Department of Child Disservices: Difference between revisions

See [[Don't Split Us Up]], [[Promotion to Parent]].

 

 

While the reality (and maybe [[Inherent in the System|idea]]) of the system is far from perfect, [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|please refrain]] from listing [[Real Life]] examples.

* ''[[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.

* In ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'', the Social Welfare Agency is directly responsible for brainwashing little girls into cyborg assassins, a process which guarantees their early deaths. Then again, considering what most of the girls experienced before entering the program, [[Black and Grey Morality|it is arguably still an improvement]].

* 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.

* Elena's backstory in ''[[Women of the Otherworld|Bitten]]''. Elena was horribly orphaned at five years old, and her mother's best friend volunteered to adopt her. She was rejected because she was single, and Child Services made sure Elena never saw her again, believing in "clean breaks". Instead, Elena spends the rest of her childhood being shuttled from foster home to foster home, in many of which she is sexually abused by her foster fathers and/or brothers.

* In ''[[The Ship Who|The City Who Fought]]'' by [[Anne McCaffrey]] and [[S.M. Stirling]], the space station's brain wants to adopt a daughter who managed to stow away. Unfortunately, the social services worker assigned to the girl's case proves to be an outright bigot, and denies the application on the grounds that "a shellperson can't possibly raise a child," [[What an Idiot!|apparently in complete ignorance of the Federation's anti-discrimination laws]].

* One of the ''[[Babysitters Club]]'' Mystery Specials was about the girls investigating mysterious events while on a work experience trial at a shopping mall. They eventually discover that three young children are ''living'' in the mall because [[Don't Split Us Up|social services had threatened to separate them]] after their mother had to go into hospital.

* In [[Andrew Vachss]]'s Burke books, the protagonist, after being left to the State when his (apparently?) prostitute mother abandoned him, experienced the horrors of an at best ineffectual, at worst actively malicious system firsthand.