Category talk:Military brats

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Categories for discussion This category was nominated for deletion, renaming, or merging with another category on 2007 January 1. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

In my opinion this closure was a serious error of judgement as almost all the keep votes were obtained by Balloonman in a blatant act of vote stacking. Taking out the effect of his intervention this category was one of the most numerously and emphatically rejected that has been listed on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Osomec 15:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I wish I had seen this sooner, as a "military brat" myself, I assert that this category is useless, will become unwieldy, and be nearly impossible to verify. Why not "military grand-brats" or "parents of soldiers"? This is a vanity category, nothing more. ("We have something in common!")--Son of Somebody 18:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that is category is important. The difference between "Parents of Soldiers" or whatever else there might be is that Military Brats is its own separate article, and this category should be viewed as an informative continuation of an existing article as opposed to "Military Grand-Brats" which is not an article and also is not a term commonly in usage. FLJuJitsu 13:48, 21 Sept 07
I agree that it should be deleted. All the arguments put forward for deletion were sound. Jamie Mercer 22:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First name/Last name

If we want this to be listed abcetically, shouldn't there be some consistency as to whether the names are listed by first name or by last name? There seems to be a mixture of both here. Does any object to me re-ordering it by last name? --Dave. 14:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

All biographical articles should be sorted by family name (see WP:CAT#Category sorting). I've fixed the two that were out of order. ×Meegs 10:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for inclusion

This category should define its terms of inclusion. The article military brat gives the definition "a person whose parent or parents have served full-time in the armed forces during the person's childhood" which seems too broad: what if they were divorced,or died when you were young? In this case, it ought to be renamed something more neutral like "Children of U.S. military personnel". Alternatively, there could be a more restrictive entry criterion for the category. I suggest:

  • spent a minimum of x years legally domiciled with a parent or guardian who was at the time a member of the U.S. military

Discussion points:

  • Does it have to be U.S. military?
  • Do you have to have lived on a base?
  • What if you went to boarding school?

Whatever the criterion, it of course will necessitate a citable source for each included article, beyond "his mother was in the Army". jnestorius(talk) 18:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

On the one hand I personally agree with you. A person whose military parent died or quit while the person was pre-k often seems weird to me to consider to be a military brat. But that is my personal opinion. Based upon the research that I've done, I've not seen any criteria utilized to support you proposition. Thus, while I would like to, our introducing such a crieteria would be Original Research. The closest thing that I've encountered are comments that indicate the longer the exposure, the more the stereotype is likely to fit and the more that the self-identification will fit, but I've not encountered anything that excludes somebody because they weren't a brat long enough.
As for your discussion points:
    • Does it have to be U.S. military---definately not. The term is used in England, Canada, Australia, and I suspect other countries where English is the primary language. But even if it isn't, the concept is still valid for other countries.
    • Do you have to have lived on a base---definately not. Living on a base might heighten some of the 'impact' of being a brat, but it doesn't alleviate them all. Again, some of the research has dealt with the impact of living on/off base, but in absolutely none is living on base an expectation.
    • Boarding school is actually discussed in several of the studies. This was a more common practice in the 50/60's, but again being sent off to boarding school doesn't isolate you from having a military parent.
The military community, sociologist, and people who study the subject are consistent in their definition. A military brat is one whose parent(s) served in the military during the individuals childhood. Changing that would be Original Research.Balloonman (talk) 18:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. The fact that you mention the "stereotype" of "military brat" is also problematic: someone who fits the sociological definition but not the stereotype might not sit comfortably in the category. If "military brat" is a question of self-identification, then that becomes a (verifiable) criterion for inclusion in the category. Otherwise, I suggest renaming the category to match the definition: something like "Children of military personnel". This would be NPOV, international, avoid stereotypes, and solve the weirdness problem of the marginal cases. jnestorius(talk) 21:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not an issue of self-identification. See the discussion at the article, namely the section on linguistic reclamation, Military Brat is the appropriate term.Balloonman (talk) 21:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is "Children of military personnel" inappropriate?
  • All the discussion you point to relates to the U.S. The article title is Military brat (U.S. subculture). All the people in the Category are American. (Well, I didn't check some I've never heard of.) I've just added List of military brats to the category, which includes some non-Americans. Should they be in the category? jnestorius(talk) 21:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)