Examples not usually this literal.
Divorce is never easy, especially not when there are children involved. One of the top concerns facing a divorcing couple is how to manage co-parenting their shared children. When they can't reach an agreement on the matter, the parents turn to the legal system. A custody battle occurs wherein a judge (or equivalent official) determines what custody arrangement is in the best interest of the children. Custody battles are often included in fiction because they intensify the stakes of a divorce by placing the welfare of the children on the line, as well as the children's relationships with their parents.
This can play out in several different ways. Writers love to have both parents pursue full custody because it heightens the drama and emphasizes their mutual animosity. Alternately, the parents might fight over the relative amount of time they are allotted with the children (e.g. 50/50 vs 70/30), visitation rights, or custody schedules (especially when it comes to birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions). Parents often fight over custody at the onset of the divorce, but less commonly, disputes may erupt after an established co-parenting dynamic breaks down. Almost universally, custody battles will be depicted as harming the children, making both the parents and the audience worry about their well-being.
If the divorce is especially acrimonious, expect one or both parents to sabotage the other's attempts to gain custody. In some cases, one parent may try to turn the children against the other parent so the children will side with them in court, a tactic known as "parental alienation". Many works will depict the court system as biased in favor of the mother because Motherhood Is Superior and Caretaking is Feminine, with the father assumed to be abusive, ineffective, or uninvolved in his children's lives.
Not to be confused with Taking the Kids, where one parent physically leaves the family home with the children, typically without the other parent's knowledge or against their wishes. That trope doesn't necessarily involve going to family court, but there is potential for overlap. May lead to Let Him Choose if the parents or judge give the children a say regarding which parent they live with. Compare Divorce Assets Conflict, another trope that deals with disputes between divorced exes, but over property rather than children. Also compare Adoption Conflict, where there is a dispute over child custody, but it's between an adoptive parent and biological parent, rather than a divorcing couple. May overlap with Solomon Divorce, Disneyland Dad, and Visit by Divorced Dad. A Thriving Ex-Crush may be involved.
This trope can include exes who were not officially married because the process of determining custody is similar regardless. While this is Truth in Television, custody battles are much more common in fiction than in Real Life, where most exes are able to negotiate custody arrangements out of court. No Real Life Examples, Please!. This is not the place to gossip about real people's divorces and custody arrangements, especially since they involve children.
Examples
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Comedy
- Chris Rock: Rock's special Tambourine devotes a great deal of time to ruminating on his messy divorce and the ensuing custody battle over his children, which turned out to be far more difficult than he was anticipating.
- Christopher Titus: During his special Carrying Monsters, Titus discusses the custody battle he had with his ex-wife, which resulted in him going to court sixty times in thirteen years, losing custody of his children, and not being able to see them for two years.
Films — Animation
- In Mars Express, Carlos is a robot whose personality and memories are based on the backup copy of a dead person. He attempts to visit his daughter, but his ex-wife and her husband violently reject him.
Films — Live-Action
- In Air Crew, one of the pilots goes through a very bitter divorce, and a custody battle ensues. Even though his wife slanders him so viciously her lies get exposed a minute later, and even though he makes a favorable impression on the judge, the court still sides with the mother, and the pilot's lawyer says it was pretty much inevitable. Later, though the child in his mother's custody is clearly neglected physically and emotionally, the authorities never question the wisdom of the court's decision, and the pilot's boss has to pull strings in high places just to get him limited visitation rights. The situation is somewhat remedied after the child's mother remarries, with both her character and her finances improving a lot, so the little boy is well cared for in her family and is allowed to spend time with his father too.
- Boogie Nights: One subplot of the film is Amber attempting to get visitation rights over her son, who is in the custody of her ex-husband. However, her request is denied due to her drug addiction and criminal history (not to mention that she's a porn star). She's shown sobbing after the hearing because the judge won't allow her to see her son.
- Dark Water: The plot is spurred by the custody battle between Yoshimi and her estranged husband Kunio over their young daughter, Ikuko, which prompts Yoshimi to move into the haunted apartment.
