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Notes -
I think there’s a bit of a false comparison.
Yes, we’re protective of kids in the USA, more so than Europe. But we are also not like Europe in enough ways that the comparison is silly. Europe has very low crime, robust public transport, and walkable public spaces. The USA has almost none of that, and the cities that do have public transport generally have so much crime in the trains or subway that you couldn’t even consider using it especially after dark. The roads in the USA are designed around fast cars and it would be almost impossible to walk to a business from a suburban home without encountering a street that has a speed limit of 40-50 mph. Letting a child walk to a store alone in Europe is not a big deal because the odds of encounters with crime are low and you have trains or subways and wide sidewalks to get around car traffic.
That's true, but there are places in the US with low crime, probably lower than seedier areas of Europe; yet it seems like even (maybe especially) those safe places in the US have nosy neighbors and aggressive CPS, like the 5-year old situation happened in a gated community. Moreover, third-world countries that are more unsafe than the US (at least most areas where these incidents happen) don't have this problem.
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