The CA/CO law only requires the option to enable parental controls on an account, and as the article points out, can be worked around by a sufficiently determined child using something like a virtual machine. This is not really the government deciding how children should be raised. The parent still has the ability to choose to apply the parental controls.

It's more like the rule that minors can't buy alcohol in bars - parents can still buy alcohol at the supermarket for their children, and sufficiently determined children can find some other adult to buy it for them.

Probably by the time you know how to install a virtual machine, you can handle the unrestricted internet.