How our social organizations are broken

by by John J. Xenakis

I received several strong reactions to what I wrote in the last issue. Many of the comments I get are from women criticizing me for questioning the super-pure, pristeen, hallowed motives of feminist social workers who are presumably doing God's work. Other women just gloat to me because the system is so biased in their favor.

Women who criticize me or gloat don't realize that most of the complaints I get about the system are from women who are concerned about how their families are being destroyed.

One mother lost her teen daughter when the latter impetuously told a doctor that her mother hit her. The social worker showed up to take the daughter out of her parents' home almost immediately. When the father packed a suitcase for his daughter to take with her, the social worked wrote in her report that it was "suspicious behavior" that he had packed her underclothes. It took eight months for them to get back their daughter, just because of one remark made in a moment of rebellion.

Another mother lost her two children, 9 and 13, when her next-door neighbor, a woman with a grudge and strong local political connections, reported to authorities that she'd heard the children crying during home schooling. The kids were put into separate foster homes. They both became ill, and one ran away. It took a year for the parents to get them back.

This is the same system that women gloat about because social workers always side with mothers in divorce and separation situations.

The reasons are the same: Social worker organizations make money when they can keep children in the system. Foster parents get money, and so do the social worker organizations that have to monitor them. Even when there's no evidence that a parent abused anyone, the social worker organizations have a huge economic incentive to call for further evaluations, investigations, foster care, and follow ups. This is how they make their money.

Falsely accused fathers are their biggest money source. On my web site ( www.fraternizing.org, click on "The Battered Woman's Package"), I document how social worker organizations made $321,000 from just one divorced father.

That's a hell of a lot of money, and in that case the social workers made out like bandits, and the children were left in the hands of an abusive mother.

These social worker organizations are generally immune from prosecution, so they can do what they want with impunity. Nobody checks on them except other social worker organizations, and they support each other to keep the money flowing in. The press never looks at them. You've seen press reports on Enron and the Catholic Church, but have you ever seen a Boston Globe Spotlight Report on corruption at DSS, in probate courts, women's shelters, or visitation centers?

That's why organizations like the Center of Hope, headed by Rosemarie Greene, are so important. Organizations like these, which do not accept taxpayer money or political favors, are what's need to really reduce family violence.

(John J. Xenakis is author of the new book "Fraternizing with the Enemy: A Book on Gender Issues for Men ... And For Women Who Care About Men." His web site is www.fraternizing.org.)