Military

SFC James Edwards (RET)

Military Service Cost Some Men Their Children

"Some military men’s service costs them their children. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act provides that if a parent moves a child to a new state, that new state becomes the child’s presumptive residence after only six months. Because a normal military deployment is six months or more, if a military spouse moves to another state while her spouse is deployed, by the time the deployed spouse returns the child’s residence has been switched, and the spouse who moved the child is virtually certain to gain custody through the divorce proceedings in that new state."

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Retrieved from: http://divorcemagazine.wordpress.com/

category/military-fathers/

Military Divorce and Separation Jurisdiction and Division of Military Retired Pay

By Rod Powers, About.com Guide

Jurisdiction

In a military divorce, there may be up to three separate jurisdictions where one can file for divorce: the legal residence of the military member; the legal residence of the spouse; and the state that the servicemember is stationed in. Servicemembers do not change their legal residence merely because they move to another state. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, (SCRA) allows servicemembers to live in one state, yet claim another state as their legal residence.

Retrieved from: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/divorce /a/divretpaydiv.htm

Division of Military Retirement Benefits in Divorce

After several divorce cases resulted in military retirement pay being awarded to an ex-spouse as part of a “community property” ruling, a subsequent case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The resulting decision was that military retirement benefits were not yet covered by federal laws and could not legally be treated as joint property.

Since this decision was unacceptable to military spouses, Congress soon passed a law that allows state courts to determine whether military retirement pay is to be considered joint property or sole individual property in a divorce. This law is called the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act (USFSPA).

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Retrieved from: http://www.marrisonlaw.com/division-of-military-retirement-benefits-in-divorce.html

Military Divorce Guide

Military Divorce Guide, a comprehensive collection of articles on military divorce and family law issues. Most of the content applies nationwide, but where state-specific information is provided, Colorado military divorce law is used.

Divorce, paternity, or other family law cases involving military personnel or family members present unique challenges which often require the assistance of a Colorado Springs military family law attorney with specialized Colorado military divorce knowledge: military retirement vs. VA disability, Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), ID cards and access to military installations, government housing, temporary family support, relocating the children out of Colorado, interpreting military pay, the impacts of a court-martial, chapter separation or VSI/SSB on the division of military retirement pay, etc.

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Retrieved from: http://www.military-divorce-guide.com/

Active Military Members and Divorce: Common Questions About Your Rights

By Nancy Shannon

Active members of the United State’s Armed Forces may be able to seek protection from civil actions under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of 2003 (SCRA). Tracing its origins back to the Civil War when a freeze was placed on all civil actions against federal soldiers, the SCRA provides expanded protection over it’s predecessor, the Solders’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1940.
Servicemembers are at a disadvantage when faced with defending a civil lawsuit or fulfilling financial obligations while also serving their country. The SCRA provides protection to active members of the armed forces, in addition to reservists and members of the National Guard, in some circumstances. There are several different types of protections, ranging from lowered interests rates to eviction restrictions.
For any parent (or alleged parent) in the military, the SCRA provides a valuable benefit when faced with child custody and support issues. It’s possible for parents in the military to stay, or suspend, civil actions brought against them during their service, and for a brief time after, in some situations.

              Read on for common questions about SCRA.

Retrieved from: http://www.dadsdivorce.com/blog/active-military-members-and-divorce-common-questions-about-your-rights.html

Military Dads Denied Father's Rights

Retrieved from: Fox News

While he was deployed in Afghanistan, a U.S. Navy Seal wrote a lullaby for his son Sean, whom he calls "SS."

The song opens:

Rock a bye SS/ ROCK Rock a

Bye/ you sang to me each eve/

And you gave me rolling rock

a byes of dreams I've yet to dream.

Each night I'd pray

that when I'd awake/ You'd

have safely ROCK'd me home

to the greatest gift, the Lord

hath given me/ my little son

named Sean.

Sean may never hear that lullaby again, not because his father Gary died but because Sean’s mother relocated him to Israel. She visited family there during one of Gary’s re-deployments and simply stayed, seeking a divorce from abroad.

Gary has unsuccessfully battled the family court system in California, which has jurisdiction over the divorce, for almost two years in order to gain some access to SS. After all, that same court demands he pay hefty child support.