- Irreconcilable Differences is the story of a young girl who decides to divorce her self-absorbed Hollywood parents after their bitter divorce.
- Kramer vs. Kramer: At the beginning of the movie, Joanna walks out on Ted (because he's Married to the Job), leaving him to take care of their son Billy. In the last third of the movie, Joanna returns, and she and Ted get into a court battle over who gets custody of Billy.
- In Ingmar Bergman's film version of The Magic Flute, Sarastro is portrayed as Pamina's father. Ergo, the Queen of the Night and Sarastro are an ex-couple, and the Queen's ruthless quest to win her daughter back from Sarastro can be viewed as a custody battle. By the end, though, it's clear that the Queen cares less about getting Pamina back than she does about killing Sarastro and seizing his power.
- Marriage Story: The film centers on Charlie and Nicole's divorce. This includes a custody dispute over their son Henry since Nicole wants to move to Los Angeles while Charlie wishes to remain in New York. During the proceedings, Nicole's lawyer asserts that mothers automatically deserve custody over fathers. The film ends with both Charlie and Nicole trying to co-parent amicably for Henry's sake.
- Mrs. Doubtfire: When Miranda gets a divorce from Daniel, she gets primary custody while he can only see their children once a week. Daniel disguises himself as "Mrs. Doubtfire" and gets hired as Miranda's nanny so he can spend more time with the kids while pursuing joint custody. When his ruse is exposed, the judge limits his visitation rights even more.note Eventually, Miranda realizes that she and the kids were happier when Daniel was more involved in the family and agrees to joint custody.
- Swordfish: Stanley's motivation for joining Gabriel's heist; his drug-addicted ex-wife was given full custody of their daughter because of Stan's cyber crimes record. Her new husband is a sleazy porn producer who uses his money and connections to keep them separated, and Gabriel promises Stan enough cash to hire good lawyers and get his daughter back.
Literature
- The Fort (2022): Jason's parents are fighting bitterly over how much custody time and child support money his mother gets.
- The Suitcase Kid: Both parents want their daughter to live with them full time but Andy insists on alternating weeks between her mother and father. Carol and Simon both try to guilt-trip or pressure Andy into choosing one parent over the other, which makes her feel guilty and conflicted. It’s not until Andy runs away that they force themselves to work out a joint agreement.
- In You Don't Own Me, who gets custody of young Bobby and Mindy Bell is a source of conflict.
- Robert and Cynthia tell Laurie the only reason Martin hadn't filed for divorce from Kendra was because he believed he wouldn't get custody of Bobby and Mindy, believing the courts would automatically favour the children's mother; the Longfellows also say he half-jokingly asked if they knew any good divorce lawyers. Kendra is certain that Martin was gearing up to have her declared an unfit mother to take full custody of the children, with the team noting this would give her a motive to kill him. Leigh Ann confirms that Martin (with whom she was having an affair) wanted her to help him get custody, as she was a lawyer and he believed she would make a good maternal figure (despite Leigh Ann's expressed dislike of children).
- Robert and Cynthia want Under Suspicion to prove Kendra arranged Martin's murder so they can file for custody of their grandchildren; while they grudgingly agree Kendra can no longer be called an unfit parent, they're adamant Kendra had their son killed and they don't want her raising the children. Kendra is terrified that her children will be taken away and turned against her, which is one of the real reasons she didn't want to go on Under Suspicion.The custody case never gets escalated because it's uncovered that Kendra wasn't involved in Martin's death, with Cynthia and Robert trying to mend bridges with Kendra instead.
Live-Action TV
- All My Children's Edmund and Dimitri get into this over the latter's daughter Madeline, who Dimitri genuinely believes to be his, due to a one night stand he and Edmund s late wife Maria has. However, unbeknownst to either man—but known to the viewers—Madeline is Edmund's biological daughter (and in a bit of Artistic License – Law, he's her legal father as well, due to having been married to Maria during her pregnancy, meaning that Dimitri had little to no cause to seek custody).
- CSI: Miami has had several of these, but an early episode has the child in question bitterly remark that his parents are coming to increasingly violent blows about everything they shared except him.
