History Main / CustodyBattle

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.

Not to be confused with TakingTheKids, 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 LetHimChoose if the parents or judge give the children a say regarding which parent they live with. Compare DivorceAssetsConflict, another trope that deals with disputes between divorced exes, but over property rather than children. Also compare AdoptionConflict, 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 SolomonDivorce, DisneylandDad, and VisitByDivorcedDad. A ThrivingExCrush may be involved.

* ''Film/IrreconcilableDifferences'' is the story of a young girl who decides to divorce her self-absorbed Hollywood parents after their bitter divorce.

* ''Film/GuyanaCrimeOfTheCentury'': Johnson receives news from Susan that one of the children whom he adopted, John Paul Stern, has gotten his custody won back by his biological parents thanks to the state court of California, and the case has been brought to the US embassy in Georgetown. Johnson reacts furiously, and says that Johnsontown is his land and his jurisdiction. He blames the CIA and the US Government for this issue, citing it as a means to conspire against him and his church.

** In season 3's [[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS3E3Stolen "Stolen,"]] an infant is kidnapped in a grocery store, uncovering a baby-snatching scheme that ends up connected to decade-old cold homicide. A 12-year-old boy, stolen from his murdered biological mother and illegally adopted, is then at the center of a custody battle between his adoptive parents (who didn't know the adoption was illegal) and his biological father (who didn't know he existed). The child would like to remain with the family that raised him, [[spoiler: but in the end, the court sides in favor of his biological father.]]

** In season 6's [[Recap/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnitS6E1Birthright "Birthright,"]] a shady fertility doctor has been found to be stealing embryos and implanting them in non-related mothers without permission of either the donor nor the recipient. After one such donor kidnaps a 6-year-old girl she believes (and is correct) is her biological child, it leads to a custody battle between the child's biological mother and the parents who birthed her and raised her. Novak ends up harassing this poor child to tears on the stand, in the hopes that one of the mothers will prove she loves the child more by dropping the case to make it stop.

** In season 19, Benson briefly has her adoption of her son, Noah, challenged by his maternal grandmother, Sheila, citing the fact that the state did not do enough to find family to take him when his mother died and a recent investigation of child abuse against Benson (a misunderstanding) as evidence she is an unfit mother. When this ultimately fails, Sheila [[spoiler: kidnaps Noah with the intention of raising him in New Hampshire. This goes about as well as you'd think kidnapping an NYPD captain's child would, and she is arrested, nixing any chance in the future of seeing Noah, let alone getting custody.]]