Military Deployment of an Adult Child: Ambiguous Loss and Boundary Ambiguity Reflected in the Experiences of Parents of Service Members

The supportive role of parents of Service members is very important but often overlooked. A group of parents were interviewed to examine their reflections on their adult children's deployment. Results revealed that parents experienced ambiguous loss (i.e., there is no certainty that the adult child will come back, or return to the way they used to be) and boundary ambiguity (i.e., they were not sure if the deployed adult child should be kept in the family system psychologically) throughout their adult children's deployment cycle.