Editorial Parents shouldn’t need a ‘free-range children’ law to raise their kids

“It’s important to remember that parental authority is not granted by government.”

In an era when Americans are reasonably torn between protecting their kids’ freedom and their kids’ security, it can feel like parents get the short end of the stick either way. Some culture warriors want kids free from the authority of their moms and dads. Others want to put them under greater government authority. Still others want both.

It’s frustrating to think we need to pass new laws to save traditional parent-child relationships. But Utah’s first-inthe-nation “free-range children” law makes a strong case for that kind of drastic action.

The law codifies a newly precise definition of child neglect, ensuring that a child “whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm” can act independently without parental supervision in some very basic ways. Now, Utah kids can “walk, run or bike to and from school, travel to commercial or recreational facilities, play outside and remain at home unattended,” and parents can raise them to handle those activities without fear of state reprisal.

That’s a big deal when it’s so easy today to get parents in deep, lasting trouble with the law just by alleging misconduct in often-secret reports to child services. Utah now bars its child welfare officials from taking parents’ kids away on the basis of activities covered in the free-range law.

Despite the value of codifying common sense in this way, there’s a risk. Back when the Bill of Rights was debated, some Founders objected that enshrining natural or customary rights in the Constitution would paradoxically make it easier to wipe them out by repealing amendments.

It’s important to remember that parental authority is not granted by government.

Still, the push to treat more and more issues as matters of “public health” or “national security” is the biggest threat to America’s traditional culture of balancing private freedom and public responsibility. Annoying as it might be to have to push back by piling on laws we shouldn’t need to pass, there’s probably not much choice until more people come to accept the proper limits of politics.