When I was in high school back in the 80’s a boy I was in school with called the SC Department of Social Services on his dad after his dad spanked him for coming in drunk and late on a school night. The father was after that afraid to try and discipline him. My buddy and I tried that on our fathers- mine was an engineer for the state and her dad was a prosecuting attorney for our county. They both told us if we ever called DSS on them the next thing we needed to do was to call 911 and ask for the coroner to come to our house. Both men (we did this together so our dads were in the same room) told us that if we thought they were going to jail for disciplining us we’d better think again. If they were going to go to be arrested then they were going to make it worth their while, and we were going to find out what real abuse was like. And, they added in no uncertain terms were we to even think about trying to run our households. Needless to say we never even mentioned the letters DSS together in our houses.
One of the Russell Peters’s funnier routines, on parenting and corporal punishment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppdtGjGeDs
I have a good friend whose son tried this maneuver after she suspended his license for underage drinking. In our state if a parent rescinds their permission for a minor child’s license, it is suspended.
She told the social worker that if he felt he was abused he should probably be in foster care and she was happy to pay child support to the foster parents.
After two days he was begging to come home, but she made him stay for two months to make her point. After that, it was yes ma’am, no ma’am until he graduated and joined the military.