[magduf]

From my reading of your link, it looks like the incident that brought her fame/infamy happened in 2008. That's right during America's obsession with helicopter parenting, so the timeline makes sense.

If you go back to the 1980s, what she did wouldn't have been that remarkable. In that time, kids like me were gone from home for hours, walking or riding bikes for miles away from home, and we didn't have cellphones for our parents to keep tabs on us. Statistics show that crime rates were much higher (they peaked in the mid-70s, and have been falling since); the difference is that Americans just weren't paranoid back then the way they are now.