Social services generally don't take kids away from their parents unless there's a hell of a lot of evidence that a the kids are being neglected or abused in some way. Locally social services have been involved with a single parent family for years- the mother regularly drinks so much she passes out drunk, she abandons her kids with neighbours to go out drinking and taking drugs, she has abusive boyfriends, and her eldest son has been in trouble with the police since he was 7 (including robbing someone at knife point with an older kid when he was only 10) and still they consider her a 'fit' parent.