Fortunately I own my firewall. Though mostly I'm talking about linux machines that I own and control the software on.
Though I fully understand I'm in the same camp as oppressive nation states. But until my kids get older I'm in charge, I need to set them up for success in life, which is a complex balance of letting them have freedom without allowing them to make too many bad decisions. Not getting their homework done because they are watching videos is on bad decisions I'm trying to prevent.
Importantly, this is a reasonable thing to do because sites like Youtube are designed to draw their attention away from whatever important thing they're doing so that Youtube can serve them advertisements. So anyone thinking a parent trying to control what their kid watches is oppressive somehow is pretty deeply in the wrong. As a parent myself I would consider doing this to keep my son from falling into the traps that are set by giant multinational internet companies like Google to get him to form habits around Google instead of habits around what he wants or needs out of life.
So really instead of thinking about this like "parents are acting like nation states" I think it's much better to think of it like "parents are countering corporate nation states."
It's totally reasonable. My position is that I think network operators and owners should be able to do that they want. I was just pointing out that virtually any time a network operator or owner wants to control the traffic in their network a certain crowd comes out of the woodwork and decries abuse by bad actors.
Size and scope matters. Large network operators that have a de facto monopoly on Internet access in many places should absolutely not be able to do what they want, but this is a function of their market power, not something inherent to any network operator.
I was thinking more about embedded devices that people buy but don't own (Chromecast devices, "Smart" home doodads, etc). You can stick them in a VLAN and filter their access to the Internet but they're inscrutable inside and have opaque, encrypted communication with their "mother ship".
I think your goal with your kids is laudable. I do the same thing. It limits the ability to use off-the-shelf devices and software, and I'll get more flak about it as my daughter gets older and is excluded from the "social" applications that I can't allow her to use because they're closed-source and not able to be effectively filtered. I'll burn that bridge when I get there, I suppose...
Though I fully understand I'm in the same camp as oppressive nation states. But until my kids get older I'm in charge, I need to set them up for success in life, which is a complex balance of letting them have freedom without allowing them to make too many bad decisions. Not getting their homework done because they are watching videos is on bad decisions I'm trying to prevent.