Recently, I wrote about a new “free-range parenting” law South Carolina is considering. The proposed law mirrors one enacted by Utah last year. Both are trying to protect parents from neglect charges for things like letting their kids play unsupervised at a playground. They are a response to situations in which parents were prosecuted or otherwise tormented for using their discretion about when their kids could be left alone.

We aren’t talking about toddlers playing near highways. We are talking about school-age children doing things that a generation ago would have been commonplace.

One example is the Meitiv family, who let their children, ages 10 and 6 at the time, play alone at a playground near their home in Maryland. On the children’s walk home, police officers picked them up, promising to drive them home. Instead, police and Child Protective Services detained them for hours, and no one called their parents. The Meitivs were subjected to a CPS investigation.

Another case involves Debra Harrell, a single mom from South Carolina. She allowed her 9-year-old daughter to play at a park while she worked her shift at McDonald’s. Rather than keeping an eye on the child, someone at the park called police instead. Harrell spent 17 days in jail and temporarily lost custody of her daughter.

Stories like these are widely publicized. It makes run-ins with the police seem more commonplace than they are. They contribute to parents’ fear that “authorities” will take their kids away. That, in turn, creates a more restrictive parenting culture. But it’s not fear of legal repercussions, but fear of harassment by neighbors, that keeps some parents hovering over their kids.

Most people will not get arrested for their free-range parenting choices. But they will get yelled at, lectured, and met with looks of disapproval.