Hmm... The problem as I see it, for parents, is that there are literally hundreds of books on childcare, many of which give conflicting advice. The government puts certain responsibilities on parents, while restricting the range of methods the parents can use to enforce the government's will. If the government could publish a manual of parenting which explains how (for example) one gets a truanting teenager to attend school, then I think it could be justified in levying fines (as it currently does) on parents of such teenagers who do not mend their ways. If the parent could then demonstrate that they'd done everything legally possible, everything the manual says they can or must do, then they could be absolved of responsibility for their child's mis-doings. This might prompt the government into upgrading the manual until they actually have methods that work and that are thereby available to all to use.

You can't punish or criticise people for doing something badly when no-one has a definitive template to judge it against, assuming they're acting in good faith and with good intentions, as most parents do. As my dad said: "We're all amateurs at this."