frequency of communication and its importance, were notable factors with how spouses perceived the quality of their marriages. In addition, frequency of communication as well as the importance of communication, as processes by which deployed uniformed family members parent from a distance, was significantly correlated with how at-home caregivers manage childcare-related issues. Furthermore, military socioeconomic status was found to be a significant predictor of not only child adjustment problems but also child well-being. Despite the marginal effects of combat deployment on child adjustment problems, the most significant finding of this study was the predictive power of at-home spouse well-being variables – work/life balance and overall stress on marital quality, childcare management and child sociobehavioral outcomes.