"I am paying $2,100 a month not to see my son," Gary told Fox News in 2003. This is the new face of father’s rights, a face men’s rights activists are determined you will see in coming months: the military

man who is ‘processed’ by the family courts during his tour of duty or upon his return. A father who returns ‘home’ to children he cannot see and, often, to support payments he cannot make.

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Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com

,151203,00.html

Fatherhood is an Institution

Think about it. Would you defend your father? Would your father defend you. The answer is of course. My father fought in World War II to defend all families in the United States. He understood the importance of fatherhood, raised his large family of children working two jobs to feed and protect us. And he was rewarded - by losing custody of his children in divorce. As a father that has also lost "custody" of my children of divorce, I often wonder if things would be this way if my father had fought harder for custody, if he had waged war on the divorce industry, if he had left a different legacy for me and my children and grand children.

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Retrieved from: http://ussharedparenting.com/content/view/5/26/

Parental Alienation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Parental alienation is a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce or separation, when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult or impossible. These feelings may be influenced by negative comments by the other parent and by the characteristics, such as lack of empathy and warmth, of the rejected parent. The term does not apply in cases of actual child abuse, when the child rejects the abusing parent to protect themselves. Parental alienation is controversial in legal and mental health professions, both generally and in specific situations.[1] Terms related to parental alienation include child alienation, pathological alignments, visitation refusal, pathological alienation, the toxic parent and parental alienation syndrome[2] though the last term is a specific formulation of a medical syndrome proposed by psychiatrist Richard Gardner that is not well accepted.

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Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation

Parental Alienation Disorder and DSM-V

Although parental alienation disorder (PAD) is a serious mental condition affecting many children and their families, it is not an official diagnosis or even mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This article presents arguments for considering PAD a diagnosis: PAD is a prototypical example of a relational disorder; the phenomenon of PAD is almost universally accepted by mental health professionals; PAD is a valid and reliable construct; adopting criteria for PAD will promote systematic research; adopting criteria will reduce the misuse of the concept of PAD; and adopting criteria will improve the treatment of children with this disorder.

retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01926180802405513

Information Packet: Fatherhood

Federal policies are promoting father involvement in families to improve developmental, academic, and economic outcomes for children. This information packet provides an overview of issues related to fatherhood initiatives for providers and consumers of social services. It includes a fact sheet of statistics about effects of fatherlessness, a summary of policies and legislation, and lists of references and web resources. The innovative Georgia Fatherhood Program also is profiled.

Retrieve packet from: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/downloads/information_packets/fatherhood-pkt.pdf

Adult Children and Their Fathers: Relationship Changes 20 Years After Parental Divorce

The relationship between children and their divorced fathers is of great concern to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners, as well as to children and their fathers. Although there has been an increase in shared parenting post divorce and paternal custody, it is still the prevailing situation that most post divorce fathers consistently spend less time with their children compared with post divorce mothers.

Charting Parenthood: A Statistical Portrait of Fathers and Mothers in America

Executive Summary

The data also provide important insights into the value men place on family life and childrearing, and on the multiple contributions that fathers can make to the lives of children. These insights suggest that many men have a deep commitment to raising children in the context of marriage, and that substantial percentages of fathers are deeply and regularly involved in play, discipline, and primary caregiving. For example:

Most fathers who live with their children participate regularly in some kind of leisure or play activity with them. While mothers are more likely to do "quiet" activities (reading a book or doing a puzzle, for example), fathers are more likely to play an outdoor game or sports activity. Very high levels of both fathers and mothers report talking at least once a week with their children about their family.
Substantial percentages of fathers who live with their children are engaged in monitoring their children's daily activities and in setting limits on these activities. For example, 61 percent set limits on what television programs their children are allowed to watch.
Men are much more likely than women to believe that two parents are more effective at raising children than one parent alone.
More than one in five young children in two-parent families have their father as the primary caregiver when the mother is at work, attending school, or looking for work.
While 40 percent of children whose fathers live outside the home have no contact with them, the other 60 percent had contact an average of 69 days in the last year.

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Retrieved from: http://fatherhood.hhs.gov/charting02/executive.htm