During a divorce, temporary custody is generally given to the parent the children are residing with presently. However, in Family Law Child Abandonment is completely frowned upon, and the parent who did the abandoning will not win custody or joint custody battles. They just don’t deserve to have their children because they walked away from them in the first place. This is not a stable person to place children with even part time. The most these people can hope to gain is visitation with the children. This way they can remain in the children’s lives yet still keep the freedom they obviously wanted in the first place.