- In Family Law (2021), Svensson & Sons specializes in family law, and thus a few episodes have them negotiating custody during divorce proceedings, most notably in "Addicted to Love", in which their client is a mother who also happens to be a video-game addict. In season 2, some of the protagonists face their own custody battles, as Abby loses custody of her kids to her cheating ex-husband while Lucy fights to be recognized as the co-parent of her ex-wife's daughter, who was conceived during the marriage.
- Good Girls: Annie's ex-husband sues her for full custody of their son Ben, and she needs money to hire a good lawyer. She, her sister, and their best friend decide to rob a grocery store, which turns out to be a money laundering front for a gang. As a result, Annie has to prove to the court that she's a responsible mother while hiding her crimes as she gets pulled deeper into the criminal underworld.
- How I Met Your Mother:
- In "Little Boys," Robin learns her new boyfriend has a kid from his ex-wife and takes care of him full-time. Being a bit of a Child Hater, she initially pities him before she realizes he's glad to have custody of his son.
Robin: Why is this kid around anyway? Shouldn't he be with his mother? I mean, what kind of lawyer does this guy have if he has to take care of the kid all the time?
Lily: A good one. He won full custody.
Robin: He won?... Oh god, getting the kid is winning, isn't it? Don't tell anyone I said that.- Barney's boss went through a tough divorce during which his ex-wife forced him to take full custody of the kids. He was more concerned about losing custody of his beloved dog.
- Law & Order: In "Blood", the Victim of the Week is the wife of an African-American executive whose skin is so light he can pass for Caucasian. It's later discovered that the killer was his ex-wife who divorced him when she discovered his true race. After some digging into their pasts, the DA office discovers that when the couple divorced, they had a battle for who would not get custody of their son. The husband didn't think he could raise their son with his schedule, but the wife couldn't provide an excuse and was awarded custody only after the husband increased her alimony. It's implied that her racism was bad enough that she didn't want to raise a half-Black child but didn't want to admit it.
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit sees a few, as one of their primary victim pools is children:
- In season 4’s “Waste,” a female hospital patient comatose for over a year is found to be 7 weeks pregnant. She was medically inseminated by a doctor who wants to harvest the fetus for stem cells to find a cure for Parkinson’s. The jury find him and his co-conspirator not guilty, and the final scene of the episode is the woman’s mother, horrified, revealing to Benson that the doctor just filed for custody—part of the court case had been establishing paternity, which then allowed him to challenge the woman’s parents’ custody of their grandchild.
- In season 11’s “Shattered,” a mother kidnaps her child in response to the court awarding her ex-husband full custody. When her accomplice tries to evade police with the boy, they both end up dying in a car crash. The mother then becomes mentally unstable, taking her husband, Benson, ADA, and Warner hostage in the morgue after requesting to see the body of her child.
- In season 14’s “Legitimate Rape,” a newscaster accuses her cameraman of rape and stalking. When she finds out she’s pregnant, she finds herself in a custody battle with her rapist, who isn’t so much interested in the child as much as he is the fact this ties him to her forever. He is awarded visitation, but she ends up absconding with the baby, unwilling to have to see her assailant on the regular for the next two decades. Benson looks the other way to allow her do this.
- Saturday Night Live: The sketch Samurai Divorce Lawyer had the titular character resolve every dispute over which half of the couple gets a certain item by slicing it in half and giving one half to each. The sketch ends as they start arguing over who gets custody of the kid.
- Quantum Leap: The episode "The Great Spontini" lands Sam in the middle of legal battle between stage musician and his estranged wife. What initially begins as divorce proceedings quickly evolves into a custody battle. Al compares the situation to a drawn out legal battle he and one of his ex-wives over a dog, which Al ultimately lost.
- Queen Sugar:
- Charley tries to get full custody of Micah during her divorce from Davis, but Davis blackmails her into settling for joint custody with the fact that she forged his signature to get a loan for her sugar mill.
