History SocialServicesDoesNotExist / WesternAnimation

** In "Baseball" Stu and Grandpa Lou took Tommy to a baseball game. He ended up ''part'' of the game and could've easily been killed if he hadn't fallen into the player's mitt, all because the two were too engrossed in their game; it was caught on camera and live TV to boot.

* ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'': {{Subverted|Trope}}. The Chipettes initially lived in a treehouse by themselves for a couple of seasons. By season 4, however, the school finds out about this, and a social worker begins to try and find someone to take them in. Fearing that they would be stuck in separate foster homes, Alvin gets an idea of talking his neighbor Miss Miller into being their foster mother.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': The Delightful Children were kidnapped and [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed]] by a man who then ''adopted'' them and is implied to frequently subject them to abuse. How in the world did five children disappearing go virtually unnoticed, and why has nobody caught on that there's something off about how the kids behave is a mystery.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Peter and Lois don't start out so bad. But they degenerate into complete jerkasses, with Peter even stating he doesn't care for the kids that much. And Meg is treated absolutely appallingly in many episodes. In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS8E11DialMegForMurder Dial Meg For Murder]]" Peter lassos her, drags her down the stairs, and prepares to brand her with a ''red hot poker.'' Turns out she's already been branded by the mayor, not that Peter cares. He also practices riding a bronco on Chris' back. Lois is more one for emotional neglect, only showing the slightest affection for her kids when it suits her. Even Stewie doesn't get off scot-free, often left on his own for long periods of time, or with no company other than the family dog. The dog is intelligent and can talk, but still. When Meg is CallingTheOldManOut in "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS10E2SeahorseSeashellParty Seahorse Seashell Party]]", she states that if anyone from the outside world knew how he treated her, Peter would be in jail by now.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': The parents should not be allowed to keep their children, given all the unsupervised antics the ''baby'' protagonists get into. For example, they always leave Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Dil, and Kimi in a crib or playpen; they should've figured out that Tommy can break out of most playpens or cribs with his screwdriver quite easily ''ages'' ago. The only supervision they use 90 percent of the time is Grandpa Lou, a borderline narcoleptic (he falls asleep at the drop of a hat). Often, when they're in a store, they'll put the babies down on the floor (again, with no one to watch them) and walk off ''in the opposite direction''. One of the worst examples is when Stu and Grandpa Lou took Tommy to a baseball game in "Baseball". He ended up ''part'' of the game and could've easily been killed if he didn't fall into the player's mitt, all because the two were too engrossed in their game; it was caught on camera and live TV to boot. And when they took the babies to the musical in "Reptar on Ice", the kids managed to sneak onto the ice itself (and Tommy is ''barefoot'', no pants or shoes for the freezing ice), because Stu and Didi fell asleep during the show and Lou was too engrossed in it. To make a long story short, if they weren't in a cartoon, all four/six of them would be ''[[TooDumbToLive dead]]'' [[LethalNegligence due to the neglect their parents give them]].

** Perhaps more concerning, before Greg builds the house adjoining the temple, it's in-show {{Canon}} that he and Steven live in his van, even when Steven is a newborn. And this is a setting where harsh winters appear to be reasonably common - in one episode they're only actually living indoors during a snowstorm because Vidalia asked Greg to housesit while she was away. Would it have been that hard to find an apartment for a few years, dude?!

* ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'': PlayedForDrama. Clay [[AbusiveParents regularly emotionally and physically abuses Orel]], at one point having him shot in the leg and even prides himself of doing so ''in the presence of the public''. Bloberta, while less bad than Clay, [[ParentalNeglect always allows Shapey to play with dangerous objects and ignores the dangerous circumstances Orel often gets himself into]]. Other parents in Moralton are just as bad, such as [[TheDitz Doughy]] constantly getting thrown out of his house by his [[{{Manchild}} immature parents]] and [[TheBully Joe]] not being sent to proper guardians after [[spoiler:Nurse Bendy]] [[ParentalAbandonment left him]] (he's raised by his 91-year-old immobilized father and apathetic half-sister).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': The parents should not be allowed to keep their children, given all the unsupervised antics the ''baby'' protagonists get into. For example, they always leave Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Dil, and Kimi in a crib or playpen; they should've figured out that Tommy can break out of most playpens or cribs with his screwdriver quite easily ''ages'' ago. The only supervision they use 90 percent of the time is Grandpa Lou, a borderline narcoleptic (he falls asleep at the drop of a hat). Often, when they're in a store, they'll put the babies down on the floor (again, with no one to watch them), and walk off ''in the opposite direction''. One of the worst examples is when Stu and Grandpa Lou took Tommy to a baseball game in "Baseball" -- he ended up ''part'' of the game, and could've easily been killed if he didn't fall into the player's mitt, all because the two were too engrossed in their game, and it was caught on camera and live TV to boot. And when they took the babies to the musical in "Reptar on Ice", the kids managed to sneak onto the ice itself (and Tommy is ''barefoot'', no pants or shoes for the freezing ice), because Stu and Didi fell asleep during the show and Lou was too engrossed in it. To make a long story short, if they weren't in a cartoon, all four/six of them would be ''[[TooDumbToLive dead]]'' [[LethalNegligence due to the neglect their parents give them]].

