After the fact, it is easy to see everything. Your questions are designed to elicit the answers you WANT to hear. Most WANT to believe the parents have to be rotten because it makes them feel safely immune. You must also remember that the child is influencing the parenting as much as the parenting is influencing the child.
It's easy to be a good parent to a great kid. It is MUCH harder to be a good parent to a kid with difficulties.
I understand your point.
And I probably couldn't say there's 0.00000% of such going on.
However, many times, I have not questioned the parents at all directly. I've either observed from a distance or asked friends and relatives about whether this or that sort of phenomenon existed between dad or mom and the child. Invariably significant key markers that I've looked for have been missing.
Yes, some children are very difficult and take tons more time, energy, creativity, warmth, hugging, patience to connect with. Nevertheless, if a parent is going to be a parent, it seems to me, that at least the minimum tolerable commitment they are making is
TO CONNECT WITH THAT CHILD sufficiently for the child to develop into a healthy productive adult.
Tooooooooo many other things take priority--sometimes even providing the child THINGS to keep up with the Jones' kids. Then there's the parents' own egos, status, obsessions, addictions, workaholism etc. Those are all CHOICES PARENTS make.
CHILDREN SPELL LOVE . . . . T I M E.
Few modern parents insure sufficient quantities of it at all, much less in warm, receptive, listening modes.
Understandably, many kids grow up convinced that parents love their cars, their clubs, their jobs, their clothes, their images, their press clippings, their pride, their games, their TV shoes . . . MORE than they love the child.
Doesn't exactly give the children a leg-up on life.
You may not be aware of a study of all the studies of child rearing practices some 25-35 years ago.
They compared all the variables they could. Socio-economic status; discipline styles--authoritarian, authoritative, laissez faire (sp); consensus; democratic etc.; number of children; geographic areas; rural, city; education levels; IQ etc.
There was ONE variable which accounted for more than 80% of the varience.
The criteria of measure used over the longitudinal studies was:
As adults, did the children
1) stay off welfare
2) stay productively employed
3) stay married
4) stay out of trouble with the law
That was defined as success as an adult.
Can you guess what that one variable was?
Whether or not the child
FELT
loved.
NOT: WAS the child loved--but
DID THE CHILD *******FEEL******* LOVED.
That tends to be a huge difference in some situations.
Hasn't always been after the fact, either.
I've often made predictions of 1-2 year olds and noted that when those children got to be teens in that home, that there would be hell to pay. I was rarely wrong.
"It's easy to be a good parent to a great kid. It is MUCH harder to be a good parent to a kid with difficulties."
You nailed it. You can also have a very disturbed kid who can act pretty darn normal on the outside. The kids who act out at least vent their feelings. It's the quiet ones that often blow without any warning.
Apparently neither set of parents bothered to notice their kids even had difficulties. That's not good parenting. The Klebolds are in such denial -
"I'm a quantitative person," said Tom, a former geophysicist. "We're not qualified to sort this out." They long for some authoritative study that will provide an answer. "People need to understand," Tom said, "this could have happened to them."
The father admits his lack of parenting skills which goes back to the old saying about the need get a license to have kids. He needs a study to tell him he failed to see the signs? Hmm, lets see, how about taking a look in his son's room and getting to know his son's friends? Eric's parents were just as dense. How many homemade bombs does one have to move off the coffee table to buy a clue?