OK, OK, yes of course I have an opinion on leaving one's children by the side of the highway. Oh Madlyn Primoff, I know your pain. You're nuts, but I totally get it. How many times have I been tempted to do the same? They squabble, they hit each other, they shriek and wail. They cry and moan. They bicker and bitch. Often I feel like dropping them off by the side of the road, or better yet tossing them out of a window. There isn't a mom or dad among us who hasn't had the same feeling. Hell, Jules Feiffer wrote an entire book on the subject. And a fine book it is.

My dad once left my younger brother and me by the side of Route 17 in NJ, about 6 miles or so from our house. I was probably in sixth or seventh grade. He came back (I think he just drove up an exit, U-turned and came around), and we got in the car and went home. Now, do I think this was a wise or responsible thing to do? Obviously not. Would I do it? No, I really hope not. Should that woman be prosecuted, should her kids be taken away from her? I really doubt it. I mean, order parenting class. Keep her kids under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social Services for a year or so to make sure there's no abuse. But this just doesn't qualify to me -- on it's own, in the absence of other abuse -- as a reason to remove the children from the home, or the mom from the mom.

Wouldn't it be nice if the DSS actually saved children who were being abused, and reacted rationally to cases where there was no real abuse? Yeah, sure, but not bloody likely. My mom, who ran a WIC program in Paterson, NJ, always said you could rely on them to intervene when intervention was unwarranted and ignore cases of true abuse. I don't envy these social workers their jobs -- it's grim, and hard, and every mistake could be a potential disaster -- but they need to be more balanced and, well, sensible.

Maybe if we paid social workers more -- like ten times as much -- we could have a staff of qualified, undemoralized professionals who would be more likely to use their judgment wisely.