** Homer Simpson is a close second for king of this trope, although to his credit he finally cleans up his act in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie''. This was poked fun at in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E22BehindTheLaughter Behind the Laughter]]", where the RunningGag of an angry Homer choking was a left-in ad-lib casually described as a surprisingly amusing act of child abuse.

** The titular Steven has a loving family, but he doesn't go to school, despite being twelve at the start. He apparently has never even ''heard'' of school and neither have the Gems. WordOfGod is he's homeschooled but he still doesn't seem to have any formal education.
** Greg does regularly visit Steven and considering that they interact with the Mayor, there doesn't seem to be any problems. Later episodes reveal Greg helped build the house Steven lives in and it's most likely that Steven is registered as home-schooled and under Greg's guardianship.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': The parents should not be allowed to keep their children, given all the unsupervised antics the ''baby'' protagonists get into. For example, they always leave Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Dil, and Kimi in a crib or playpen; they should've figured out that Tommy can break out of most playpens or cribs with his screwdriver quite easily ''ages'' ago. The only supervision they use 90 percent of the time is Grandpa Lou, a borderline narcoleptic (he falls asleep at the drop of a hat). Often, when they're in a store, they'll put the babies down on the floor (again, with no one to watch them), and walk off ''in the opposite direction''. One of the worst examples is when Stu and Grandpa Lou took Tommy to a baseball game in "Baseball" -- he ended up ''part'' of the game, and could've easily been killed if he didn't fall into the player's mitt, all because the two were too engrossed in their game, and it was caught on camera and live TV to boot. And when they took the babies to the musical in "Reptar on Ice", the kids managed to sneak onto the ice itself (and Tommy is ''barefoot'', no pants or shoes for the freezing ice), because Stu and Didi fell asleep during the show and Lou was too engrossed in it. To make a long story short, if they weren't in a cartoon, all four/six of them would be ''[[TooDumbToLive dead]]'' due to the neglect their parents give them.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': Due to RuleOfFunny, the parents get away with attitudes that would have caught the attention of social services in real life, [[ItMakesSenseInContext such as locking their son out of the house because they think he brings bad luck]] in one episode.

** The series can be somewhat bad at this. Arnold's grandmother and grandfather are incredibly weird, but social services never check up -- although in the movie, his grandfather mentions that if they did step in, he and grandma would go into a nursing home and Arnold would go to a foster home, potentially because of their weirdness, though also because of their age (they're in their early 80s). However, Arnold did get plenty of love and care from his grandparents and the other residents of the boarding house do function as an extended family to him.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Mr. and Mrs. Turner frequently neglect their son at home and leave him in the hands of a sadistically evil babysitter. While Timmy's misery is the reason that he gets [[TheOmnipotent fairy godparents]], it's not like his parents know that. The other kids Vicky babysits or often meets and her little sister, Tootie, don't get it much better either.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': Mako's and Bolin's BackStory implies there is no Social Services in Republic City, as "death of parents" = "orphans out on the street." {{Justified|Trope}}, as the era being emulated is an Asianized version of the 1920s, and that period predated such institutions.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': The parents should not be allowed to keep their children, given all the unsupervised antics the ''baby'' protagonists get into. For example, they always leave Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Dil, and Kimi in a crib or playpen; they should've figured out that Tommy can break out of most playpens or cribs with his screwdriver quite easily ''ages'' ago. The only supervision they use 90 percent of the time is Grandpa Lou, a borderline narcoleptic (he falls asleep at the drop of a hat). Often, when they're in a store, they'll put the babies down on the floor (again, with no one to watch them), and walk off ''in the opposite direction''. One of the worst examples is when Stu and Grandpa Lou took Tommy to a baseball game in "Baseball" -- he ended up ''part'' of the game, and could've easily been killed if he didn't fall into the player's mitt, all because the two were too engrossed in their game, and it was caught on camera and live TV to boot. And when they took the babies to the musical in ''Reptar on Ice'', the kids managed to sneak onto the ice itself (and Tommy is ''barefoot'', no pants or shoes for the freezing ice), because Stu and Didi fell asleep during the show and Lou was too engrossed in it. To make a long story short, if they weren't in a cartoon, all four/six of them would be ''[[TooDumbToLive dead]]'' due to the neglect their parents give them.

* Suga Momma in ''WesternAnimation/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.

* Despite the [[MundaneFantastic pseudo-modern]] setting of ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBeaks'', people simply let Fee and Foo live outdoors, albeit with the Beaks family being willing to provide for them (their usual sleeping quarters are the branches of [[ArborealAbode the tree the Beaks house is made from]]). One episode focuses on Harvey getting them to move into the actual house, [[StatusQuoIsGod which all of them eventually agree against]] (barring emergencies).

** In "[[Recap/SouthParkS6E11ChildAbductionIsNotFunny Child Abduction is Not Funny]]", the parents collectively banish all the kids from town out of fear that ''they'' themselves will abduct their own children! Even the mayor does not question this.