I am convinced that the above, along with other “hassle the parents laws” are all forms of population control. The government is trying hard to make it expensive and a hassle to have kids to deter the masses from having too many.
I think part of it is that we aren’t as close knit of a society as we used to be. All the families in a neighborhood knew each other, and kept eyes on each other. There would be a Gladys Kravitz type, sure, but the Moms (correction: housewife stay at home moms) knew all the kids and the kids looked out for each other.
I remember, strongly, my Mom and Grandmother talking about how they’d grown up with the prevelant fear that Gypsies were going to kidnap them. So that kind of fear is nothing new. What is new is a knowlege that if something like that were attempted, kids would have less options to quickly get away and to safety.