After some high profile incidents states started passing laws to protect the children of reckless parents but in their panic they didn't spend enough time defin

After some high profile incidents states started passing laws to protect the children of reckless parents but in their panic they didn't spend enough time defining what endangering a child really means. Child protective laws are difficult because you can't just enumerate the list of things that could harm a child so they need to be somewhat vague but the way words like "endanger" are interpreted by people turns out to vary widely (shocker!). In the case of Utah, things like letting your children walk home alone or go to the park by themselves was already considered perfectly fine by Utah's Child Protective Services (who supported the passage of this law) but they were still obligated to open investigations when someone reported these innocuous events. Now they don't need to.