You can't ask parents in the US to be responsible for their kids. Parents' lawsuits led playgrounds to be engineered as sterile, boring, and lawsuit-free. We're

You can't ask parents in the US to be responsible for their kids. Parents' lawsuits led playgrounds to be engineered as sterile, boring, and lawsuit-free. We're also puritanical, as the biggest argument parents give against same sex marriage is having to explain it to their kids. And we're stupid, as the general view is that trusting young people or giving them responsibility would lead to them hurting themselves more. Parents even get in terrible for letting their kids just walk around. (The irony being that we let them drive at 16 and join the military at 18)