That, while is an important issue, is not the most important issue brought out by this article.
Life is uncertain, and adults are called to choices weigh risk and opportunities. And there is an epidemic of teenagers and young adults right now, cycling in and out of mental health facilities. There are otherwise healthy kids who are afraid of doing normal things by themselves. They go to learn to “adult” in college, but really, they never have the opportunity to make their own choices and learn from their own successes and failures. And that comes about from a society and legal framework that values “safety” to beyond a reasonable point that is healthy for people.
These laws and the way they are interpreted has shifted dramatically over the past decade or so. And it has a lot to do with how our society views this. Seeing this as only about parental rights misses the point, and in my view, short-sighted.
> There are otherwise healthy kids who are afraid of doing normal things by themselves.
Yes, I've witnessed this first-hand. My wife and I had our then-nine-year-old niece for the afternoon; we took her out to do a few things, played in the pool, ate dinner, and then took her back to her mother's house. At one point, she wanted some ice cream. Well, sure, why not. We happened to be very close to a grocery store and handed her some money and told her to go inside and get whatever flavor she wanted.
She kept saying we had to go with her, that there might be someone waiting to snatch her. It took a surprisingly long time to convince her that a small grocery store with one customer entrance/exit that we were immediately in front of represented the lowest imaginable risk for something like that. But, in the end, she went in and selected and bought her own ice cream.
By her age, both of us were riding our bikes without adult supervision (but usually with friends) to places a mile or so from the house to get - you guessed it - ice cream (or milkshakes, or whatever). I have read Ms. Skenazy's stories before, and knew how bad this was intellectually, but that was the first time I actually saw just how damaging it is to children to be raised as complete dependents on adults. If you're afraid to walk into a 1960s-size grocery to buy ice cream at age nine, how in the world are you going to be prepared for the maelstrom of your teenage years, let alone being an 18-year-old college student on their own?
