However. I have read in the news about parents being arrested for allowing their children -- 9- and 10-year-olds, not young children -- to play unsupervised, or (in one case) to hang out at a mall while their parent was at a job interview there, for what some busybody thought was too long. 50 years ago, one could never have imagined the police being called -- or if they had been called, actually arresting the parent -- in such a situation. Whatever label one puts on it, there has been a change in American culture that I think is not entirely salutary. Protecting children is important, but people are jumping to conclusions that are not actually warranted by the facts and nuances of the situation.

Ideally the "rule" is a guideline, and is only ever used as part of a package of information to protect children (who are by definition vulnerable).

So "left young children alone" gets at most a friendly chat with some advice about home safety, while "left children at home alone" combined with "arrested for drunk and disorderly" and "arrested for solicitation and drug possession" gets a friendly chats combined with targetted drug and alcohol rehab.

It's weird that CPS bother taken action in these cases. They're so busy with other cases where the need is unambiguously there.

Yes, it's absolutely terrible. But when you're a single mom and you have to go out and make a living it helps if you raise your kids in a way that teaches them to take responsibility from an early age.

My sister and I never thought this was 'dangerous', we walked hand-in-hand to school, crossed at the lights like were were taught to and never were late or went missing.

For sure the world was safer back then, today it may not be possible to live like this but I'm pretty happy that we had the experience of being trusted with some responsibility from an early age onward.

The survivor bias is non-existent, there were tons of kids like us back then and I don't recall any of them that didn't make it because of being unable to walk home from school or being home for an hour or two un-attended.

The world was more dangerous back then.

There was more crime. Products were less safe (eg cars were more likely to kill pedestrians in accidents) etc.

> The survivor bias is non-existent,

The person most likely to harm your child is your other child. While the numbers are tricky we think sibling sexual abuse is about 5 times more common than paternal sexual abuse in the US. (This is from reported figures. There's a lot of attention on paternal abuse, there's not much attention of sibling sexual abuse, so we think that sibling abuse is less reported than paternal abuse even though they're both under-reported).

In the UK one in twenty children have been sexually abused. http://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neg... it's unfeasable that none of the tons of kids like you were unaffected by this, or were not neglected to the level of abuse.

I'm not a big fan of the nanny state, I think life is full of risks and if you arrange society in such a way that all the risks are gone you will squeeze the life out of it as well. It's a hard balance to get right but I feel that going overboard on the protective side is not the answer.

But from the reserved side of the exchange, I definitely tend hug my dad when I greet him or leave.