Thriving Inside the Thin Blue Line

Thriving Inside the Thin Blue Line
By Monica Eaton Crawford

• "What tips do you have for me starting out as a police officer/firefighter/EMT?"

• "How much makeup is too much makeup?"

• "What uniform clothes/brands fit women best, when all they issue are men's gear?"

• "What can I do to look cute/feminine on the job?"

These are all questions I see frequently within female first responder groups.

I think all of them come from a great place in wanting to "fit in," do the job, not make too many waves, while finding our own personality and how we can stay true to ourselves in a male-driven career field. While there can be mixed opinions on these things, here's my two cents for what it's worth. The tide is turning and I am here for it.

No longer do women need to conform to the men's standards and men's way of doing things on the job. If anything, I believe now is the time to lean into who you are and what you can confidently say you bring to the table. This means your strengths, your weaknesses, your background, your drive and your personality.

Sure, there are policies and procedures to be adhered to, but outside that, I say stay true to who you are. Which means dressing in uniform clothes you feel confident in, that fit well, that you don't feel like a sack of potatoes in because the waistline is so high your gun is in your armpit and the uniform shirt sleeves go down to your elbows in a parachute-pant type of way.

It means, wearing whatever makeup you feel comfortable and confident in. If you look good, you feel good. It's going to improve your mood, your work output and your job performance. If there's something unique you want to wear, lean into it where it makes sense to. My signature thing is wearing a Junk Brands headband (albeit black or navy blue) and hot pink earmuffs on the range (pictured below). Just because I work in a male-driven job doesn't mean I have to look like one of the boys, too.

I also sport a confident "tactical tampon" pocket on my outer vest for myself and also for my female arrestees because sometimes a small gesture like a better quality tampon goes a long way when they ask for the cardboard ones from a male jailer/CO. These are the things that make us unique as women and things that don't need to be squashed because another co-worker (male or female) thinks we should.

It's tough to be bold sometimes and stand out in a way that is authentic to us. But ultimately, making the choice to stay true to who we are, regardless of outside opinion, is exactly what will help us to increase our impact in the people we serve every day.

For my valued male and my female colleagues alike, the main problem I see within my online nutrition, fitness, and mindset coaching business, Five-0 Fierce and Fit, and within the first responder fields is that we, as a population, tend to lose ourselves within the career we serve.

I think cops are the worst in that. Being a cop somehow becomes our identity on and off the clock. We start donning the blue line flag on shirts and posting it on walls and photos around the house. We lean away from friends and family who just don’t quite get what we do or what we go through daily. Worst of all, many of us become slaves to the job.

It comes to the point where we forget who we were before becoming a law enforcement officer. We drop everything else to work, sleep and repeat. Our hobbies get thrown out the window, our family events and birthdays become forgotten and accepted as missed, and we lose our sense of self.

Until one day, we wake up miserable. We get tired of running ragged, constantly stressed out, and sluggish. We get tired of noticing our clothes and uniform have gotten tighter, and suddenly, we’re twenty pounds (or more) overweight.

We get tired of feeling like we’re breathing heavily on a simple task at work or getting outrun again by the latest shithead in our jurisdiction. We get tired of missing family events and important events of loved ones.

I don’t know about you, but none of the three law enforcement agencies I have worked for told me when I got hired, “At some point, you might hate your life working here,” because of those things I listed above. It was, “Here, read this book, and good luck to you.”

Our departments do a great job of teaching us how to cop, but they forget about teaching us how to live so that we can continue to cop for 25 years and beyond.

This article contains some excerpts from Monica’s new book Thriving Inside the Thin Blue Line… Available on Amazon and Lulu.com.

Monica Eaton Crawford is the owner/ CEO of Five-0 Fierce and Fit which creates online nutrition and fitness programs designed to help female first responders lose fat, gain strength and take back their confidence in 90 days because “your family depends on you to be fit for duty.” Using her six-year Oklahoma law enforcement experience along with her 15-year background in fitness and nutrition she helps female first responders reach their full potential in life and career. Look her up on Instagram @five0.fierce.and.fit.