Freed v. Worcester County Department of Social Services

GILBERT, Chief Judge.

The nation in the early 1970’s “discovered” child abuse and neglect. Discovery was not occasioned by the sudden appearance of those two social aberrations but rather because society was awakened to the enormity of the problem. We have come a long way from “the [ancient] Roman laws [that] gave the father a power of life and death over his children.” 1 Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries On The Laws of England, states that “[t]he power of a parent by ... English laws is much more moderate; but still sufficient to keep the child in order and obedience. [The parent]…