Department of Child Disservices: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Mrs. Stevens''': I promise, it'll never happen again.

 

We all know that in fiction, [[There Are No Therapists]] and [[Social Services Does Not Exist]].

The tropes: [[Beleaguered Bureaucrat]], '''Department of Child Disservices''', and [[Social Services Does Not Exist]]; overlap since they all involve the same problems. The employees are often overworked, underpaid, lack resources, and suffer the public’s wrath. They then turn into the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] and use [[Bothering by the Book]] to slow down the workload or get revenge on the people who make unreasonable demands.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'': Satoko, an example which becomes plot-critical in the penultimate arc. The reason they wouldn't help her that time? Satoko had made a call once upon a time that she unfortunately ended up unable to support at the time. In the author's afterward for the arc in the VN, he even apologizes about his portrayal of social services, possibly to avoid breaking the aesop stated in the previous afterward for Tsumihoroboshi arc that you always need to ask for help rather than resorting to drastic measures.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]''. Maria gets beaten IN FRONT OF welfare officer and she does nothing except occasionally mentioning that it's not the right way to treat your child. (NO SHIT SHERLOCK.) We don't know what happens immediately afterwards, but apparently after a few years Maria is still with Rosa, and still gets abused.

* Subverted in the ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' episode "Plight of the Children". While the social workers do get too heavy-handed in their attempts to bring in the orphans, at least some of them genuinely want to help them. The oldest orphan and leader of the group Pigero eventually realizes this and allows the younger orphans to be taken away.

 

* ''[[Black Panther]]: [[Daredevil|The Man Without Fear]]'' has a CPS social worker who grows so disillusioned with her own department's apparent inability to protect young abuse victims that she takes to murdering abusive parents herself.

 

* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' [[Alternate Universe Fic]] ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7189428/1/Prison_Island_Break Prison Island Break]'' plays this straight. Convict Shadow Robotnik was taken away from his eccentric father-creator Gerald, but Social Services itself accidentally knocked down his sister Maria while doing so, fuelling a life-long resentment towards The Man. He was then passed around a series of foster homes which had trouble coping with him due to his emotional trauma and the fact that he's the Ultimate Lifeform. He was finally passed into the care of foster parents who physically and sexually abused him, and who he eventually murdered. Different from many other abuse fanfics in that Shadow clearly avoids bringing it up and will try to change the subject if it does.

{{quote|'''Silver:''' What... ''happened'' to you?

 

== Film ==

* Looked at objectively, it's arguably not the '''worst''' decision Child Services has ever made: in ''[[Raising Arizona]]'', Hi and Ed are denied adoption because Hi is an ex-con.

* ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'': Inverted. At first it seems kind of unreasonable to demand Nani get a new job within three days, not to mention the scene where Lilo has locked Nani out of the house (preventing her from getting to the burning dinner, etc) and the social services worker looks on with disapproval, keep in mind...

* In ''[[The Parent Trap (1961 film)|The Parent Trap]]'' ripoff ''[[It Takes Two]]'', Kirstie Alley's character Diane seems to be the only competent Child Service worker in the movie: her superiors won't let her adopt Amanda despite both their wishes because the former doesn't make enough money yet foist Amanda (who unbeknown to them, was switched with her doppleganger Alyssa) on a couple of yokels who have already adopted about half a dozen other kids with the purpose of forcing them to work in their junkyard. And Diane manages to figure this out ''simply by talking to one of their neighbors.''

* Occurs in ''[[Lackawanna Blues]],'' when the (white) social services agent comes to question the living conditions of the (black) main character. [[Positive Discrimination|The social services agent is portrayed entirely unsympathetically.]]

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[The Sisters Grimm]]'' is the epitome of this trope. Sabrina and Daphne have been stuck with crazy man who is obsessed with his ferrets, people who locked the girls in bathrooms, and ex-convicts. That's just naming a few of the places they had to run away from.

* ''[[White Oleander]]'' is built around this trope.

* One episode of ''[[Person of Interest]]'' involved a social worker framing ex-cons with children for various crimes so that he could take the children away as part of an embezzlement scheme.

 

* One episode of ''[[Bones]]'' that deals with this - they must depend on abused foster children to help solve a crime, and the good doctor complains about this to a CPS Agent.

** And of course, Bones herself had a rather nasty time in foster care as part of her backstory.

* In many [[Lifetime Movie of the Week]] plots, social services will inevitably be portrayed like they are incompetent. Both types 1 and 2. Alternatively, it will be portrayed as way too easy to adopt children if it moves the plot along.

* Averted in the fourth season of ''[[Queer as Folk]]''. When Ben and Michael are granted custody over teenage [[Dark and Troubled Past|former prostitute]] Hunter, they are told that a social worker may show up unannounced at any time, and they spend quite som time worrying about not making a good impression. When she finally shows up, Hunter opens the door dressed only in his underwear (which is something they have told him to stop doing because of that very reason) and Michael and his [[My Beloved Smother|mom]] are having the screaming match of the century. They are horrified, convinced that she's going to take Hunter away from them, but she comes back later and tells them they have nothing to worry about, since she realizes that a family that love each other enough to feel comfortable yelling like that is not necessarily an unhealthy environment for a child, and she compares them to her relationship with her own mother.

 

== Music ==

* [[Eric Bogle]]'s "Daniel Smiling" is about this.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', the [[Show Within a Show]] ''Rebel Cry'' features [https://web.archive.org/web/20090108092217/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00695.html a boy whose father was declared unfit for being broke, even though he has a job now.]

 

== Web Original ==

* In ''[[Dept Heaven Apocrypha]]'', what serves for Social Services in Asgard proved so ineffectual that {{spoiler|Nessiah}}, a victim of severe sexual abuse, was basically ignored until it was almost too late. It didn't help that the perpetrator happened to be a [[Villain with Good Publicity]] and ''considerable'' political power, who was pressuring them to keep out of his way.

** Even now, it's hinted that they might give in to that pressure; they've been investigating for a few months but can't seem to decide what to do with the evidence they have that {{spoiler|Hector}} is a rapist.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[South Park]]'': The kids manage to get all their parents arrested by claiming they were molested by them. The Department of Child Disservices never shows up, even as ''all'' the adults in South Park are taken away when the kids make further accusations, and apparently the state of Colorado never bothers to care even as the town dissolves into chaos (since the kids aren't capable of taking care of themselves).

* ''[[Family Guy]]'': There was an episode devoted almost entirely to this where Meg took a part time job and milked her customers' sympathy to get bigger tips by claiming to be the unwed mother of a crack baby (with Stewie playing the part of her "son"). One of said customers was a Social Services agent, and interestingly enough, said social worker actually conducted an investigation, though she removed Stewie and had Peter and Lois' parental rights terminated without any actual evidence, or for that matter ''knowing who his actual mother was''.