That kind of thinking is a great way to bring up children who remain irresponsible for their own behavior. Growing up I was responsible for everything I did, and now I'm quite tired of college classmates who still haven't learned to take accountability for basic things.

Something that can be very easy to forget until you concretize the question is that "children" is not a monolithic category.

I have no particular intention of locking down my 15-year old (in 13 years) with serious parental controls. But not all children are 15. Letting a 4-year-old run around loose on the Internet with no protection sounds like a bad idea to me. Which do you prefer, simply telling a 6-year-old "No internet access for you!", or drawing some boundaries but letting them roam within them freely?

"Someday, your children will need to be able to live without Mommy and Daddy saving them from everything!" is not an argument for throwing your 5-year-old out on the street.

Yes but at 12 you may not be able to reason with your head, and if you do something you are not supposed to do, your parents will pay for it, so they're still responsible for you. It's the law (at least where I live).

That's very vague. Children may not be able to reason, that is true; however, I was taught to never talk to strangers, never leave with strangers, never take my favorite pokemon card from a stranger, never do anything I don't want to explain to the paramedics, never say something I wouldn't want to say to someone's face, never say naughty things. You get the idea. I never really went through a "swearing phase" either. Occasionally, I do swear, but I don't (and never did) drop f bombs every ten minutes like lots of people have. I never swore on Facebook because I wouldn't want people to read that. I never wrote a private conversation on someone's wall(public message board), through a message(email), or through an instant message- always did things like that in person. You will never see me do things like that, I mean- I might swear occasionally nowadays, but that's as bad ass as I get ;p (and it's usually for comic effect anyways).

To cover what I said: 1) I have remained in control of my "virtual" life my entire life. 2) I have never made a mistake of telling someone I don't know anything important about me 3) I believe if I can do it, others can too.