The families of the 2,000 members who serve overseas every year pay a high price for their parents' service, writes SHEILA WAYMAN
‘WHY CAN you not be like a normal mammy?” is a question that tears at the heartstrings of Comdt Liz O’Neill. She knows it is her five-year-old daughter’s way of saying that she believes her mother should be with her.
“This is completely understandable,” says O’Neill (34) in Kosovo, where she is on a six-month UN peace-enforcement mission.
Christine is too young to understand that these months of separation are the price she and her three sisters pay for their mother’s career in the Defence Forces. It’s a sacrifice made by all the families of the 2,000 members who serve overseas every year.
Separation from loved ones for voluntary tours of duty abroad has been a feature of Army life since 1958; the opportunity comes around every three or four years. But it’s a more recent phenomenon that some of the soldiers going overseas are mothers.
Likewise there are women with children in the Naval Service, where the absences are shorter but much more frequent. Personnel are assigned to a ship for two years at a time and can expect to be at sea for four weeks out of every six.
O’Neill says that when she is away, the daily routine for her husband, Thomas Craven, and their four children, aged eight years to 17 months, is “very, very difficult”, at their home in Ballylynan, Co Laois.
“My husband singlehandedly prepares four children for school/childcare each day, drops them off, does a full day at work and then returns to homework, dinner and preparations for the next day.”
Time must also be found to talk to them and play.
“Our eldest daughter will receive her First Holy Communion in May so there are all the preparations associated with that, school meetings, First Confessions, etc to attend.
“My husband is a hugely resourceful and incredibly capable man but as he will state himself, and I do agree, women in general are more easily adaptable to house chores of washing, shopping and cleaning. The weekends are spent getting groceries and preparing for the next week.
“Essentially my husband’s life is consumed by childcare and domestic tasks while I am away and it is a hugely stressful time for him.” The chores he would normally look after, such as gardening and home maintenance, have to wait for her return.
But at least, as an aeronautical engineering officer with the Irish Air Corps, Craven understands the demands of military life.
However, when parents are posted abroad, the impact this has on the remaining parents’ working lives is sometimes not considered, O’Neill suggests.
“They are now the single point of contact and therefore are essentially on call 24/7 in the event of any upset with respect to children. It limits any work-associated travel or late-night working during the period.”
Nine-year-old Jamie Hamilton has the proud distinction of being the first child in the Republic to have both parents serving in the Naval Service. But it means most of the time either his mother or his father is away at sea.
Jamie lives in Cobh with his mother, LS Jill Hamilton (30), a leading communications operator based at Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour. His father, David O’Mahony, is a radio/radar technician there and lives in Carrigaline.
But Hamilton has recently started a two-year tour of duty onboard the LE Eithne, which involves lengthy separations from her son.
“The ship spends over 220 days each year on patrol away from the Naval base, and taking into account leave, etc I can expect to spend at least 160 days a year away from home.”
Their normal work pattern is four weeks at sea followed by two weeks at base. They do that for two years and then spend two years at base before going back to sea.
Inevitably Naval duties disrupt family life but Hamilton and her former partner try to minimise the effects for Jamie.
“The only major disruption is that he sleeps in his dad’s house in Carrigaline when I go to sea and everything else remains the same,” she says. “He comes to Cobh every day to his childminder who brings him to and from school. Without her things wouldn’t run as smoothly as they have been. She is a godsend.”
While the absence of one parent causes many practical problems, there are also emotional consequences to deal with. Children’s reactions depend on their age, as well as their personality.
“This is my third time at sea since Jamie was born and it is by far the hardest for both of us because of his age and we’re a lot closer,” says Hamilton.
When Jamie was younger his behaviour noticeably deteriorated when she was away and he would act up when she got home. “By the time he got back into his routine it was time for me to go again, so that was hard to cope with.”
Jamie’s behaviour has improved; he now seems more adjusted to one of his parents being away.
“I think it’s routine for him now to have one parent absent as when his dad is at sea, I’m ashore and when I’m at sea he’s ashore.”
However, as Jamie grows more independent, it’s harder for him in a way, she says, as he is away from friends for weeks.
“The only friends he sees while I’m away are the ones in school, and I think that does affect him the most and he can resent me for it, but he knows that it has to be done. We cope well enough. It’s not the best of situations but it works for us, it has to.”
O’Neill has been overseas before but only her eldest child, Esther, remembers this.
A quiet child, she tends to be a worrier, says O’Neill. She thinks a lot about the parent who is away and, as would be expected at the age of eight, asks a lot of questions, particularly – why?
“Esther, even at this young age, has naturally taken the role of ‘big girl’ in the house and I would feel has developed a closer bond with her dad through this.” However, O’Neill worries that she is taking on too much for her age.
“She has become somewhat authoritative with the younger children having them tidy toys, etc – tasks I would have asked them to do.”
Their second child, Christine, is very extrovert and easygoing, so O’Neill expected her to cope easily enough with the change and admits she was shocked when she didn’t.
“She has had a number of very upset days particularly in the beginning. She would be very overt and show and state her sadness and anger and disappointment.”
Christine has said “her heart hurts” when she hears “sad music” because she thinks of her mother being away. “She is also prone to sneaking to my husband’s bed at night for a cuddle, which when I am at home would be rare but shows her feeling of loss.”
