St. Louis MO Custody and Visitation Law Blog

In Missouri and elsewhere, a judge may require the non-custodial parent in a child custody arrangement to pay child support to the custodial parent. Child support provides the custodial parent with the means to raise the child or children in a secure and supporting environment. In determining the amount a non-custodial parent should pay, a judge may decide to use a fraction of their salary as a baseline.

That may help to explain why Linda Evangelista, a renowned supermodel, was requesting so much in child support from her son's father when the two went back to court earlier this month. According to news reports, she was reportedly seeking more than $46,000 a month to cover expenses relating to raising her son, although she has denied this. While that amount is certainly large, it may well be just a small fraction of the monthly income of her son's father, who is a billionaire.

A parent's worst nightmare would be to suddenly find their child missing. Yesterday, a young boy who was waiting for a heart transplant in a St. Louis hospital was taken by his father who didn't have custody of him, violating a custody decision. The mother of the child had full custody of the son.

Luckily, the boy was found safe in a Chicago hospital, and the father and grandmother who are accused of taking him have been arrested and charged. This story highlights the sensitivity of child custody and visitation issues. It is important that parents work together on child custody and visitation issues.

Many couples are now choosing to have children outside of marriage. This is according to government data that shows a dramatic increase in the past few years in the number of people that are having children while cohabitating. This means parents are living together with their children, but aren't married.

An increase in cohabitation among young parents may raise some questions about St. Louis fathers' rights to see their children if the couple splits up. Many fathers might be concerned that since they weren't married to their child's mother, they won't have the right to see their child if the couple splits up. It is important for fathers to understand they still have rights.

Serving our country in the military is and honorable thing to do, yet the stress can be overwhelming when dealing with divorce. When child custody arrangements are being considered for a Missouri service member, it can be stressful when one parent thinks they might lose custody when they are deployed overseas. A new bill introduced in Congress is hoping to change that.

The bill was introduced earlier this month, and would restrict judges from using military deployments to determine the best interest of the child in many cases. If the parent in the military is not able to bring their family with them on their deployment, and it is between 60 days and 18 months, they would be protected by this proposed bill.