Nobody Hands You a Guidebook
Nobody hands you a guidebook.
That is the thing nobody tells you when your kid enlists. One day you are a regular mom. The next day you are googling acronyms at midnight trying to figure out what MOS means and whether you are supposed to already know this and what it says about you that you don't.
I felt behind from day one.
Feeling Lost as a First-Gen Military Mom
I didn't know the language. I didn't know the culture. I didn't know what questions to ask or who to ask them to. I joined Facebook groups and read every thread twice and still felt like I was standing outside a room everyone else had been in for years.
And the worst part? I felt like I couldn't say that out loud. Because my daughter was the brave one. She was the one doing the hard thing. Who was I to feel so lost?
You Can Feel Proud and Lost at the Same Time
Here is what I know now, that I didn't know then: feeling lost doesn't cancel out being proud. You can be both. You are allowed to be both. Not knowing the language doesn't mean you don't understand the sacrifice. It just means nobody walked you through the door yet.
That is what I kept running into — there was no door for moms like me. No soft landing. No one saying hey, you just stepped into something big and it is okay that you don't have it figured out yet.
Learning From Other Military Moms
So I started paying attention to the moms who were a few steps ahead of me. The ones in the group chats who answered questions without making you feel dumb for asking.
I wanted to be that for someone else.
Why Patriotic Threads Started
That want — that specific want — is where Patriotic Threads started. Not with a product, but with a feeling I couldn't shake: somebody should be here for the moms who don't know what they don't know yet.
Turns out, that somebody was going to be me.
— Janae