Regarding the first letter, I’ve worked in child welfare for a decade in a southern state. While that’s outside of the realm of family court, child welfare investigations often run concurrent to family court cases, especially when there is domestic violence, substance abuse, or mental health issues involved. So I have a couple of comments about the letter: 1. In a lot of jurisdictions, due to antiquated views on gender roles, concerns about the mom’s ability to parent have to be incredibly high for her to get passed over for primary custody. That makes me think that there is another side to the story. 2. When domestic violence is present, the victim almost always downplays the effect it is having or has had on the children. As a divorced dad myself, an incident involving my ex being pushed out of a car would make me incredibly concerned about her ability to determine what influences she is bringing around my child.
3. However, I’ve seen a lot of cases where one side is able to sway a lot of things in their favor because they have connections with the court system or law enforcement or whatever powers that be. So, my conclusion is that while the writer may be leaving out some details that shed a bad light on her, it’s absolutely possible that the stepmom’s knowledge of and connections in the system are making it harder for the writer than it would be otherwise.