Legal Question in Family Law in California

There are a huge number of factors that go into a child custody schedule. Gender and whether the parents were married or not are two factors that do not recieve consideration, at least not beyond a certain age. For a 7 mo. old baby, unless the father has been the primary care-giver, and especially if the mother is breast feeding, the mother will get primary custody - but only for a while. Custody schedules are not written in stone, especially for babies. As the child grows the courts will be more than happy to entertain motions to increase the time with dad. If the mother has psych issues, that too will be a basis for more time with dad. The determining factor is always "the best interests of the minor child." In practice, over loaded courts and Family Court Services social workers don't always get that right, but that is always what they are striving for and that is the legal standard for deciding custodial plans. There is also a great deal of literature that says that frequent and continuing time with both parents is essential to the development of children, especially pre-schoolers. So courts look VERY favorably on 50/50 custody for young children once they are no longer infants. Lastly, if her verbal abuse is really that significant, and especially if in front of the child, he may want to consider a domestic violence order. The domestic violence restraining order statutes list many things you would never think of as domestic violence as qualifying, and verbal abuse is one of them. If she really is that out of control, it is an option, and a domestic violence order creates an automatic presumption in the law that the abusive parent is not suitable for primary custody.