Everything Wrong With Scott Perry’s READINESS Act Remarks
There's an account on Instagram that I follow that primarily covers relationships with in-laws called millennialmatleave. Janelle is great and mainly discusses things like communication and boundaries. As a boy mom whose greatest fear is becoming a toxic boy mom, it's an excellent account to help me plan for the things I definitely shouldn't do. Plus, as a friend to some people with these women as mothers-in-law, it's definitely nice for them to know they aren't alone. She has one segment on her account where she shares out-of-pocket things that people have shared with her that their in-laws have done, which is a great place to see some of the craziness out there in the world.
With that, I feel like Scott Perry's remarks from the congressional meeting last week were truly out of pocket. It was such a wild and inappropriate take on an issue affecting so many people. And just as a reminder, the consequences of this act really wouldn't affect anyone other than federal employees who were good at their jobs. Anyone who was already going to get fired would still find themselves unemployed. All this would do is give military spouses a better shot at having a stable career with growth potential while supporting their service members. And as far as I know, it's not like this would have cost the taxpayers any more money. I have not read the entirety of the act, but I don't see how transferring someone's position to remote work or a new location would increase the federal taxes on anyone's paycheck. This is purely a step in the right direction to living out the mission statement of family first, mission always.
As a reminder, Scott Perry is a representative from Pennsylvania, and he said, "We cannot fashion our decisions on national security based on the individual needs of people that signed up of their own volition for a job that they wanted to pursue. We're happy that they want to serve. We're happy that they want to sacrifice, but that's what comes with the territory. If that's not for you, we need insurance salesmen, and we need people to clean pools, and we need all kinds of things in America." Let's go through this line by line.
1. We cannot fashion our decisions on national security based on the individual
needs...
I absolutely agree. We should not make any national security decisions based on one person's needs. I, Sarah Hartley, do not get to decide that the military will pull out of XYZ operations and suspend any PCS, TDY, or deployment because it's inconvenient to my schedule. It would be insane if that were the way the system worked. But we are not talking about one military spouse in Georgia. We are talking about roughly 1 million military spouses who are married to people actively serving active duty, guard, or reserves. Making decisions that affect 1 million people should be considered.
That is especially true because some of those decisions affect our national security. There are roughly 2 million service members between active duty, guard, and reserves, so about half of all military members are married. Approximately 20% of military service members spend 20 years in the military. Some people stay in for much longer, but most get out as soon as their contract ends. There are a lot of different reasons for this, and that's not the point of today's post, but don't we think that spouses have some say in that decision?
We will stay in as long as my husband wants. This is his dream, and I have found ways to chase my dreams within the constraints of that. That often means we make bigger sacrifices than we normally would. But if this wasn't his dream, do you really think we would be looking at a career? There is a lot about this life that we both dislike. And we all know that it is way more expensive on the military to have people get out after 6, 7, or 8+ years of service because the squadrons are constantly bottom-heavy with brand new people who need to be trained. Those 1 million spouses affect our national security, and we should consider them.
2. Of people that signed up of their own volition for a job that they wanted to
pursue...
I don't know the actual context for this piece. If he is referring to the fact that military members sign contracts of their own volition, then I would remind him that we, as spouses, did not sign anything. We signed a marriage certificate. Some of us knew that meant life in the military, and some of us did not, but none of us knew what we were signing up for. That is the case with everything. We never know the complete picture when we begin something. That doesn't mean we would do anything differently, but it also doesn't mean we should just ignore the bad parts because they are part of the package. We should be working on renegotiating what that package deal looks like.
It's also possible that he is referring to the fact that a military spouse would have accepted a federal job of their own volition. While that is mostly true, it fails to consider the pressures people feel to have jobs. For many people, the goal is no longer to have their dream job. Instead, they just need any job. Finding a position that pays enough for their skills and is available today may mean that a federal job is the only option for many spouses. We may have chosen a less portable job than others, but as we move out of the pandemic, portable work-from-home jobs are much harder to come across.
3. We're happy that they want to serve. We're happy that they want to sacrifice...
Again, we, as spouses, do not technically serve. I know we make a lot of sacrifices for our servicemembers, and at some level, we do serve. There are plenty of people who would argue that a military spouse is serving, and I agree with that. But we are not the ones who put our names on the dotted line. We are not the ones who deploy at a moment's notice. And we are not the ones who signed away our rights for however many years. And I am pretty confident that people like Perry would not be first in line to thank a military spouse for their service.
4. But that's what comes with the territory...
This feels a lot like a non-apology. It's like when someone says, "I'm sorry if what I said made you feel this way." There's no honest acknowledgment of an issue and, certainly, no desire to change things. We are all too old to believe that just because things are done a certain way means they must be done that way. Every year, we improve as a society at finding solutions to problems that would have been normal 100 years ago. If the deal they offer is bad (which, for most of us, it is), then we need to start negotiating.
5. If that's not for you, we need insurance salesmen, and we need people to clean
pools, and we need all kinds of things in America
This is definitely the most infuriating line. As an insurance saleswoman, I am offended, but beyond that, we aren't just talking about jobs. It's not as if switching from a federal job to a different field will improve things. Having a career as a pool cleaner goes away very quickly when PCS orders come down to Idaho. There still isn't consistency with any one company, which often means there is little room for growth. If the dream was ever to start their own pool cleaning business, then they have to be ready to close shop or figure out how to start their business over in a whole new place every couple of years.
Federal jobs are an easier place to start because the military is already run at a federal level. Putting these protections in place for military spouses in every industry would be much more challenging. We aren't talking about jobs, though. We are talking about people's lives and their families. For many spouses, walking away from a "job" would look more like walking into unemployment or away from their family, which is not what we want in the first place.
Military life is a different beast than any job in the civilian sector. There is no separation between work and family life. We have to acknowledge that and start treating it differently. Surely, there is a way to truly value families without compromising national security. In fact, I believe that if we actually supported families more, which means helping spouses keep their jobs, then we would see a dramatic increase in the readiness of our military families to fully serve. If mission success is the goal, then let's start acting like it and recognize that the mission goes far beyond the four walls of the war room.