The Forgotten Families

[LSK]

Grandparents Raising Slain Soldiers' Children Are Denied A Government Benefit Intended to Sustain the Bereaved

By Donna St. George
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A01

Her daughter was killed by a bomb in Iraq. Eight months later, Susan Jaenke is both grief-stricken and strapped -- behind on her mortgage, backed up on her bills and shut out of the $100,000 government death benefit that her daughter thought she had left her.

The problem is that Jaenke is not a wife, not a husband, but instead grandmother to the 9-year-old her daughter left behind. "Grandparents," she said, "are forgotten in this."

snip

They confront this without the $100,000 "death gratuity" that military spouses ordinarily get -- a payment intended to ease the financial strain as families await government survivors' benefits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501828.html

[LSK]

1. kick

[Solly Mack]

2. k&r

it's ALL part of the same neglect and disregard

[slipslidingaway]

3. K&R n/t

[halobeam]

4. excuse me, but OMFG....

sorry if that offends someone, but THIS is an offense. Children of a dead soldier don't get the death benefit? Am I understanding this correctly? Only spouses? So, if divorced/widowed, etc... the children are left in the dust... and yes, the family member raising them?

[LSK]

5. yes - thats the gist of it

A grandmother trying to raise a child gets the shaft.

[AngryAmish]

6. The benefit goes to the child

The grandparent is not allowed to take the money even if strapped. Under the law (at least in IL) the parent or grandparent has the obligation to raise the child. Ordinary expenses fall to the adult raising the child - the grandparent.

[LSK]

7. did you read the article?

But by law, the $100,000 benefit goes first to a spouse or a child. So 9-year-old Kayla Jaenke collects the $100,000 -- plus $400,000 in life insurance -- after she turns 18, leaving Susan Jaenke to ask, "What about the next nine years?"

[AngryAmish]

8. Well that is the law

However there certainly could be some mischief if adults are allowed to raid children's money. The money is not the grandmothers to have and a 9 year old certainly cannot consent to giving awey money.

[Beaverhausen]

9. Mischief? Like buying food? Paying for school supplies?

Are you nuts? This woman now has to raise this child. She needs the money to do it.

[AngryAmish]

10. Under the law that I'm familiar with it is the guardian's obligation to pay for routine things

The guardian has to pay for food and school supplies. I have seen situations where a child has come into a large sum of money and the parents have tried to take it to buy a house, car etc. The courts have an obligation to protect the child's money until the child reaches the age of majority.

[bleedingheart]

11. it is all in how the will is written to grant guardianship

my will provides a stipend to my children and places the monies in a trust.

The trust dipenses income to the guardian to assist with expenses.

My children won't receive the bulk of the trust until they are 35 and that was done to avoid having an 18 year old recieve too much money.

Now I know of someone who wrote a will that locked up the money so tight that his kids would have starved and his brother, an attorney, told him that the will was the worst thing he had ever seen.

Now that 100K death benefit might have a separate set of rules, but the grandmother should be receiving some social security for the child in addition to a separate SS benefit for being a guardian.