When will a court change custody of a child from a father to a mother?

There has been no showing that the mother is an unfit parent or that she is less fit than at the time of the divorce decree. Custody of children should be established on a long-term basis, wherever possible; children should not be shuttled back and forth between divorced parents merely because of changes in marital status, economic circumstances or improvements in moral or psychological adjustment, at least so long as the custodial parent has not been shown to be unfit, or perhaps less fit, to continue as the proper custodian (Matter of Lang v. Lang, 9 A.D.2d 401, 409, 193 N.Y.S.2d 763, affd. 7 N.Y.2d 1029, 200 N.Y.S.2d 71, 166 N.E.2d 861; see, also, Matter of Wout v. Wout, 32 A.D.2d 709, 300 N.Y.S.2d 24). 'The rearing of a child requires greater stability than a roller-coaster treatment of custody' (Dintruff v. McGreevy, 34 N.Y.2d 887, 888, 359 N.Y.S.2d 281, 316 N.E.2d 716).

In respect to the contradictory preferences expressed by the son, which alone reflect the tragedy of his plight, this court recently left no doubt as to the weight to be accorded such statements of desire in Dintruff v. McGreevy (supra, p. 888, 359 N.Y.S.2d 281, 316 N.E.2d 716): 'We believe that custody of children should be established on a long-term basis and should not be changed merely because a child at some time states that he desires it. While a child's view should be considered to ascertain his attitude and to lead to relevant facts, it should not be determinative. If it were, then all a court would be required to decide is whether his preference of parent is voluntary and untainted and then follow the child's wish. This would certainly not be conducive to the proper raising of children.' A child of tender years is easily influenced, and the mischief of yielding to his or her every whim or the showering of favors, in a possible effort to receive a desirable response in the course of anticipated litigation, can be ruinous to the child's character and ultimately the source of much unhappiness as well.