- Ralph Angel ends his engagement with Darla after she confesses that Blue might not be his biological son, which is later confirmed to be the case by a DNA test. At her mother's urging, Darla attempts to gain full custody of Blue, which Ralph Angel resists by pointing out that, regardless of biology, his name is on the birth certificate and he's the only father Blue has ever known. Darla eventually drops the case and agrees to co-parent.
- Without a Trace: In Season 3, Jack Malone tries to get full custody of his two daughters from his ex-wife, Maria. Eventually, he chooses to give up on it because he realizes that his focus on his job as an FBI agent along with sleeping with his co-worker, Samantha, led to the divorce. Though he is still in contact with his daughters but his relationship with his oldest daughter, Hannah, was strained because she blames him for the divorce.
Music
- Blue October: The song "Any Man in America" is about a man lamenting that he lost custody of his daughter to his ex-wife and raging at the legal system for not caring about fathers.
- In Jerry Reed's "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)", the narrator complains that, among other things, his ex-wife got full custody of the children and he's required to pay child support.
- Radiohead: "Morning Bell" from Kid A is about divorce, with a suggested solution being "cut the kids in half". The line itself is likely a reference to 1 Kings 3:16-28
, which is about the custody of a child, but not in the context of divorce.
Professional Wrestling
- The memetic "Custody of Dominik Ladder Match" at SummerSlam 2005 between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, the cumulation of a storyline in which it was revealed that Eddie was Dominik's biological father.
Video Games
- Judgment: Subverted. In Chapter 4, Ryuzo Genda tasks Takayuki Yagami to guard a mother and child, Azusa Otaki and her daughter Karin. Azusa wants a divorce from her former yakuza member husband Jin, wanting to take Karin as custody. Karin however doesn't want her family to split but has trouble saying so. It then gets muddier when Oikawa, another lawyer involved in the case, provides evidence that Azusa has been cheating on Jin, which is the cornerstone for Jin gaining custody. Yagami investigates things further, only to find that the claims and evidence were falsified, though he's unable to prove it due to some interference from Oikawa. Without much choice, Azusa resignedly signs the custody papers, but Yagami and Genda encourage Karin to speak up about how she doesn't want her parents to split. Both parents recognize they were acting rashly and didn't consider their daughter's feelings on the matter at all. While Oikawa tries to continue and state that he's got a case, Yagami is provided a copy of the dirty evidence, proving that Oikawa lied about Azusa's adultery. He then scurries out of Genda's office, with the family tearing up the signed paperwork that Oikawa left behind. It's a little ambiguous afterwards if the family fully reconciled or if they decided on custody out-of-court, but Genda states they should discuss things over first, with his office being open if they decide to go through with it. The resolution is on the brighter side at least, the whole case being thrown out before it began.
Visual Novels
- In Mother of the Year, it's the central plot. Tara's douche ex-husband Guy reappears in her life after four years of complete absence and tries to get full custody of their daughter Zoey. Since he is rich and Tara is barely making ends meet, the custody battle is extremely long and troubled. Though Zoey loves them both, she unambiguously says, when asked by the judge, that she wants to stay with her mother, and she also tells her father she won't put up with his rudeness towards Tara. Also involved is Guy's girlfriend Faye, who is actually a very nice woman who wants the best for Zoey and, with enough Relationship points, will take Tara's side at the hearing, realizing Guy doesn't even really know his daughter. In the end, Guy gets weekends and visitations and tries to be a better parent and person for Zoey's sake.
Webcomics
- Buildingverse: The relationship of the Erlkönig and the White Witch ended with a really messy divorce. She did threaten her ex with banishment by magic to make him leave (seen in Roommates) and they still fight over their son (he was kept by the White Witch originally probably at least partially to deprive the king of the heir he always wanted as she routinely calls the kid "Despised waste of genes" in Girls Next Door), who grew up and moved away long ago.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons: Milhouse mentions that his parents fought over custody of him, but it was because neither of them wanted custody ("Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore" has Luann try to get full custody of Milhouse so she could move them both to Capitol City, but the judge allows Kirk to keep custody because the judge sees Kirk as an extreme Straw Loser and feels sorry for him).
