If my child wants to live with me, does the court care?

Well, so what you're talking about now is Family Code 3042, and Family Code 3042 will take the child's preference into consideration as long as they're 14 years of age and they have the intelligence and the maturity that the court finds is necessary to be able to communicate such a preference. Now, there's nothing in the code section that says the court can't consider the preferences of a child below the age of 14, but they don't have to. Once a child is 14, the court has to consider their preferences. If they're younger than 14, the court may, it's up to a judge, most of the time they won't, but you could always make the pitch to the judge that they should, and then it's up to the judge to decide whether or not an eight-year-old's preference is going to matter. In most cases, the judge won't care and it'll be a waste of money.