Jody Jenkins sets a new benchmark for personal angst over something he could well have avoided altogether with use of a little common sense, and in the process helps advance the negative stereotype of social workers who as we already know from watching TV too much are all out to snatch our children from our loving arms on the merest pretext. Oh, bullshit! Prior to nationwide child protection laws we were all potential victims with no hope - nor even any intention - of telling anyone what had been done to us. That people like Jenkins have their cage rattled once in a while for doing things that rest upon the fine line of good sense anyway is no price at all, really, for us to pay or at least weigh. How would Jenkins have felt if someone had victimnized - or just appeared to maybe have victimized - one of his children? Would he call child protective services? The police? Be perhaps cruising suspect areas with a baseball bat or a gun? But he and his equally clueless wife and friends (this friend of his with the extremely sensitive government job) go out and do a few dumb stunts in the woods, get their chain pulled by responsible people with a mandate to do just that, and he's having a freakin' breakdown, screaming at his kids (who of course are the bottom line reason this "happened to him" anyway), sits on the crapper in France sobbing from the post-trauma of the whole thing, then writes four goddam pages for us to become outraged over and start blaming the Church, "puritans", etc., etc.

Jesus awready! You can't WIN!! Anyone god forbid should ever actually violate one of Jenkins' kids and it seems likely he'd either commit murder or, more likely, suicide, given his reaction to this gross intrusion by the mean ol' state into his "life", but if someone is looking out for those same kids and it happened to be HIM and his WIFE who put those kids in the position of looking as though they just might have been exploited by a person or persons unknown, and....well, it winds up here, four pages of pathos, hysteria and self-pity.

Living with a worker in child protective services (in another, far less benighted state than the ever-primitive, rednecked, frog-faced Georgia of course) I know far more than I ever wanted to about what really goes on Out There. And yes, a good 70 per cent of it is unfounded, baseless or "good intent" calls. Thank you Jesus! We haven't descended into the basket of snakes some people believe we wallow in. The reason we can know that is because we have dedicated, well-trained, compassionate and extremely strong workers out there, coordinating with the police to, more often than not, "unfound" these alarums. But 30 per cent of those calls DO result in some sort of "founded" outcome, sometimes uncovering the unspeakable. We, the people, know this because it is a matter of public record and reported by the media. So why is Jenkins so incredulous that this could happen to him? He and his wife practically invited child protection services into their lives! They know this sort of thing can happen - unless, of course, they wisely gave up watching television more than a decade ago as "unnatural."

The reaction on the part of the writer (and one helluva lot of the respondents here) suggests just a little too much anguish and guilt. No, I'm not suggesting they're pervs, you morons! I'm talking about Original Guilt, that phenomenon described by Ernest Becker, which is the real basis for much neurosis and despair - NOT original sin. Assuming he is so flawed (blame this on the protectors, of course) Jenkins starts to question his own attentions to his children. WHY?? Who is the REAL puritan here? If this had happened to me I would have appreciated the good intent involved, known I had done nothing horribly wrong, kicked myself for using flim when I knew it would be scrutinized by people who are forced to use totally subjective judgement, even thanked them for keeping their eyes open, and learned from my little dumbheit - although my wife would have stopped any of this before it happened, even if I were stupid enough to have started to do it. OK, so I have an unfair advantage. I live with one of those unapologetic bitches who come out to ask annoying, invasive questions when someone suggests something "funny" might be going on involving your kid. Maybe she and her ilk should all find something less puritanical to do for a living - something that pays better and has a better image. Yeah, screw the kids. It's all about US. I keep forgetting.