My wife works as a hospital Nurse and while I’m deployed or away from home she cannot work night shifts as we have no childcare available. This makes her quite inflexible to her colleagues. It also means that when I return from deployment she has to work extra night shifts to make up for those she missed while I was away, meaning we have even more time apart.


I knew my husband deploying would have caused problems with my shift work and therefore left my job before it was an issue as I would need to give 3 months’ notice at the position I was, and we don’t always get that notice for deployments.


I am a nurse and am required to work weekends and when my husband is deployed it is very hard as we have no family close by and know very few people on camp. There is no childcare available to cover weekend working.


Our extended family live 250 miles away. There is no provision for emergency childcare should something happen preventing me or my husband looking after the children, even in the short term, until extended family could get here.


As a single serving parent I was lucky enough to have my mother come and stay in my quarter and provide consistency for my child. Child still attended nursery normal hours however it was Nanny at home not Mummy to care for him outside these hours.


I and my partner have both been deployed in the last two years, 6 months in between the two. We really struggled as we have no friends or family who can help us so had to juggle that with work. It’s added pressure when you have to tell work you can’t do a certain shift because you’re basically living as a single parent but at the same time you don’t want to let work down.


I worked at a loss for 5 months, paying for childcare from my savings so I didn’t lose my job. We became very overdrawn at the bank during my husband’s deployment… My husband was in the Falklands so we didn’t get a huge amount of overseas allowance.


We are still not set up for 2 parents serving and one going OOA while the other stays at home, many sections simply do not have the luxury of putting someone on days as manning is so tight.


I know a few instances where single parents have been tasked with a 4-6 month deployment. HR suggested they look at fostering their children out. In all cases they PVR’d because of it.


Every time my husband has been deployed I’ve had to leave my job. Deployment means a loss of income for us, alongside a period of upheaval for our entire family unit, not to mention my personal CV is a mess due to this. Potential employers always ask why my employment history is so scrappy and I find many places unwilling to employ military spouses because of this.


Not always possible to arrange the spouses work pattern without risk of repercussions in their work place. Previously the spouse in our household has had to leave high level employment due to the expense of childcare whilst serving person deployed.


My husband and I both serve; we take turns being left behind. It’s hard work looking after our kids but we do it. We’re a service family.


23 www.raf-ff.org.uk


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