I was a single mom when I was in the Air Force, so deployments for me weren't just an emotional hit it was a financial hit as well! I had to prepare a Power of Attorney for my son's caretaker and find some one willing to take my son while I was gone and find the money to pay them for this. If you are a single parent you might have to find yourself going to friends or family to assist you in your childcare. You might even find yourself in the situation where family and friends are not an option. Most military bases where they have base housing for their members will have a type of Family Support Center or a Child Development Center (these may be named differently for the various branches) these are great places to get a listing of home child care providers. I know when I was stationed at Travis AFB each listing had categories of care they offered. They would let you know if they cared for special needs children, what shifts they were willing to take children, if they did deployment care, age groups and much more. Planning ahead of time before you even get called up for a deployment is ideal. Contact family members and plan hypothetical deployment situations with them. Figure out what you need to do to get them a Power of Attorney, how to get them access to a military medical facility and contacting TriWest (aka Tricare or Champus) about getting extra health insurance cards for your children in the case they are only able to go to a civilian health care professional. Most importantly, always have at least 3 - 6 months of your pay in savings. I can't stress this enough. You never know if you're going to have to have some one else paying your rent, car payments or what not while you are away. If there are any chores or duties (such as doing the family accounting) make sure your spouse or some one else is ready to take those responsibilities over for you. Ensure all legal documents are up to date and valid. This will sound morbid but make sure you have a will and an updated will before you go. The hardest thing for me was creating a will at the age of 19. Thank goodness I never needed it, but it was a very good process to go through. Also make sure that with your wills, power of attorneys and other such documents that your family members know where they are or have access to them. There are many more important things to remember, the Military Spouse Career Center has a great page that talks about these things as well! http://www.military.com/spouse/fs/0,,fs_deploy_archiveprepare,00.html