I'm trying to keep an open mind, really, I am, but it's nearly impossible. Michelle Obama has been many things: a lawyer, a political wife, and now the First Lady. But nothing in her life has ever given her even the slightest taste of what it is to be a military wife, and I have trouble respecting her stated desire to help the military family while she is jetting off to Chicago for her special Valentines dinner. (I've spent two Valentines days with my husband since we married five and a half years ago.)

Imagine this, if you can: you have four children. Daddy (or Mommy, often, in these days) is out on a harrowing mission of some sort – boots on ground in Afghanistan, like my brother was, or inside a stifling tin can of a submarine, like my husband often is. They will be gone for a period of anything from a month to a year plus, leaving you to hold down the fort.

For the duration of your husband's tour, you are effectively a single parent. There is a small bonus attached to your husband's dangerous duties, and an even smaller $100/month hardship allowance for the family; this is usually offset in its entirety by the loss of other pay allowances like meal BAH. You get to do the work of both parents: financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, you are both parents for now.

Every appointment, every school problem, every practice session or special event, is yours to own. All the financial work is yours. Car repairs? Yours. Mowing the grass? Yours. Have a job outside the home? Welcome to the world of getting chewed out by the boss when you have to stay home with your sick kids, or leave work early to take care of critical business. Pregnant? Better find someone to watch the kids for the three days you will be hospitalized, because they likely won't bring the husband back for the birth.

Military spouses don't have the same social network as single moms. Typically, we live hundreds or even thousands of miles from our families and friends. The military works to keep spouse groups together, but for the most part they are cobbled together from people who have disparate interests and concerns, people who ship out after a year or so to who-knows-where. After going-on-six years as a military wife, I have yet to make a real friend in the military system. I live five thousand miles from my family, and my safety net is effectively me.

Military spouses can't easily find jobs. In Connecticut, it took me an unprecedented (for me) six months to find a job – and that one temporary with no benefits at all, not even sick days. Why? My (excellent) references were all way out of town, I have a distinct Southern accent, and worst of all, I'm a military wife. We are seen as less reliable. Employers don't want employees who can be shipped off at any point, who have no roots in the community, and who may be left alone with the personal responsibilities of their entire family at any moment. Well, who can blame them? (Though I do resent the barrier my accent posed – that was completely unfair.)

When I married, I had been told that it wouldn't be hard to get into the government employment system. Wrong!! Spouses have precedence over applicants who walk in off the streets – but everyone, from vets to ex-government employees, has precedence over us. The only job I could ever find to get me into the government system was as a lowly G-2 grocery clerk. That's fine for a young spouse with little education or work experience, but I came into the system aged 35, with a degree and some serious computer skills. And by the time that position came open, I'd already lined up another in the private sector that paid me 50% more.

So yeah, Michelle, military families have some real problems. So what has your husband done about it?

For starters, he's mandated that the Pentagon cut 10% of its budget. Now, the military is in the business of waging war, not raising kids. This means that when they're looking at the 10% to cut, they aren't looking at missiles or armored vehicles (and we spouses wouldn't want them to – those things keep our beloved husbands and wives alive.) Instead, they are eyeing soft expenditures: daycares, spouse employment programs, benefits. The one major change I've seen so far is a moratorium on sign-on bonuses, an incredibly negative move that can only lead to a brain drain for the military as men leave the service for much more lucrative positions in the private sector.

The point is, the issues involved in being a military family are not solvable with a hug, or a photo op, or a five-minute meeting to hear complaints about toilet training and missing your husband. In a way, you can only seriously address them if you've lived them, or if you have a close friend who has lived them.

Mrs. Obama, I know why you are doing this. Your husband needs props with the military. If you run around with high visibility among military families, you can get him some good press without doing much that will be scrutinized by the public. It's an easy PR job.

But let me tell you this, Mrs. Obama. I am not interested in your PR. This is my real life. I have to deal with it every day, and you could not understand me and my problems if you spent weeks with me. I don't have time for your photo ops, and I don't have any interest in your bare-arm hugs and fakey gooshiness.

I know the truth, and it's demonstrated every day as your husband implements new policies. You don't give a damn about me. Fine. I don't much give a damn about you. Stay out of my way and don't use me, and we'll get along just fine. Like every military spouse who has stuck it out this long, I'll find a way to do what needs doing. I don't need your make-believe empathy.

But if you really want to help me,, to help us, then you need to clear a path for the military spouse to help herself. Encourage spouses to go to college, and give them the informational resources to do it. Make it easier for them to get government jobs on bases where their husbands work already. Find ways to incentivize private industry to hire military spouses, despite their inherent problems (employer education and good data gathering is a good start – most military spouses are more reliable, not less reliable, than the average employee.) Set up workforce training on bases for the very young spouses, women who have never been in the workforce. Don't cut services, but rather improve the ones that are there. And advertise the availability of all this. Mandate orientation for every spouse moving in so that she is familiarized with the services available, and provide daycare while they're learning about the base. Find ways to motivate women to improve their lives as spouses, strengthen their families, and support their husbands throughout critical military missions.

The end result will be a stronger military family, a more motivated military, and young women who become empowered, not weakened, by their military experience. Achieving this sort of success would be a real accomplishment, and a real public service, worthy of real respect. You would have earned even mine.