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Deployment Is Not an Adverse Factor — the Custody Section for Guard and Reserve Parents

A court may not treat departure from the family residence, or absence from the child, as an adverse factor in determining parental rights and responsibilities where the departing parent is a Guard or Reserve member under an order to active duty for more than 30 days and the absence is due to compliance with military orders. Nor may it order a change of the child’s primary physical residence during such an absence unless the change is in the best interest of the child.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

A court may not treat departure from the family residence, or absence from the child, as an adverse factor in determining parental rights and responsibilities where the departing parent is a Guard or Reserve member under an order to active duty for more than 30 days and the absence is due to compliance with military orders. Nor may it order a change of the child’s primary physical residence during such an absence unless the change is in the best interest of the child.

What it's worth: Two statutory bars a Maine court must observe when a Guard or Reserve parent is away under orders

  • No dollar figure is claimed. What this is worth is the custody arrangement a parent keeps rather than loses, which cannot be priced.
  • Both limbs are restrictions on the court, not entitlements to be applied for, so the value arrives only if the section is put in front of the judge.

Who is entitled to it

  • The section protects the serving parent.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: At the hearing, and again on any motion filed during the absence
  1. 1Check the three gates before relying on it, because they are narrow. The parent must be a member of the National Guard or the Reserves; the order must be to active duty for a period of more than 30 days; and the absence must be due to compliance with military orders.
  2. 2There is a fourth gate in subsection 3 that is easy to overlook: the service must be in support of an operational mission for which reserve component members have been ordered to active duty, or of forces activated during a period of war declared by Congress or a period of national emergency declared by the President or Congress.
  3. 3File the orders. The section turns on documented facts about the order and its length, and a court cannot apply a bar it has not been shown the basis for.
  4. 4Use the first limb defensively: the court may not consider departure from the family residence or absence from the child as an ADVERSE factor. It does not make the absence a positive factor, and it does not displace anything else in the case.
  5. 5Use the second limb when the other parent moves to change primary physical residence during the deployment: the court may not order that change while the parent is absent from the State under orders, unless the change is in the best interest of the child.
  6. 6Remember what has not moved. 19-A M.R.S. §1653 still requires the court to apply the best interest of the child standard and to consider as primary the safety and well-being of the child. §1653-A removes two specific factors from the scale; it does not change the scale.
  7. 7Raise it early. The protection is worth most before an interim order hardens into the arrangement everyone argues from later.
Form
Raise the section in the parental rights proceeding, with the orders attached
File with
The Maine District Court hearing the parental rights and responsibilities matter
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe section is often summarised as protecting "deployed servicemembers". As enacted it names only members of the National Guard and the Reserves. A parent serving in an active component who deploys is not inside its words, and would have to argue the point on general best-interest grounds instead.
CorrectionIt is not a bar on changing a child’s primary residence during a deployment. Subsection 2 forbids the change "unless the change is in the best interest of the child" — which is the ordinary standard. What the subsection really does is stop the absence itself from supplying the reason.
Worth knowingThe 30-day threshold is on the ORDER, not on the time actually served away. An order to active duty for more than 30 days engages the section even if the parent returns sooner.
Known gapWhether Maine has any companion provision for delegating a deployed parent’s contact to a grandparent or other family member, or for expedited or electronic hearings, was not established this session. §1653-A itself contains neither.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.