Would Casey have fought her for custody? I think not. I was taken aback by the interviews with the coworkers who mentioned Cindy said it would be too expensive. IIRC wasn't there a doc dump that included statements from a counselor Cindy had been seeing? It might have been mentioned in an email from her mother to someone else-but the email stated that the counselor recommended that Cindy kick everyone out and get custody of Caylee. Cindy said that she could not afford to divide her assets...
I understand where you're coming from, but here's why she'd absolutely fight:
1) She used the "single working Mom" angle way too much to get sympathy and respect. She'd lose that.
2) When people get divorced and a Mom ends up with visitation instead of primary custody, people ASSUME she's an aweful human being. They don't make those assumptions about a guy. She would have to have some plausible reason why SHE doesn't have custody of her kid, and there would be almost no excuse that would make her look good.
3) She would have to pay child support. BY LAW.
4) Her lies about having a job would be OVER when she couldn't produce paystubs for child support court.
5) She wouldn't have anything to use as a power play against her family. Caylee was a big reason her family let her slide on things.
6) She'd want to stick it to Cindy for even DARING to file. Her court appointed lawyer would absolutely tell her Cindy had a snowball's chance in heck.
To paraphrase Casey, her "whole life would be taken away". Forced to get a job, forced to pay child support, no way of manipulating things from her family, possible lost friends when her Mom starts calling around to her friends and telling them she doesn't pay child support, etc.
Caylee was well fed, clean, seemed happy, always had utilities and a place to sleep. My mom was a single parent, so we were in daycare 7 AM to 6PM and then many times went to a family member's house after being picked up so she could go to her second job. We saw very little of her for several years, but she always made sure SOMEONE responcible had us, and that is all the law requires. They couldn't have reassigned Caylee anymore than they could have taken me from my Mom...even if Casey was out drinking instead of working.
Plus I don't recall what type of counselor Cindy was seeing, but I know it wasn't a lawyer experianced in family law. It could have been a psychologist (credentials vary widely), a councelor from a stress hotline or even just a volunteer peer councelor from her church. People also tend to "vent" in counceling sessions and Cindy could have just given a run down of every bad thing Casey does or is suspected of...even though very little of it would be provable to a court.
Cindy also could have just SAID she was told by a "councelor" to seek custody so Casey might "step up". It's like telling your kids that the neighbor threatened to call the cops if they kept riding their bikes through their yard...the neighbor might not have actually said that, but you want to scare them into stopping.