“If one parent or both parents are in the military, how does child custody work? That’s a great question given that we’re in San Diego, which is one of the largest military communities in the United States.

Practically it’ll have a big effect because a parent that’s in the military very likely has a schedule, if they’re on active duty, that could remove them from the household for months at a time – some type of deployment. If there is any issue that would cause a ramp-up or an escalation of the armed forces, a war, that would certainly have an impact and that parent would likely be unavailable for some significant amount of time.

California has a very very large military contingent. California, particularly here in San Diego, has many service members and California has considered this, so the bottom line is that California in the courts will consider the parents’ availability just like any other parent who’s a civilian – meaning 1) what is in the best interest 2) what is the current timeshare 3) what is the amount of bonding 4) what is the parent available to do 5) what is their practical availability to the child.

One issue in California is if a service member is deployed and must go away on deployment, when they come back they are entitled to theoretically the same custody visitation that they had before deployment. How does that work?

California doesn’t discriminate against you if you’re an active-duty service member who gets deployed, That’s family code section 3047. It doesn’t always mean that when you come back you’re going to end up with the same custody because things might have changed while you were gone, but in theory, you will come back to the same custody because the state will not discriminate against you because you are serving your country. Again, this is a complicated issue, but if you need to get through it get a good lawyer.”