Meh. Times haven't changed that much. I mean, yeah, you've got a bunch of terrible parents ruining the school experience for everyone, suing and making recess illegal etc.
Sorry, Dready, but times have changed. A lot.
Teachers cannot, by law, hug a student - that law didn't exist
in the 70's. Little boys under 10 are officially labeled sex offenders
because they peeked under a little girls skirt. Not by terrible parents,
by the state. That didn't happen in the 70's. Recess games and
playground equipment are not banned because of terrible parents,
but by the laws of the states trying to protect children from getting
hurt or having their feelings hurt - that didn't happen in the 70's.
There were terrible parents in the 70's - it is the laws that changed.
I suspect that because you were't a teen (or under) in the 1970's
that you do not fully appreciate just how different it is now. The
so-called "nanny state" has it's heart in the right place - protecting
the innocent - but like many things, putting more laws on the books
does not, always, make things better. I appreciate that your parents
pretty much left you unsupervised from the time you were maybe 7
or 8 - but the laws governing your school were very different than
the laws I grew up with. Our parents may have been very similar, the
laws are not. Today, a 14 year old learning stagecraft in middle school
is not even allowed to operate a followspot because they may get burned
touching the hot metal.