In the case of the classic Western helicopter parent, it starts with Baby Einstein and reward charts for toilet training, and it never really ends, which is why colleges have to devote so many resources to teaching parents how to leave their kids alone.

A lot of camps and summer programs for kids seem to have discovered that among the most valuable things they offer is what they don't offer. No Wi-Fi. No grades. No hovering parents or risk managers or parents who parent like risk managers.

In many parts of the world, more people have access to a mobile device than to a toilet or running water.

All wars, even the noblest, bring a reckoning of means and ends.

This bill doesn't interfere with what parents teach their kids, but what it does do is prevent parent's from teaching somebody else's kid how to drink. One kid dies and a block away a family is having a party for their kid with drinking. What that couple did was outrageous.

I'm sentimental about many things: the lumpy feel of a baby's unused feet, the metallic smell of the air before the first snow, the last scene in 'It's a Wonderful Life.' But Valentine's Day leaves me cold.