How to Prepare to be Your Stepchild's Legal Guardian During a Spouse's Military Deployment

Step families, blended families and other variations on the nuclear family are more common than ever before. If your stepchildren reside with you and your spouse, are you ready to take on the added responsibility of caring for them during your spouse's deployment? Many stepparents who share the joint or sole custody of their stepchildren are assured of their spouse's full support in meeting the children's physical, mental and emotional needs while the whole family is together.

Their spouse can educate them on parenting techniques (for stepparents who are not parents themselves); they can also fill them in on their children's likes, dislikes and other relevant background information. But when preparing for your spouse's deployment a lot more is needed than knowing what to feed your stepchildren and helping them with their homework.

Biological parents who have not relinquished parental rights over their children will obviously be the ones who will have a greater say in their children's lives, which means your spouse and their ex will be the ones in control with the power to make decisions with regard to their children's welfare. But during the unique situation of caring for your stepchildren on your own during your spouse's deployment, you will need to be granted the power to act as your stepchildren's temporary sole legal guardian.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to simply receive verbal permission to act as legal guardian over your stepchildren during your spouse's deployment. Many military families who find themselves in this situation choose to execute an affidavit clearly stating that temporary legal guardianship will be conferred on the stepparent for a limited period of time so that they can attend parent/ teacher meetings at their stepchildren's school, take their stepchildren to the doctor or dentist and care of other parental responsibilities that come up and need to be addressed during their spouse's absence.