No one is born with a guarantee of growing up unmarred by their parents. And what about parents who mess up their kids by being TOO nice to them and render them unable to cope. I heard a talk given by an ex-member of Delta Force, the most elite unit in the US Army, and he cited the diversity of backgrounds and ethnicity of the men who met the extremely high standards of performance and capability to join the unit. He said the one thing they all had in common, whether ignorant or educated, rich or poor, black or white, conservative or liberal, was that they were all "children of adversity." Who has the ability to say if unpleasant circumstances are detrimental or ultimately helpful to the formative development of an individual? And how can an outsider properly judge what transpires in a family? Families have whole levels of communication and interaction in their own ways and means. I haven't told my father I love him in more than 20 years, or vice versa. But we both know it is true. We tend to interact in discussions of our favorite TV shows & sports teams or by talking about politics or by helping each other out with tasks, and it is a far more meaningful, if indirect way of communicating than a trite phrase rendered meaningless by excessive use and abuse in popular culture. And an outsider, especially one from a different culture, would have no tangible way of ascertaining how we felt about one another, so what basis would anyone have had for dissolving our relationship at any stage of its development as I grew up? Did his constant straight-faced dead-pan accusations of my causing the defeat of our favorite football by my failure to do chores or sit in the right chair while watching the game constitute abuse? I always knew he was joking, but there would have been no way to prove it. The "cycle" even continued when my much-younger brother became interested in the same sport and I did the same thing. The use of ostensibly violent acts to demonstrate affection among men is also well-known and probably documented, so who is to say what non-verbal cues and understandings mark the boundary between such demonstrativeness and genuine physical abuse.

But sometime we just have accept some kinds of harm, because worse can be done just as easily. The flaws and problems of the government foster-care systems are well-known, so how does one justify removing a child from a situation where his emotional well-being may be perceived to be endangered (however logically unprovable), only to place him in a situation with strangers who lack any connection, as well as much of the means to address those needs, and very likely will be an occasion of physical needs being shortchanged (which has its own set of adverse mental and emotional effects). How is someone raised under one set of customs and habits supposed to determine on short acquaintence what is normal for another family from another culture?

The harm done by giving authorities the power to intervene in such cases far outweighs any potential good. Why is the malice of the parents assumed, but the benevolence of a civil service bureaucrat taken for granted?