It’s not hyperbole. It’s happened twice recently in Montgomery County, a DC suburb near me: https://patch.com/maryland/silverspring/mother-free-range-ki.... (It’s one reason we moves two counties over.)

You moved because something happened twice in a county with a population over 1 million?

I'm just trying to process the irony of this entire discussion. American kids are over-protected because the media has created a culture of fear that terrible things are constantly happening to kids. Now you're going to flip that hysteria around and apply it to the parents.

While there are a million people in the county, there is just one CPS who brought those charges, run by one set of leadership. And the fact they felt that was an appropriate thing to do is emblematic of how skewed perceptions are in the county about what is normal and abnormal. CPS doesn’t bring charges for conduct that’s completely normal in a community. They did it because it was so unusual it seemed quite reasonable to decision makers that it should be illegal. It wasn’t the risk of being prosecuted by CPS that made us move away, it was the prospect of being surrounded by parents like that.

We have friends who get calls from "concerned neighbors" because their child is a block away playing at a park with no adult supervision. Any wanker can call cps and make your life miserable, and the wealthier the area, the more cps tends to meddle. Montgomery county mentioned in the sibling comment is one of the most well-to-do counties in the country and also a place I would not ever consider raising a child in due to cps actions there.