Examples of Custody Issues:

• Too Many Gifts to the Child In a Louisiana case, a 13-year-old boy who was living with his mother said that he wanted to live with his father. In the weeks before the court hearing to modify custody, the father presented his son with a series of gifts reminiscent of the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. The gifts included: one horse, two color television sets, a shotgun, a minibike, a motorcycle, and a private telephone. The court ruled the boy would stay with his mother.
  Source: Johnson v, McCullough (Louisiana Supreme Court 1982)

• Cybersex A mother and father disputed custody of their three-year-old son. When the child was two-years-old, the mother admitted that she engaged in “highly erotic” discourse on Internet “chatrooms” with two different adult men. These communications occurred, in her estimate, perhaps “once a week.” She explained to the court that “it was kind of enjoyable that someone was finding interest in me.” The trial court found that the mother’s conduct was “potentially harmful” and “appalling,” but it also found there was no “demonstrable effect” on the child. The trial court also found both parents to be good, and that the mother had been the primary caregiver of the child. The trial court granted custody to the mother, and the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld the decision.
  Source: Zepeda v. Zepeda (South Dakota Supreme Court, 2001)

• Two Cases About Religion In a California case, a mother sought to obtain a restraining order prohibiting the father from engaging in any religious activities or discussions with their 6 and 7-year-old children during the father’s visitation. The father was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church). The mother was a member of the Los Gatos Christian Church. The mother and a court conciliator testified that the children were confused about doctrinal differences between the father’s church and the mother’s church. The mother admitted that her church was hostile to the Mormon Church. The California Court of Appeal ruled that the mother’s claims of harm were “manifestly insufficient” and “essentially conjectural” and that an order prohibiting the father from engaging in religious activities with his children “represents an unwarranted intrusion into family privacy.”
  Source: In re Marriage of Mentry (California Appellate Court, 1983).

  In a Vermont case, a mother sought to modify a joint parenting agreement to sole custody and to obtain an order that the father not bring the children to Jehovah’s Witness gatherings. The mother, the children’s pediatrician, and the children’s counselor presented “extensive evidence” that the parties’ daughters were experiencing “extreme confusion and anxiety,” including nightmares, stomach aches, and thumb-sucking. Conflicts engendered by the exposure to the religion included whether the children should participate in birthday and holiday celebrations at school. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that gave sole custody to the mother and ordered that the father not bring the children to Jehovah’s Witness gatherings. The state supreme court noted the harm to the children from the parents’ conflicting religious views and from the father’s attempt to alienate the children from their mother. The supreme court said the trial court “was not in the position of picking a religion for the children, but was only giving effect to the mother’s decision on that issue [regarding the religious upbringing of the children].”
  Source: Meyer v. Meyer (Vermont Supreme Court, 2001).