What’s Driving the Kafkaesque Crackdown on ‘Free-Range Parenting’?

From George Will at National Review:

Today’s saturating media tug children beyond childhood prematurely, but not to maturity. Children are cosseted by intensive parenting that encourages passivity and dependency, and stunts their abilities to improvise, adapt, and weigh risks. Mark Hemingway, writing at the Federalist, asks: “You know what it’s called when kids make mistakes without adult supervision and have to wrestle with the resulting consequences? Growing up.”

Increased knowledge of early-childhood development has produced increased belief in a “science” of child rearing. This has increased intolerance of parenting that deviates from norms that are as changeable as most intellectual fads.

By extension, the sole purpose of redefining parenting is to INCREASE dependency on government.