Staff Perspective: How Ready Do Military Families Need to Be?
By Jessica Strong and Elizabeth Burgin
Military families are ready. Military children are resilient.
These terms - “readiness” and “resilience” - are widely used as compliments, describing the strength, tenacity, and perseverance of military families to adapt and overcome the challenges of military life: family separations, frequent moves, and inherent dangers. And indeed, we celebrate the strength of these families.
But how ready do families need to be?
How resilient is enough?
Do families truly have to be Semper Paratus - always ready?
What does it mean to be “ready” or “resilient”?
This expectation and celebration of readiness and resilience is a dual-edged sword. While the sentiment behind the labels is good, their oversimplification has caused controversy. The core problem lies in the blurred, often contradictory, understanding of what it means to be truly ready for the military lifestyle.
First, let’s look at readiness.
The DoD has defined Family Readiness as:
“The state of being prepared to effectively navigate the challenges of daily living experienced in the unique context of military service” (DoD Instruction 1342.22).
This characterizes “readiness” firmly as a state, something that shifts with time and context. A more nuanced understanding of readiness recognizes that it is not just a state, but a cultivated state —a limited resource that we must actively support and replenish, like a basil plant. If you cultivate it and let it flourish with water, sunshine, and rich soil, you can continuously reap its rewards. You can make pesto today and still have leaves for margherita pizza next week. But if you strip all the leaves clean, or neglect to water it, the plant will not magically produce more leaves on demand. When you know it is finite, but replenishable, you use it more sparingly and be intentional about nurturing it when it’s under stress.
The military family's capacity for readiness is like that basil plant. It requires continuous, systemic nourishment to sustain its strength against the constant, compounding demands of military life.
Now, let’s look at resilience.
Resilience is commonly conceptualized as the ability to bounce back from stress, like a rubber ball. The rubber ball has the inherent ability to bounce back, because of its nature. No matter how often or how hard it is thrown, it will bounce back because it is made to do so.
This definition characterizes resilience as a trait - something a person has or does not have. Defined this way, military family members either have the ability to be resilient, or they fall short. When the system operates under the trait assumption—the label can become a weapon that denies struggling families the necessary aid.
Military spouse and author Jennifer Barnhill highlights this danger, noting that “Military resilience has been reduced to a verbal pat on the back for military families to earn—a label that is awarded, not a skill they develop” (Barnhill, 2025).
This praise feeds the dangerous "superhero" narrative, which gives drowning families a high five instead of a hand up. Being labeled "resilient" can actively block access to care. Barnhill describes an instance in which a spouse navigating serious medical care for their children was denied case management support because they "appeared resilient" and didn’t seem to need the resource.
In these cases, praise without practical support isn't just hollow; it becomes pressure to endure silently. It does real harm; spouses go without health care, including mental health care, for fear of appearing “weak” or not living up to the expectation of resilience. This damages the whole family, as we know the parents’ mental health is one of the best predictors of a child’s wellbeing (Briggs et al., 2020).
Furthermore, labeling families as inherently resilient glosses over the modifiable stressors that required resilience in the first place. It shifts the focus to individual coping skills instead of policies, resources, and sustainable support that could help carry the load.
After rigorously examining how family resilience is defined in the academic literature, Meadows and colleagues concluded: “Readiness is a state and/or condition that focuses on the resources individuals have before experiencing stress, whereas resilience is a process that focuses on the outcome of experiencing stress” (Meadows et al., 2015). They suggest that a definition of resilience should include the following themes: “a process, successfully overcoming adversity or obstacles, being strengthened by an experience, and having resources and utilizing these resources effectively” (Meadows et al., 2015) and further suggest adopting the following definition or family resilience:
“Family resilience can be defined as the ability of a family to respond positively to an adverse situation and emerge from the situation feeling strengthened, more resourceful, and more confident than its prior state.” (Simon et al., 2005).
This definition recognizes that military families can grow stronger through successfully navigating the unique and cumulative stressors of military service, but they require resources and support.
