History Main / SocialServicesDoesNotExist

* Genma Saotome, father of [[RanmaOneHalf Ranma Saotome,]] is quite possibly the king of this trope -- a selfish and casually abusive father whose antics are [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood played for humor]] despite having essentially ruined his son's life at every possible opportunity.That Ranma hasn't cracked and murdered his dad by now, or at least beaten some sense into him, makes him a possible candidate for sainthood. Of course, Ranma being a martial artist, he's ''tried'' [[CallingTheOldManOut beating sense into Genma's thick head]], but it never seems to take.

* The parents of ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler'' are quite possibly the worst {{Jerkass}} parents in the world. Due to the father's laziness and the mother's gambling habits, Hayate has been the primary breadwinner in his house since the age of eight. In the very first chapter they steal sixteen-year-old Hayate's hard-earned paycheck, lose it all on pachinko, then sell their only son's organs to [[{{Yakuza}} "some very nice people"]] to pay off their 156,804,000 yen ($1,467,504) debt. And just to top it off, this happens on ''Christmas Eve''. The mental scars left by his parents persist for a very, very long time. [[spoiler:And this doesn't even include [[MoralEventHorizon what happened with Athena]].]]
** Hell, Hayate's so used to his parents being complete [[{{Jerkass}} jerkasses]] that he usually speaks rather casually about all the abuse he's been put through. Usually to the discomfort and disbelief of his listeners. The example speech at the top of this page was a cheerfully-read ''grade school'' oral report which left the teacher and the entire class in tears.

* A borderline example might be the Barone family in 'EveryoneLovesRaymond'', who leave their adult sons full of complexes and neuroses after a hit-and-miss upbringing. Marie and Frank combine MyBelovedSmother and an emotionally illiterate father and play favourites to such an extent that you wonder if Social Services might at least have placed Robert and Ray on an at-risk register...

** The 2013 remakes notes that the state intervened to force Margaret to stop homeschooling carefully. It's woefully inadequate, but at least they made an effort.

** In a typical comedic use of this trope, Isshin Kurosaki regularly launches surprise assaults against his son Ichigo, claiming it as a form of martial arts training. He's far more likely to be on the receiving end of abuse from his daughter, but he did at one point rip off his shirt and tell them, "Come give your big, sexy daddy a hug!".
** Orihime's older brother Sora was able to get custody of her as soon as he turned 18, due to their parents being abusive, and basically [[PromotionToParent raised her on his own]]. Apparently no one thought it necessary to remove Orihime OR Sora from an abusive environment before then, and after Sora's death Orihime lived alone, despite being ''in middle school''. We don't have much detail on Chad's family situation except that he, too, seems to have no living family and no guardian and yet receive no attention from social workers. Even Uryuu lives in his own apartment rather than share a house with his estranged father, although we know Ryuuken keeps an eye on his son from a distance and presumably is still his legal guardian.

* ''Manga/AiYoriAoshi'': Kaoru's grandfather was apparently into the habit of beating the hell out of him with his cane while goons held him down and burning his ''deceased mother's'' last worldly possessions, just to show his tyrannical disapproval of her marriage to Kaoru's father. Kaoru should be nominated for sainthood for just running away and not cracking and murdering his grandpa, like any ''normal'' person would have done when pushed that far.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': five teens, the oldest of which is about 17 and the youngest about 15, living together in a T-shaped tower playing video games all day, never going to school, and putting their lives in danger on an almost daily basis, all without any sort of adult supervision. Scratch that, they had a "mother" in one episode, but she turned out to be a three-eyed monster that was brainwashing them using demonic pie.

* Suga Momma in ''TheProudFamily'' certainly treated Oscar pretty poorly. Likewise, Oscar does do ''some'' pretty terrible things to Penny, but most of the abuse Penny faces comes from her peers rather than her parents.

* Averted in LiloAndStitch, in which Nani has to keep a job and provide a suitable home environment to keep Social Services agent [[ScaryBlackMan Cobra Bubbles]] from taking Lilo away, and even does at one point. But he's not treated as a villain for this, instead shown to be a man doing his job to give Lilo a proper home.

