The Senate Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), released a report timed to coincide with Mother’s Day that highlights the precarious position of service member moms in the military today. The report finds that the availability of child care services do not keep up with deployment schedules, short leave periods after childbirth or adoption, and insufficient access to mental health services for mothers and children coping with service during wartime.

The report notes that 40 percent of female service members have children, and nearly 30 percent of these mothers (11 percent of women overall) are single. Nearly have of female service members have served in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001. A majority of first-time military parents are low to moderate income, and with average deployment lengths going up over recently, the strain on time and emotions is of growing concern.

Access to child care is of major concern, given the large number of single moms serving in a time of heightened operations tempo. The report finds:

The Department of Defense has reported that even with new centers being constructed, due to the special issue of deployment, the military is approximately 35,000 spots short of expected need, and some military family advocates think this is a substantial underestimation. At the same time, the number of new born babies and younger children in the military is expected to increase. Unmet child care needs impacts military readiness. In a 2006 survey by the RAND Corporation, 9 percent of military families reported having unmet child care needs, while these families were more likely to have children between the ages of zero and five. These same families reported they were ‘much more likely’ to leave the military. In the same survey, researchers found that child care issues affect women at a higher rate than men. Thirty-seven percent of military mothers reported missing work due to a child care issue, compared to 7 percent of men. (citations omitted)

These findings indicate that these issues not only affect the well-being and morale of military families, but also have an impact on overall readiness and retention. There is no data on the direct spillover effects of this strain on families, but we can surmise that military moms either eat the extra costs of child care out of pocket, or are forced to rely upon extended family for help.

Military mothers deserve better, and we can hope that this study helps spur Congress and the Department of Defense to act to give these moms a hand. Recent history leaves little cause for optimism, but perhaps the release of this report on Mother’s Day weekend will inspire a change.