Three-year-old Lily-Anne has no concept of time but O’Neill says she definitely misses the physical contact with her mother. “She feels the loss particularly when tired and will call for mammy.”
The youngest, Andrea, is a contented baby and cannot articulate her loss. “However, on my return there is the initial sense of perhaps shock. She won’t come to me, instead going to her dad, and it takes a while for her to reaccept me again. Whether this is her way of teaching me a lesson for leaving or perhaps her way of reasserting whether I’ll stay – I don’t know.”
When soldiers are on a six-month mission, they get three weeks off in the middle. Despite the intense joy of being together again, the temporary family reunion brings difficulties too.
“As the person returning you have to accept new routines and methods and realise you are now essentially only a visitor,” says O’Neill. “For the children, the returning home is exciting and they love it and adjust quickly.”
However, having to part again is painful. “My husband describes the sense of loss that my children feel as being on par to that experienced after a death.”
O’Neill says her biggest fear about these absences is “the constant dread that my children show when I’m home and move out of their sight or leave the house for even an instance. They all definitely feel separation anxiety both while I am away and the fear of me leaving while I am at home.
“I worry about this apparent insecurity which they now feel. The only method of coping with this really is through reassurance and detailing my departure and arrival dates to them.
“My older children count days and monitor when I’m due home and it helps them cope and understand, unfortunately for the younger children this is not so easy.”
Keeping in regular contact also helps. This is much easier now than the days when the men had to go on the radio and say: “How are things going, love? Over . . . ”
In looking after the welfare of the men and women serving abroad, the emphasis is on communication, says Defence Forces spokesman Capt Pat O’Connor. Full internet facilities with Skype are provided, as well as landline phone rooms with phone cards supplied – even in Chad, in the heart of Africa.
More than half of the Defence Forces personnel going overseas this year will go to Chad. Other countries they are posted to on UN-mandated missions include Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Ivory Coast and Congo.
Generally they go for six months, with three weeks off in the middle and four weeks off at the end. The exception is Chad, which is very remote; they go out there for just four months but do not have any leave during that time. On returning to Ireland, they get six weeks off.
O’Neill usually sees and speaks to her children, via a live video and audio link using Skype, about three times a week.
“It has benefits but also disadvantages. For me it is great to see my children and be able to see facial expressions and really feel what they are saying. The children can get upset particularly if they are tired as their frustrations can come out and they start asking you to come home.”
She speaks to her husband almost daily by phone.
Hamilton phones and texts Jamie when she can every few days. While members of the Army can usually use their own mobile phones from wherever they are posted abroad, she and her Naval colleagues can soon find themselves out of coverage off shore.
“If I was able to phone every night, I wouldn’t as I don’t want him to depend on hearing from me every night, because there are occasions where there’s no contact for eight or nine days,” she explains. “So what he can depend on is that he’ll hear from me every few days.”
Which is worse, being the parent left behind while the other is temporarily free from domestic responsibilities, or the one who is far away and missing family life?
“I think it’s definitely harder for the parent who has gone away, missing what he’s being doing at school, the everyday things,” says Hamilton in an e-mail communication with The Irish Times, written during gale-force conditions 220 miles west of Mayo, as the LE Eithne investigates a group of Russian, Norwegian and Icelandic trawlers that are operating in the area.
“If Jamie has a problem, I’m not there to sort it out for him. I mightn’t hear about it until a few days has passed. It’s a feeling of letting him down.”
All the troops going overseas are briefed about things that might arise, such as the children being angry about the absent parent, or issues that might occur with a partner left behind. It is up to them to relay this advice back home, says O’Connor.
There is a family liaison officer at every barracks and the Army tries to make families feel part of its community. Open days are organised so relatives of personnel abroad can go in and hear about what they are doing and see some of the equipment they’re working with, which particularly appeals to the children.
Even more important, perhaps, the troops are debriefed when they return. They need to be aware that it might not all be rosy when they get back home and try to readjust to family life.
“The Personnel Support Service is specially trained to highlight things and try to get you thinking in the right way,” explains O’Connor. There are civilian and military counsellors and social workers available if there are problems. “If needs be, the whole family will be involved but it’s all very informal and confidential.”
Hamilton says it can be difficult for herself and Jamie to readjust to being back together. “He has been under his father’s discipline for four weeks and has me for two and back again to his father. So we have the same rules carried over from each other, which makes everything a lot easier.
“I think it is a lot more difficult for Jamie, with him living away for four weeks at a time.”
She adds: “In our job we have to rely on the support from the person who is at home with Jamie. It eases our minds a thousand times to know he is being raised the exact same way as he would if I were at home.”
According to O’Neill, “Being away from my husband and children is not easy for any of us. It is most definitely a stressful time and this is the same whether it’s a husband or wife who is away.”
She counts herself lucky in having “such a capable and fantastic husband” who manages to cope in her absence.
“This is the career that I have chosen and to advance in this career and remain within the Defence Forces, overseas service is expected.
“I do worry about the effects this has on my children and to state there are none would be untrue,” she adds. “They definitely show signs of separation anxiety and really miss their mother. We can only try deal with this the best we can.”
swayman@irishtimes.com