Kikomom

Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Location: them thar hills--Penna, USA--Zippy is my kid, the teacher in ROK. You can call me Kiko
|
Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
I was in the US Navy for 12 years, four as a single mom. Zippy, who is 23 now, was six years old when I was 'ordered' to take a job M-F from 3pm to 11pm. He was going into first grade. So this meant that I'd be sending him to school in the morning, he'd go to a babysitter afterwards (there was no evening daycare there) and I'd be picking him up at around midnight to tuck him in at night. Essentially only being a weekend parent--the weekends I wasn't standing duty that is.
I told my chain of command I wouldn't do it. They said I had to, it was a lawful order, they'd take me to Captain's Mast (Non Judicial Punishment). I said, "Let's go", and started writing to Congress.
Then I went to the Personnel Office and removed my Page 13(?), the dependent care plan that CentralCali described in his post. Without that in my service jacket, they started processing my discharge. No one was happy about it, but I was fed up with the disregard they had for single parents while still realizing that any special regard wasn't viewed kindly by my co-workers.
A month later, I was back home working for the State. |
|