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As my non-American $.02, I can see it as "pushing it" in the sense that I would probably not do it if I had kids that age (unless I found them unusually mature) and might advice likewise to people in my environment, but on the other hand it seems insane that this would result in police getting involved and the children being taken away. In that sense, I'm a bit taken aback by your comment on a meta level; it comes across to me like someone got arrested for their breakfast choice, and then you chime in that if they really did put honey on peanut butter then this does strike you as quite degenerate. The most important part of the argument, why your beliefs regarding what should be put on bread (or what kids may or may not be competent at) should have any bearing on whether police may use their mandate to punish unrelated people who act at odds with them, is conspicuously missing, as if if only enough representative salt-of-the-earth people thought likewise, jailing PB&J heretics would be the natural course of action. Is there no more liberal principle, that people may by default do whatever they want unless it impinges on one of a handful of predefined competing values like the integrity of the state or there is a compelling sense in which it conflicts with someone else's rights?
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