Observations and interviews with parents and staff members and a detailed presentation of the cases of three parents form the basis of a discussion of how the interventions of the child welfare system, although well- intentioned, are often counterproductive and result in the child's removal to an institution or foster home. The discussion notes that parents and caseworkers are neither saints nor villains but are human beings living in a deteriorating society and caught in an inadequate and misguided governmental construct based on inadequate understanding of child maltreatment. The author is a former director of a therapeutic preschool program and a co- director of a parents' program sponsored by a State child protective services agency. Index and 87 references (Publisher summary modified)