"For a missionary child to face a boarding school separation is no more abusive than for military children to have their fathers sent to Iraq for a year." page 17
I am not an MK, but I am an "Army Brat." My father was a career enlisted man in the US Army. He fought in WWII before I was born. He met my mother in Paris, where they had their first child. I was born in NY and six years later my sister was born in OK. We moved a lot, often changing schools in the middle of a term. This was just considered "normal" and, since we always lived in "army towns," it was normal for all the kids around us, except for the civilians, who were usually in a minority.
My father died when I was 12, having been separated from his family for about 6 of those years. However, unlike MKs, I was never sent to a boarding school. I always lived with my mother and siblings. This, to my mind, is an entirely different level of separation than that faced by MKs in a boarding school.
Was the separation I endured while my father was overseas, often in war zones (Korea twice and Viet Nam once), abusive? I would say, on balance, that it was not conducive to good behavior!
And, the authors of this report do not say that I did not experience abuse; only that MK separation is "no more abusive" than what I experienced. If that were true, and I have no idea how they determined that, it still would not mean that MKs were not abused by the separation from their parents. And, remember, they were separated from both parents. Most military kids, even today, are only separated from one.
I enjoyed a great deal of Army Brat life, and I liked military things. However, they ended the draft just as I became eligible, and I determined not to join just because I wanted to eventually get married, have kids and be there for and with my kids. I decided to be a missionary, instead. OK, not too bright, but we ended up home schooling, so it worked out fine for us.
While I was separated from my father for half of the years that our lives overlapped, it was never for more than one year at a time. MKs, whose experiences the authors equate with mine, were often separated during their entire school years from first grade through high school graduation. I'm no lawyer, but I can see a difference in degree there.
Finally, my father's commanding officer never, ever came to our house and told my father how to run it, told my mother she was lazy and not pulling her weight, told them how to discipline me...
This whole article is such a piece of special pleading, Raz, that you should not let it bother you. It is beneath contempt and unworthy of your time.
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