Military Spouse Magazine honored the dad for his stay-at-home work with disabled daughter.
When Deanie Dempsey, whose husband is the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the stage at the Marine Barracks Washington earlier this month to announce 2012's “Military Spouse of the Year,” she fumbled for her words. There were six nominees—five women and one man—and Dempsey clearly had trouble finding the appropriate gender-neutral pronoun, in order to not blow the identity of the winner. Finally, she gave up. “I have confidence that he will do his fellow spouses proud,” she said. The room collectively gasped.
This was, after all, decidedly a ladies' luncheon. The hot-pink gift bags held tubes of shimmery eye shadow and sparkly necklaces. But this year, for the first time ever, the spouse of honor was not a wife, but a husband: Jeremy Hilton, a cheerful, mustachioed fellow. Taking the podium, Hilton cracked a joke, “Now, we've obviously established that this is not a beauty contest.”
Read more:
Jeremy Hilton: U.S. Military's First Male Spouse of the Year
"SAHD Life" is a blog segment by male military spouse and stay-at-home-dad, Taurus James - husband for 15 years, father for 7 years, SAHD for 2 years. In this post, Taurus takes a look back at his personal struggles with anxiety, depression and lonliness during the holidays and encourages others to seek help.
When I was a boy, I loved the holidays. I had great anticipation and excitement during Christmas. I loved being with family and friends during Thanksgiving. Food, football (Washington Redskins forever!) and fellowship are what I looked forward to the most.
But then something happened. I didn't know exactly when, but I was definitely a grown-up at the time when I started dreading the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas became the worst times of the year for me. The things I loved about these holidays and anticipated as a boy, I hated as a man and a father.
