154 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
of the court. As such, they are subject to being reviewed again
and reopened. Thus, clients must understand that custody is not
a permanently done deal at the time they get the divorce. Instead,
the noncustodial parent can always come back into court during
the following years and seek revisions based upon a showing
of what is known as “changed circumstances.” Some examples
of what the court might find to be sufficiently changed circum-
stances are: one parent moving to a new home or new state;
remarriage; one parent losing their job or getting arrested for
drugs or a DUI; the kids have gotten older and now want to go
live with the other parent; mom links up with a new boyfriend
who sells drugs; one parent suddenly gets flaky—or finally gets
squared away. In these sorts of situations where new circum-
stances have arisen, you can go back into court and ask for a revi-
sion of custody.
Custody evaluations and social studies. As part of any custody
analysis, the family court judge will generally try to have either a
private social worker, a psychologist, or the social services branch
of the local family court system conduct a custodial evaluation
or “social study.” The social study essentially consists of trained
psychologists, attorneys, guardians, or social workers going out
to make home-site visits and to interview parents, doctors, teach-
ers and others in order to try to determine firsthand such issues
as the extent of each spouse’s particular parenting skills, whose
house seems to be the best set up for the kids, etc.
These nice folks will physically visit both homes and observe
such nuts-and-bolts factors as whose house has separate rooms
for the individual children (as opposed to three kids living on
futons in the living room); which parent appears to have the best
rapport with the kids; whose home has the most toys for the kids
or the most nutritional food in the fridge; or who has the best
and most helpful extended family support network of grand-
parents, aunties, etc. The social workers will generally also talk
with the kids to subtly try to ascertain their own sentiments/
preferences. (As noted earlier, the children’s own preferences as
to custodial arrangements often become more of a potentially
determinative factor the older they are—starting approximately
at ages twelve or thirteen and increasing as they get older.) These