Mothers Finding Balance: Meet Jessie

I went to the United States Naval Academy (USNA)for college. After graduation and commissioning, I joined the aviation community.

This is a very time consuming track for Navy officers. As a Naval Flight Officer I went through my ratings and warfare qualifications as a Weapons System Officer (WSO) in the F/A-18F Super Hornet (fighter aircraft) community. I went through several jobs in this community, in different squadrons and had several roles.

During this time, I worked hard to cement my reputation and polish my skills as a WSO. As a result I was selected for Top Gun. This is a 9 week graduate level tactics education course with no administrative distractions. You eat, breath and sleep F/A-18 tactics. There are three sections in this training. Basic Fighter Maneuvering (this is like what you see in the movie Top Gun), Air to Surface Focus, and Air to Air maneuvering which is done in teams. The gist of this is to make you a better tactician so that you can teach it. I was the 5th female in US history to go through this training in the F/A-18 community. There were some awesome women who went through this before me and they were a source of great inspiration.

My husband and I met in flight school soon after I graduated from USNA. Our relationship was quite complicated for almost 10 years. We never seemed to be in the same place at the same time. For example I would be based at the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Virginia and he would be in California, or we would be based at the same NAS but one or both of us would be on deployment away from the base. We met in 2004 and got married in February, 2013. For a while, we were both Top Gun instructors. That was wild. Being a Top Gun instructor is very involved and has a lot of impact on families, even in a civilian capacity.

After Top Gun, I went to weapons school and taught at Lemoore Weapons School. As a Commander, 17 years into my service in the US Navy, I resigned active duty and entered the Navy Reserves. Everyone thought I had lost my mind. I had only three years before I would qualify for life time benefits from the Navy. But it was time. To understand how this happened, we have to go back a little.

By the time we got married, there was a realization that there would be times when neither one of us would be at home, wherever home happened to be. We were having conversations, theoretical at that time, about what would happen in this situation when we had children. My parents were ready to step up and take on the role of nurturer whenever we were both away. But I realized even then that this is not what I wanted. I tear up even now thinking about it. I did not want this kind of instability for our children. The emotional overhead of orchestrating all the pieces that would go into the arrangements for children if we were ever deployed at the same time, this was too much. So when my husband got orders to go to Japan, I knew it was time.

I realize that men in this situation do not have the same emotional reaction. Somehow, society has had 1000s of years of creating these roles for men and women. Yes, you can be a mom and do Top Gun, but it is not like a dad doing it. I know one mother who is a Top Gun instructor and is now a Commanding Officer. It can be done but society is so much more judgmental of women. There seems to be a well orchestrated plan to keep women small and second guessing themselves.

We were in Japan for 1.5 years. When we returned, I started work in a defense support company, Tactical Air Support. This is a great place for me, there are like minded people many with weapons school training. We all have a similar work ethic. I stayed in the reserves for a few more years, but after our second child was born, even this did not align with my priorities. By this time, my husband was a Commanding Officer, we had 2 children, I was in the reserves, and I was working full time. I left the reserves for mental stability.

Now, I am a Commanding Officers Wife (COW) and so I am responsible for the Spouses Club for my husbands Squadron. This job was not in my plan, but, it is an important job that entails remembering spouses birthdays, coordinating home coming parties and other squadron celebrations. If one of the families or spouses has medical needs, I coordinate meals and we generally support each other. It is a valuable role because unhappy and dysfunctional relationships among the spouses of the deployed officers impacts the guys out there who are sometimes in dangerous situations. My use of ‘guys’ here embodies everyone, we are all ‘guys’ out there when we are deployed. It is important to note however, that only 5% of the F/A-18 aviation community are women. So right now, I have three jobs. Mother to our 2 children, COW (and yes, you may laugh at the title) and my job at TAS. Life is busy.

Our two boys are 3 and 4 years old right now. My hardest mothering thing has been dealing with a medical concern in our oldest child. I have an appointment for him to see a specialist. I want to do the right thing. I know God made him perfect, but children are bullies. He will be okay once he becomes an adult, but it is the in between years that I am worried about. Growing up, my family did not talk about feelings, we did not hold deep conversations about anything. I want my child to be confident in himself, I want him to be able to handle this well through his childhood.

My children are at a Christian school. I consider myself to be spiritual but not religious. I was raised Catholic and became very disillusioned with the church. I remember several times walking out of church angry with the way the homily went. After high school, I could not, at the time, go back to the bible. While we were in Japan, I had exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism. I started practicing Yoga. There is so much beauty in these philosophies. I realized then that there are different ways of framing the divine.

I want to be a model for my kids, I want to model living from ones heart. In their choice of careers, I want them to remember who they are and choose from their heart, from their gifting. I do not want them to make any choices because they want to ‘fit in’ to what the world wants them to be. I want them to listen to their inner knowing. I want to model living that makes the world a better place. Everyone needs to ‘find their tribe’, the people with whom you can be yourself, that are not draining.

‘Shotty’
Retired Commander of the US Navy.

Talking to Jessie, I realized yet again how much being a mother impacts our choices. When we make decisions, the effect on our children is paramount. Many of us have made big, life altering decisions almost solely based on how it impacts our children. This is what mothers do. In my case, it involved changing practices to a situation where I could control my schedule and my hours better. As Jessie said, find your ‘tribe’, the people who support you, who care about you, who want the best for you, and who you do not have to pretend around.