It's a change in culture. When I was a kid, it was pretty normal for a 9-year-old to take the public bus to school alone and then the subway to an after-school

It's a change in culture. When I was a kid, it was pretty normal for a 9-year-old to take the public bus to school alone and then the subway to an after-school program. In New York City. In the 1980s (aka the "bad old days"). The level of parental paranoia and of cultural concern has skyrocketed. We're so concerned about actual neglectful parenting and so paranoid about infinitesimally low-probability events that we are afraid to give our children what would once have been considered age-appropriate levels of autonomy and responsibility; and parents who do attempt to are under threat from a safety net originally intended to prevent qualitatively different behaviors.