a classist moment, no, really.

[kaigou]

I was 19. I had just started dating a cute chick, and I was asked to participate in a panel during GLBSA week. I discovered flyers with all the information would be included in the monthly newsletter sent to subscribing parents (of which I knew my parents were). I wasn't sure if they were listing names of panel participants, but just in case, I decided I had to bite the bullet and give my parents fair warning.

I called home, and...

Me: Mom, there's something I have to tell you.
Mom: Uh, okay.
Me: I'm dating someone.
Mom: *worried/suspicious* Okaayyyy...
Me: *deep breath* It's a woman in my class...

*long pause*

Me: Mom?
Mom: *huge sigh of relief* Is that all?
Me: Hunh?
Mom: For a moment there, I thought you were going to say you're dating an enlisted Marine!
Me: ...
Mom: So is she a nice girl? What's her major? Where's her family from?

*headdesk*

Or, per a conversation in high school with a fellow military (officer's) brat and two civilian kids. One civvie said something about her father hitting the roof if she ever brought home a black boy. The fellow military brat replied, "My parents wouldn't care about that... I can date any color except enlisted."

*snerk*

Comments

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you mean the anti-fraternization rule? Given that it's been part of the western military mindset since before this country started (it was particularly of issue in the British Navy, I think), and that families/women/children were/are often seen as an "extension" of the officer, it's no surprise that it'd be frowned upon to have an officer's child date an enlisted person.

I mean, not all families are that strict -- my family was actually pretty liberal about it, compared to my peers. My parents wouldn't have hit the roof for me dating an enlisted person, but they would've reacted the same as they did when I dated a non-college grad: polite, if worried, questions about "so about school, what are the plans for a degree/OCS..." The Army and Marine branches were probably the worst for anti-fraternization attitudes, no, wait, the Marines are definitely the worst.

I mean, when the military branch has a policy that if an enlisted and an officer start dating, it means a talking-to (usually to the officer of setting a bad example)... and the instant marriage is discussed, paperwork gets started to discharge the enlisted half of the couple (even if s/he refuses to leave!) -- that's some pretty huge impact of fraternization. [And before you ask, the pushed-out party is usually enlisted, regardless of gender, because of the branch's investment in the officer, so the officer's more valuable and must be kept. The military's not saying you can't marry -- it's just saying you can't have an enlisted person married to an officer because of the conflict of rank.]

My mother grew up on military bases, so she refused to raise our family on base. You'd probably do better for a more indepth explanation from anyone who's a base-kid. (Or a post-kid, if you're talking to an Army brat.) But from the times I spent on base visiting friends, the social status on base is always clearly marked: where you live indicates your parent's rank, it's even marked on your cars, and on your dependent's ID, and all that jazz. You can't get away from it, and as kids you just absorb that "who gets respect" is based on "who your mother/father salutes" and not on some broader social off-the-base set of values.

I mean, "life off base" isn't even "real" sometimes, especially when you're stationed overseas and the only significantly English-speaking population is on base: it becomes your entire world, I'm told, and even more of a hothouse no-fraternizing kind of place.

I guess I grew up with a certain attitude that when I accompanied my father, I got treated with respect not because my father was this skin color or that, but because he had X amt of brass on his lapels, and you learned to zero in on that first and foremost. (If you mouthed off to a general, that was the fastest way to get a very angry parental talk later, and yes, misbehaving kids could and did reflect badly on parents, because the implication was that the parents were teaching their kids disrespect by example, y'see?)

I should also note that for some kids, it's a source of fun, too. A good friend in school was the daughter of a three-star general, and we used to drive on and off base -- over and over! -- just to watch the little enlisted men at the guard posts fall all over themselves when they saw the car's sticker... because it doesn't matter if that's a 16-yr old girl behind the wheel, the car is a general's, and thus the car, and its inhabitants, get the same fancy salute (and "do you need any help or directions?" offers) as if the general were right there.

Woot! We thought it was awesome. I got some deference thanks to my father being full-bird, but nothing like a three-star general, man! ;-)