Military family readiness is a context-dependent, cultivated state that must be supported and nurtured.
Military family resilience is a process by which families may recover from adversity and emerge stronger, but it requires the provision or development of resources.
In either case, to conceptualize either readiness or resilience as a trait that families either have or don’t have is problematic and can cause real harm.
It is simply impossible for any human unit to be truly ready at all times and resilient in all circumstances. Striving for constant preparedness and immediate recovery from cumulative stressors is unsustainable and unrealistic. The military family, especially without the benefit of traditional civilian systems of support (extended family, stable employment, local networks), is not a self-contained unit capable of adapting to every stressor at any time with no external support.
True readiness or resilience are not about always bouncing back or being ready for anything at any time, and depend on creating and maintaining sustainable systems of support, not individual grit and bootstraps.
Developing these sustainable systems of support is not the sole responsibility of military families - though they have a big role! It is also not solely the responsibility of the military system. This fabric of support should include strands from families, military systems, and the larger civilian community and society. We need to shift from a demand for military families to be superheroes and instead build stronger, more adaptable support systems that match the magnitude of their sacrifice.
We can start by using the right language.
References:
Barnhill, J. (2025). The military stories you’ve been told and the ones you need to hear. E.P. House.
Briggs, E. C., Fairbank, J. A., Tunno, A. M., Lee, R. C., Corry, N. H., Pflieger, J. C., Stander, V. A., & Murphy, R. A. (2020). Military life stressors, family communication and satisfaction: Associations with children’s psychosocial outcomes. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 13(1), 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-019-00259-z
McInerney, S.A., Waldrep, E., and Benight, C.C. (2022). Resilience enhancing programs in the U.S. military: An exploration of theory and applied practice. Military Psychology. 36(3). 241-252. doi.org/10.1080/08995605.2022.2086418
Simon, J., Murphy, J., and Smith, S. (2005). “Understanding and fostering family resilience,” The Family Journal, 13, 2005, 427–436.
By Jessica Strong and Elizabeth Burgin
Military families are ready. Military children are resilient.
These terms - “readiness” and “resilience” - are widely used as compliments, describing the strength, tenacity, and perseverance of military families to adapt and overcome the challenges of military life: family separations, frequent moves, and inherent dangers. And indeed, we celebrate the strength of these families.
But how ready do families need to be?
How resilient is enough?
Do families truly have to be Semper Paratus - always ready?
What does it mean to be “ready” or “resilient”?
This expectation and celebration of readiness and resilience is a dual-edged sword. While the sentiment behind the labels is good, their oversimplification has caused controversy. The core problem lies in the blurred, often contradictory, understanding of what it means to be truly ready for the military lifestyle.
First, let’s look at readiness.
The DoD has defined Family Readiness as:
“The state of being prepared to effectively navigate the challenges of daily living experienced in the unique context of military service” (DoD Instruction 1342.22).
This characterizes “readiness” firmly as a state, something that shifts with time and context. A more nuanced understanding of readiness recognizes that it is not just a state, but a cultivated state —a limited resource that we must actively support and replenish, like a basil plant. If you cultivate it and let it flourish with water, sunshine, and rich soil, you can continuously reap its rewards. You can make pesto today and still have leaves for margherita pizza next week. But if you strip all the leaves clean, or neglect to water it, the plant will not magically produce more leaves on demand. When you know it is finite, but replenishable, you use it more sparingly and be intentional about nurturing it when it’s under stress.
The military family's capacity for readiness is like that basil plant. It requires continuous, systemic nourishment to sustain its strength against the constant, compounding demands of military life.
Now, let’s look at resilience.
Resilience is commonly conceptualized as the ability to bounce back from stress, like a rubber ball. The rubber ball has the inherent ability to bounce back, because of its nature. No matter how often or how hard it is thrown, it will bounce back because it is made to do so.
