I think this creates an interesting circular problem. Only recently in society have we come to think of children as effectively the parents property. In many other cultures it is expected that other adults will discipline children. We have this problem in our library often when kids who are resettled refugees come in and misbehave. The parents send them to the library with the expectation that they will be disciplined if they misbehave. When the kids see they will not, they misbehave knowing they can get away with it.

On the other hand, this protectiveness of our personal standard of parenting means that in order to enforce our standards, we must see the kids and people must defer to the parents for discipline. It almost means that because we don't allow others to impose their judgements on our kids, that they then impose their judgements on the parents.

I'm not sure this is anything particularly new. There have always been busybodies. What probably is newer is that the local government is, for better or worse, quicker to inject themselves into domestic situations than they may have been in the past.

The challenge is that, if someone sees behavior that isn't the norm in their experience, and that they personally consider (rightly or wrongly) to be insanely dangerous, what are they really to do? OK, they probably shouldn't raise a stink if some kid is riding a bike without a helmet. What if they're playing with firecrackers?

I agree, there are busybodies everywhere and they have always existed. What's new to me, who have lived in two very different countries before coming here to the US, is how often and how easily those busybodies recur to authorities.

Unlike other places I've lived in, here there is a real fear that someone will dislike the way you raise your children and report you, creating much more serious problems for you than they might do elsewhere, at least not with the same ease.

I think it has a lot to do with what @stinkytaco said in his reply. It's a breakdown in communication and the same thing happens in other aspects of our lives, not just the child-rearing. I believe that this is what happens when there's so much emphasis on personal, individual freedom at the expense of larger communities those individuals form part of, all the way to the largest community -- the society itself.