* Subverted in LiloAndStitch, in which Nani has to keep a job and provide a suitable home environment to keep Social Services agent [[ScaryBlackMan Cobra Bubbles]] from taking Lilo away, and even does at one point. But he's not treated as a villain for this, instead shown to be a man doing his job to give Lilo a proper home.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' Isshin Kurosaki regularly launches surprise assaults against his son Ichigo, claiming it as a form of martial arts training. He's far more likely to be on the receiving end of abuse from his daughter, but he did at one point rip off his shirt and tell them, "Come give your big, sexy daddy a hug!".
** Orihime and Chad are both pretty much unsupervised. Somehow, Orihime's brother Sora was able to get custody of her as soon as he turned 18 (maybe not hard since the parents ''were'' abusive, but that only makes one wonder why social services didn't do anything before then), and it is mentioned all of once that she has a faraway aunt who is her current guardian and gives her some support. Yet both Orihime and Chad live on their own. At the age of 15. Uryu also has his own apartment despite his estranged father being very much alive, although this is arguably less weird given that Uryu's at least still living in the same TOWN as Ryuken.
** Soul Society itself has this trope; as far as we know there are no services for any of the newly arrived souls, even child ones.

* ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'' usually plays this straight. While Pete isn't ''always'' abusive, and is often only subtly, PJ shows consistent behavioral signs. Considering that Pete has mistreated PJ ''in public'' before (on multiple occasions), and has admitted as much in such places as a courtroom and a hospital, you'd think ''someone'' would notice, especially the instances of FinancialAbuse, which are usually quite blatant. Once, two contest judges ''did'' notice Pete was doing something wrong and they didn't do anything about it. The DepartmentOfChildDisservices appears instead in one episode where Max had to live with the Pete family for a short period of time, after his principal deemed that life with Goofy is too unstable.

* ''HarryPotter'', himself is a victim of this. Surely locking a child in his room and refusing to let him out breaks ''some'' law. For that matter, did Social Services even know where he was, or do Wizards have the power to just stick people with horrible families with no oversight from Muggle government?

* AliceAndKev, a story made using ''TheSims 3''. Despite having an abusive parent, being dirt poor, hungry, and homeless no one comes to save Alice. This actually makes a little sense in-game, where social services won't help teenagers for whatever reason.

* David Pelzer. While he ''did'' get rescued by Social Services eventually, they seemed to have not kept an eye on him at ''all'' despite how often he came to school with his various bodily injuries and signs of starvation. And once they did... it's highly obvious they probably only took things out of context; apparently they saw nothing wrong with the ''rest'' of the boys and the one or two times they ''did'' visit, his mother knew ahead of time and managed to fool them so she could keep her scapegoat.

* Something must be seriously wrong with [[{{Batman}} Gotham's]] Social Services system considering how many of the rogues were abused. Riddler beaten for cheating? Two-Face on a fixed, drunken coin toss? Black Mask neglected by his socialite family? Scarecrow's grandmother used to lock him in an old church after putting something on his clothes to make birds attack him. Presumably he would have either missed school entirely afterwards or come to school with at least a few visible wounds. Surely that was an extreme enough case to get the ball rolling with social services even back in the day. But no... You just had to let him grow up to be a sadistic MadScientist with MommyIssues, didn't you, social services?

* Averted in ''PippiLongstocking''. Despite that she's quite capable of taking care of herself, several adults do find it rather odd that Pippi is living by herself with only a few pets for company. Mrs. Prysselius tries to get her into foster care but fails.

* In ''TheSims 1'', the Social Worker would come to pick up a baby who was starving, but wouldn't do anything about a school-age kid who was orphaned. In ''The Sims 2'', they shaped up somewhat, but they became a little over-responsive. They can take a child if they get a bad grade in school, so it's not much of an improvement. Luckily, Sims 3 seems to have fixed all of the problems with the social workers

* Creator/RoaldDahl stories like ''JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' and ''Literature/{{Matilda}}''. As you can see from this, he likes this trope.

* Gendo Ikari, as usual for ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'', is an example of a normally comedic trope [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructed]] into something tragic. At least he palms his kid off on someone who ''tries''...eventually. Of course, given that this is [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] Japan, it's possible that social services actually ''doesn't'' exist; and regardless, given that NERV basically ''is'' the world government, even if they do exist there's nothing they could do to stop Gendo.

* Some people actually ''can'' tell you that Social Services may exist, but people are just ''too afraid to call them''. There have been ''a lot'' of cases where people were aware of abuse but they too were afraid of the parents' retaliations.

** However, this trope is usually necessary for Bart and Lisa (and even Maggie), in order for them to display the full extent of their BadAss and BreakoutCharacter, as opposed to being stereotypical children.

* By all rights, the parents of ''{{Rugrats}}'' should not be able to keep their kids, seeing all the unsupervised antics the ''baby'' protagonists get into.