Illinois lawyers [0] and child's rights policy thinkers [1] had evaluated it to mean a child under 14 can not be 'reasonably' left alone, up until 2023. It looks like you are correct and they updated it recently under an amended 705 ILCS 405/2-3 in January 2023.

Unless your child was born in the past couple years or following legislation, I think most people don't realize this, as even most the law firms still have the old '14' as the min age on their neglect pages. So you are correct with the asterisk that it glosses over that it was the case up until the past couple years and you are updating us on a new development.

>Your opinion on "CPS" in Illinois (I assume you meant DCFS and not Chicago Public Schools) is based on not understanding a single paragraph of the law that is written to be readable by the general public.

My opinion is based on what legal advice I got when I last researched it a few years ago. A lot of Illinois law is read in the context of common law precedent that makes the actual text less reliable. Mea Culpa.

[0] https://www.mkfmlaw.com/blog/at-what-age-can-a-child-be-left...

[1] https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-has-highest-home-alo...