The world has changed.
The author Beverly Cleary, who was also a children’s librarian, wrote the Beezus and Ramona series of books in the 1950s, set in Portland, Ore.
Nine year old Beezus goes to an art program at the library in the company of four year old Ramona, and leaves her little sister outside in the playground while she paints, and this is NORMAL, HEALTHY, RESPONSIBLE behavior for that time and place, for big sister and parents.
I walked half a mile to kindergarten at five by myself in the late 1960s, but I was often very frightened. One generation later, all the children under twelve perhaps, were getting rides or parent escorts.
I don’t think it’s changed as much as what people think...
I think it just gets talked about and publicized at every turn now where before the things were ‘taken care of’ when discovered... both to deal with the perpetrator and save the victim the public shame they often felt.
That and the publication is another way for the overlords to attempt to control our behavior.