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There's a lot to discuss in the original NYT article.

The first two paragraphs describe a family of happy children. This was a red-flag to me because I suspected the authors were setting-up a false narrative.

Later in the piece we read this:

In some ways, he was a great dad, for he loved his two daughters, Amber and Andrea, and they idolized him. But theirs was not an optimal upbringing: In one of Amber’s baby pictures, there’s a plate of cocaine in the background.

And this:

A local school official sighs that some children are “feral.”

What is described in the first paragraph is a false reality. A singular moment in time when these kids were happy for a fleeting moment does not tell us anything about the realities of this family.

Despite the 'warm and fuzzy' intro, the truth is this was a dysfunctional family on many levels.

To believe a moment of joy on a bus represented what this family was is an outright lie. This wasn't an 'Ozzie and Harriot' family. Even the real Ozzie and Harriot wasn't an 'Ozzie and Harriot' family.

You might look across the street and see the kids playing and laughing with each other but you have no idea what their life may be behind closed doors.

How often do you read an article about a crime and the neighbors and friends are quoted saying, 'They were a great family. Their kids played with my kids. I'm shocked by what happened'?

'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Leo Tolstoy.

The first two paragraphs of this piece are a false narrative. We're led to falsely believe this was a happy family and that external forces ("society") are to blame for what went wrong.

What went wrong for this family happened within the family. It doesn't represent a broader shift in society and it's wrong to extrapolate their downfall to external factors.

The family failed not because society failed them but because the parents failed their children.