This definition characterizes resilience as a trait - something a person has or does not have. Defined this way, military family members either have the ability to be resilient, or they fall short. When the system operates under the trait assumption—the label can become a weapon that denies struggling families the necessary aid.
Military spouse and author Jennifer Barnhill highlights this danger, noting that “Military resilience has been reduced to a verbal pat on the back for military families to earn—a label that is awarded, not a skill they develop” (Barnhill, 2025).
This praise feeds the dangerous "superhero" narrative, which gives drowning families a high five instead of a hand up. Being labeled "resilient" can actively block access to care. Barnhill describes an instance in which a spouse navigating serious medical care for their children was denied case management support because they "appeared resilient" and didn’t seem to need the resource.
In these cases, praise without practical support isn't just hollow; it becomes pressure to endure silently. It does real harm; spouses go without health care, including mental health care, for fear of appearing “weak” or not living up to the expectation of resilience. This damages the whole family, as we know the parents’ mental health is one of the best predictors of a child’s wellbeing (Briggs et al., 2020).
Furthermore, labeling families as inherently resilient glosses over the modifiable stressors that required resilience in the first place. It shifts the focus to individual coping skills instead of policies, resources, and sustainable support that could help carry the load.
After rigorously examining how family resilience is defined in the academic literature, Meadows and colleagues concluded: “Readiness is a state and/or condition that focuses on the resources individuals have before experiencing stress, whereas resilience is a process that focuses on the outcome of experiencing stress” (Meadows et al., 2015). They suggest that a definition of resilience should include the following themes: “a process, successfully overcoming adversity or obstacles, being strengthened by an experience, and having resources and utilizing these resources effectively” (Meadows et al., 2015) and further suggest adopting the following definition or family resilience:
“Family resilience can be defined as the ability of a family to respond positively to an adverse situation and emerge from the situation feeling strengthened, more resourceful, and more confident than its prior state.” (Simon et al., 2005).
This definition recognizes that military families can grow stronger through successfully navigating the unique and cumulative stressors of military service, but they require resources and support.
Military family readiness is a context-dependent, cultivated state that must be supported and nurtured.
Military family resilience is a process by which families may recover from adversity and emerge stronger, but it requires the provision or development of resources.
In either case, to conceptualize either readiness or resilience as a trait that families either have or don’t have is problematic and can cause real harm.
It is simply impossible for any human unit to be truly ready at all times and resilient in all circumstances. Striving for constant preparedness and immediate recovery from cumulative stressors is unsustainable and unrealistic. The military family, especially without the benefit of traditional civilian systems of support (extended family, stable employment, local networks), is not a self-contained unit capable of adapting to every stressor at any time with no external support.
True readiness or resilience are not about always bouncing back or being ready for anything at any time, and depend on creating and maintaining sustainable systems of support, not individual grit and bootstraps.
Developing these sustainable systems of support is not the sole responsibility of military families - though they have a big role! It is also not solely the responsibility of the military system. This fabric of support should include strands from families, military systems, and the larger civilian community and society. We need to shift from a demand for military families to be superheroes and instead build stronger, more adaptable support systems that match the magnitude of their sacrifice.
We can start by using the right language.
References:
Barnhill, J. (2025). The military stories you’ve been told and the ones you need to hear. E.P. House.
Briggs, E. C., Fairbank, J. A., Tunno, A. M., Lee, R. C., Corry, N. H., Pflieger, J. C., Stander, V. A., & Murphy, R. A. (2020). Military life stressors, family communication and satisfaction: Associations with children’s psychosocial outcomes. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 13(1), 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-019-00259-z
McInerney, S.A., Waldrep, E., and Benight, C.C. (2022). Resilience enhancing programs in the U.S. military: An exploration of theory and applied practice. Military Psychology. 36(3). 241-252. doi.org/10.1080/08995605.2022.2086418
Simon, J., Murphy, J., and Smith, S. (2005). “Understanding and fostering family resilience,” The Family Journal, 13, 2005, 427–436.