That's the title of a blog post at the Volokh Conspiracy today. I encourage anyone interested in the "free-range kids" movement to read the post and then click through to the legal article by David Pimentel that the blogger is referring to. It's called, "Criminal Child Neglect and the Free Range Kid: Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?"
Lots of good stuff in there -- the whole article is worth reading. A lot of problems are caused by vague statutory language that requires "reasonable" behavior (who decides what is reasonable?) and that implies parents are criminally negligent for not eliminating certain risks to their children. It appears that jurors are regularly ready to punish parents who have different parenting styles that appear merely substandard to the jurors. Jurors and prosecutors who are themselves parents of only one child appear readier to punish parents who are accused of neglect because they left one child in the care of another (say, a three-year-old in the care of a twelve-year-old sibling). If you think the mommy wars are bad enough when they are outside the courtroom, imagine being a mommy accused of neglect, about to be tried by a jury of her peers!
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