One factor here is that people spend much more time with their kids than they used to. There was an article recently, I think on the NYTimes, and my comment would be much better if I could find the link with the data, but here goes. I am reconstructing this from memory, and unfortunately, I have to admit, I may not remember this accurately...

I read that the amount of time married men spend, on average, with their children in 2017 exceeds the time that married women spent with their children in 1960 (hand waiving, I really wish I could find that link). So, now that men have stepped up, women are able to spend more time on leisure and work, right? Nope! Women almost doubled their time with children in that time period. I think it was 54 minutes per day for a woman in 1960, and something much lower for men. Now, 56 minutes per day for married men, and 106 per day for married women[1].

The tragic thing here is, I don't think it's even all that good for the kids, past a point. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, in SF west of twin peaks, and yeah, even here in SF, we would leave the house, find our pack of neighborhood kids, and not come back until someone yelled "dinner", at which point the kids would all start to go home. My parents and grandparents had similar experiences.

That is gone. At least in SF. There is a little bit out outdoor play, but it's a whisker of what it used to be. A tiny fraction.

And like I said, the sad thing is, I don't think all this supervision is good for kids, not to this extent. I see parents, more often women but plenty often men, standing outside a skate park, bored, browsing their phones, then getting the kids into the car and driving them off to their next scheduled thing. Hell, a supervised skate park visit is the most unstructured thing they'll do that day, more often it's a dance class, then a cello class, then baseball practice, them swimming lessons.

Oh, this is even more ironic - if the data is correct, women spent less time on child care back in 1960 when they spent less time at work! So the increase in child care is coming out of a diminished amount of leisure time, not more.

Yeah, of course this makes people unhappy. And like I said, the real tragedy is, I seriously doubt it makes the kids any happier. It's not that they don't want time with their parents, they do, they often love that time. But they don't need constant supervision - if they knew better (many kids today don't even know what that play outside freedom feels like), they'd realize they're happier without constant supervision as well.

Not sure why this all happened. I don't quite buy the theory that we all became irrationally afraid. I think something else happened here, something that brought about the collapse of a critical mass of kids. I'd let my kids play outside, but there's no pack there anyway (of course, in SF, the population of kids under 18 has collapsed in my lifetime, maybe there are greener pastures - but I've read this has happened all over the place, not just in cites that have experienced a huge drop in the population of children - also, my neighborhood is one of the few in SF that still does have a lot of kids, they just don't play outside anymore)

[1] This will be the last time I say this - sorry, I don't have the link, this is as best I can remember.