"Honey, I'm going to be on," my husband said plopping down on the couch remote in hand. Flipping to the news channel, I remember thinking, "I hope he isn't doing anything weird." Unfortunately, this "what will the neighbors think" mentality is the result of a negative aspect of police work and being part of a police family: public scrutiny. "If it were not such an invasion of privacy, it would be almost comical to think how police officers are treated like public property," Ellen Kirschman, Ph.D., author of I Love a Cop says. I've heard frustrated officers talk about how they can't go out for a drink without people talking about it. One distraught LEO lamented how the media made a spectacle out of her daughter's suicide due to her mother's occupation implying she should have been a better parent. A situation in my past also landed the media on my doorstep trying to get the scoop on a situation involving a police family.

Higher Standards

Police officers are held to a standard much higher than the general public. They are expected to have meticulous morals and always behave in an honorable fashion - on and off-duty. Unlike most occupations, if an officer is involved in any kind of situation whether good or bad, nine times out of ten what he or she does for a living is mentioned. Have you ever heard a story with the headline "Computer Programmer involved in domestic dispute with wife"? In most situations, the person is the focus of the incident, but like officers themselves, members of the community have a hard time separating the person from the profession.

Like their LEO, police families deal with public scrutiny at levels higher than other people. "Police families live in the same limelight cops do," Kirschman explains. "As a family member or friend, you may feel like an unpaid representative of the police department." You have to deal with the myriad of questions about how you handle the prospect of your spouse being killed, as well as, many outings being disrupted by an acquaintance who wants to turn the bar-b-que into a legal discussion about why they were given a speeding ticket. I don't know how many times I've been asked, "Isn't your husband a police officer?" or had someone tell the group, "You'd better watch what you say; she's married to a cop." Every time I wonder, "What does that have to do with anything?" But, it comes with the territory.