When my father, Odysseus, and his men sailed off to the Trojan War, they were confident their gods favored a quick victory. Instead, the siege of Troy lasted ten years. After Troy fell, the survivors made their way home to Sparta, Mycenae, Pylos, and elsewhere in the ancient Peloponnese. Neither my father nor any of his troops arrived home with the rest. We waited for years as the news grew worse. Odysseus was dead, we were told,or imprisoned, or, worst yet, he had married another woman and abandoned my mother Penelope, my brother Telemachus, and me.


If he is alive somewhere, his thoughts may wander to Penelope and Telemachus, but he won’t be thinking of me. I am the daughter he doesn’t know exists. Odysseus went off to the Trojan War when his son, Telemachus, was barely old enough to walk. His wife, Penelope, was a teenage bride, and is now a young wife, mother, and queen who has to try to rule Ithaca without him.


I was born seven months after he left. I am a hero’s daughter and a princess of his realm, but I have lived my entire life without a father. I’m nineteen now, and still waiting.


All over the world, and throughout history children grow up as I have. This website will focus on the children of those men and women who have gone off to fight America's wars, and provide information and resources for all who care about military families and want to help.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Recruiting Elmo


More than two million U.S. children have been affected directly by a parent's military wartime deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan; 40% of these children are younger than 5 years old. Sesame Workshop has developed a program called "Talk, Listen, Connect" aimed at kids of all ages, including the youngest and most vulnerable. The newest episode is helping children dealing with the worst outcome of deployment: a parent who doesn't return at all.

Over the past few months, Sesame Workshop has distributed more than one million "When Families Grieve" multimedia kits to support groups and families. The program has been enthusiastically received by top military brass; Adm. Mike Mullen got on stage with Jesse, Rosita and Elmo for a Pentagon screening of a "When Families Grieve" special hosted by CBS's Katie Couric that aired April 14 on PBS.

The Sesame programs offer free books, websites and other resources to cope with a wide range of issues affecting military children, as well as videos mixing Muppets with footage of real kids and parents sharing their experiences. The first two installments, aired between 2006 and 2008, dealt with deployments, redeployments, and parents who come back with a combat-related injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. In one, for example, Muppet Rosita's father is wheelchair bound.

Gary Knell, president of Sesame Workshop, says the initial inspiration came from a story he read about a family that lost its home because it fell behind on mortgage payments while the father was deployed in Iraq. "I just was so sick of seeing all these 'support the troops' posters when we were allowing things like this to happen," he says.

Kim Ruocco, deputy director of suicide education and support for TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, says the program helps kids understand that "it won't always hurt this bad, there is another side of grief, and you will one day feel joy again and some peace."

"The broader American public can learn a lot from our military about resilience," says Sesame Workshop President, Gary Knell, "and how to teach those lessons to kids in this country."

Posted by About AART at 7:14 AM

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