Family or Career?
By Chaplain B. Allen Vaughan

There was a comedian named Jack Benny from the old days of radio and black and white television. His comedic character was a tight-wad, skin-flint, penny-pinching miser. In one of his acts, he was confronted by a masked robber who pointed his pistol at Benny and demanded, “Your money, or your life?” Benny put his hand to his chin and stood still without answering. After a moment, the robber became impatient and demanded again, “Well, what’ll it be, your money or your life?” To which Benny would reply, “I’m thinking!”
 
In military life, we are called upon to make tough decisions nearly every day. An easy decision is one in which there is a clear distinction between right and wrong, good or bad. However, the challenge comes when there is not such a clear distinction, and the line between a good decision and a bad one becomes blurred. Another factor which makes decisions more difficult is when the options from which we have to choose are fairly equal in importance to us.

All too often, members of the military are placed in the unfortunate position of having to choose between family and career. In an ideal world, all of the decisions we have to make will be of equal benefit to both our families and our chosen careers. But, most of the time, our career advancement comes at a cost to our families, and the welfare of our family comes at a cost to our career.

One thing that I have tried to do throughout my adult life is to list all of my decisions under three categories: those which are (1) good for my family; (2) good for my career; or, (3) good for both family and career. I’m happy and can rest easy if a decision falls under the category of “good for both family and career.” When I start to list all of my other decisions under the remaining two categories, the painful truth starts to come out. Have I been fair to my family? Have I gone as far in my career as I could have?
 
If you were to make your own list of all the important decisions you have made in your life, and then placed them in the same three categories, would you find more “check marks” under one column, at the expense of another? Or, would your list look balanced and evenly distributed between both family and career? What would your family say, if they were asked to “rate” your decisions?

I have discovered that my own family is much more willing to accept the decisions I make which are career-oriented, only when they know I’ve also made a fairly equal number of decisions that were a benefit to them. This is the difficult balance we are asked to strike as military families today.

Next time, when you are asked by your detailer, commanding officer, or spouse to make a choice: “Your family, or your career?” it is ok to stop for a moment and say, “I’m thinking!”

When you can find a good balance, then both you and your family can feel better about the tough decisions you have to make.