Many parents are too afraid to allow even the smallest taste of that freedom — not because they think their children are in danger, but because they fear other adults.

I let my children — ages 9, 11, and 12 — walk half a mile to synagogue and about a mile to our local pizza shop. My fear is not that they will be abducted or hit by a car, because I know that statistically, those fears are vanishingly rare. My fear is that someone will see children walking alone, call 911, and unleash a bureaucratic nightmare that opens a Pandora’s box for our family.

That fear is not paranoia where I live.

My home of Montgomery County became nationally infamous after Danielle and Alexander Meitiv allowed their children, ages 10 and 6, to walk home from a park less than a mile away. Police picked the children up, Child Protective Services became involved, and the family endured years of investigations and scrutiny despite there being no actual abuse or harm. The family became one of the champions fighting against America’s increasingly hysterical parenting culture: a country where children can spend eight hours a day online absorbing pornography, violence, and algorithmically amplified anxiety, but walking home from a playground may trigger a neglect investigation.

All of this doesn’t just make being a parent annoying; it makes it feel impossible.

Politicians and pundits in America, not to mention many in the entire Western world, lament collapsing birth rates, delayed marriage, family instability, and social isolation. Conservatives, in particular, have spent years correctly arguing that America needs to become more pro-family. But being “pro-family” cannot just mean advocating for tax credits and delivering speeches about traditional values. It has to mean making everyday family life less hostile, less expensive, less stressful, and less terrifying.

Which is why Rep. Blake Moore’s (R-UT) forthcoming Promoting Childhood Independence and Resilience Act matters.

The bipartisan legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA), would clarify that allowing children to engage in reasonable independent activities — walking to school, biking around the neighborhood, playing outside, babysitting siblings, running errands — does not constitute neglect under federal child welfare standards.

On paper, this may sound modest. In practice, it is one of the most concretely pro-parent pieces of legislation legislators have advanced in years.

We have seen conversations over the last year about how family-friendly the Trump administration and congressional Republicans and Democrats want to be. There has been serious discussion about the birth rate crisis being rooted in the cost of raising children, the loneliness epidemic, and the collapse of civil society. But one reason Americans increasingly feel overwhelmed by parenthood is that modern parenting culture has transformed ordinary childhood into an exhausting, surveillance-heavy performance.

Parents are expected to supervise every second of their children’s childhoods. Every bike ride requires monitoring. Every walk requires an adult escort. Especially for middle-class families and above, the expectation is that every spare moment must be structured, optimized, scheduled, and observed. Parents who resist this culture are often treated not as relaxed or old-fashioned, but as neglectful and downright dangerous.

The result is not healthier children, it’s more anxious children and burned-out parents.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation documented what many parents already intuitively know: Children are suffering because they have lost opportunities for real-world independence while becoming consumed by virtual life. Children today spend dramatically less time in unstructured outdoor play than previous generations, while anxiety, depression, loneliness, and screen addiction soar.

And yet our culture continues to stigmatize and penalize exactly the kinds of parenting decisions that would help reverse those trends.

Parents are told to get children off screens, but then are investigated when they allow children to walk to the park. We tell children to become resilient and independent, while also communicating that the world is so dangerous that they cannot safely travel even a few blocks without adult supervision. We lament that children no longer socialize in person, even as we criminalize the very freedom that once made childhood friendships possible.

This is where Moore’s bill becomes more important than it appears at first glance. The legislation is not radical. It does not endorse negligence or eliminate child protection standards. It simply draws a sane distinction between actual abuse and ordinary childhood independence.

The current ambiguity in the law and its enforcement by government employees fosters a culture of fear.

Any parent who has dealt with Child Protective Services understands the terror involved. Even an unfounded report can mean interviews, home visits, legal expenses, reputational damage, and lasting emotional trauma. The process itself becomes punishment. Parents know this, which is why so many now default to keeping children indoors, supervised and glued to devices.

“Raising the next generation is among the greatest privileges of a parent’s lifetime, and the government should make every effort to support and encourage Americans who take on this responsibility,” Moore told the Washington Examiner.

That sounds obvious, but American culture increasingly sends the opposite message. Parenting often feels less like a respected social good and more like navigating a minefield where every decision carries the risk of judgment from schools, bureaucrats, strangers online, or state agencies.

“Parents shouldn’t feel judged for doing what’s right by their kids,” Moore continued. “We should make sure federal laws back up parents who get their kids off screens and out into the real world.”

That is exactly right.

A genuinely pro-family agenda is not merely about persuading Americans to have more children. It is about making family life feel manageable again. It is about restoring confidence that parents, not distant bureaucracies or nosy bystanders, are generally best positioned to judge what their own children can handle.

Moore’s legislation also recognizes something else many policymakers may not even realize: Overparenting is, in many ways, a luxury belief.

Affluent parents may be able to chauffeur children everywhere, supervise every moment, and outsource every risk. Working-class families often cannot. Children may need to walk home from school, briefly watch younger siblings, or entertain themselves while their parents work. Treating those realities as neglect disproportionately punishes poorer families while imposing upper-middle-class parenting norms on everyone else. Is it any wonder that parenting seems so financially daunting? 

The irony is that previous generations would likely view much of modern parenting culture as deeply unhealthy, and rightfully so. Children once learned responsibility by carrying it and developed confidence by exercising it. A child trusted to walk to a store alone internalizes a sense of competence in a way no television show or therapy session can replicate.

Moore captured that beautifully when he described the kinds of ordinary moments this legislation seeks to protect: “From going on bike rides with friends to walking to a neighbor’s house, from going to the local grocery store to playing games on a summer night — these are the memories and learning opportunities that shape childhoods and a pro-family culture.”

He is right again.

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED

Those moments are not incidental to childhood; they are the clearest picture of a healthy childhood.

If Republicans truly want to be the party of families, they should champion far more legislation like this: practical, bipartisan reforms that make raising children feel freer, saner, and less adversarial.

America will not solve its birth rate crisis simply by telling people to value family more. People already value family. What many no longer believe is that modern America makes family life workable or attainable. Making it easier to raise independent, resilient children is a very good place to start.