Wiktionary
n. (context slang English) a child who has one or more parents who serves or served full-time in the military
Wikipedia
"Military brat" and various "brat" derivatives describe the child of a parent or parents serving full-time in the United States Armed Forces, and can also refer to the subculture and lifestyle of such families. The term refers to both current and former children of such families.
The military brat lifestyle typically involves moving to new states or countries many times while growing up, as the child's military family is customarily transferred to new non-combat assignments; consequently, many military brats never have a home town. War-related family stresses are also a commonly occurring part of military brat life. There are also other aspects of military brat life that are significantly different in comparison to the civilian American population, often including living in foreign countries and or diverse regions within the U.S., exposure to foreign languages and cultures, and immersion in military culture.
The military brats subculture has emerged over the last 200 years. The age of the phenomenon has meant military brats have also been described by a number of researchers as one of the America's oldest and yet least well-known and largely invisible subcultures. They have also been described as a "modern nomadic subculture".
"Military brat" is known in U.S. military culture as a term of endearment and respect. The term may also connote a military brat's experience of mobile upbringing, and may reference a sense of worldliness. Research has shown that most current and former military brats like the term; however, outside of the military world, the term "military brat" can sometimes be misunderstood by the non-military population, where the word "brat" is often a pejorative term.
A military brat ( colloquial or military slang) is the child of a person in the military. Military brats are associated with a unique subculture and cultural identity. Military brat's childhood or adolescent life may be immersed in military culture to the point where the mainstream culture of their home country may seem foreign or peripheral. In a number of countries (but not all) where there are military brat subcultures, the child's family moves great distances from one non-combat assignment to another for much of their youth. For highly mobile military brats, a mixed cultural identity often results, due to exposure to numerous national or regional cultures.
Within military culture, the term "military brat" is not considered to be a pejorative (as in describing a spoiled child), but rather connotes affection and respect.
War-related family stresses, including long-term war-related absence of a parent, as well as war aftermath issues, are common features of military brat life in some countries, although the degree of war-involvement of individual countries with military brat subcultures may vary.
A military brat is a term used in several English-speaking countries to describe a person who spends their childhood or adolescence living with parents who are active members of the Armed Forces.
It may also refer to:
- Military brat (US subculture), the subculture, history & psychological studies of military brats in the United States
Usage examples of "military brat".
Ann trusted Daddy, and, at twenty years old, for all her world travel as a military brat, she was still Daddy’.
He'd told her how he'd moved around a lot growing up as a military brat, and how he was wary of getting tied down.
For a former military brat, finding even one veteran in a group like this was a relief.
It would be a very long time, perhaps half a lifetime, before they were any universities on New Eden worth mentioning, and in spite of being a military brat, she didn't really look the type to enlist, either physically or temperamentally.
As a teenager, not yet so religiously devoted to the seashore that it had become his monastery, he had for a while dated a military brat who lived on-base with her parents.