And yeah, maybe you say that's not you at all. Maybe your only sin is that occasionally, you drink too much or curse your children like strangers. Maybe you just smack your spouse around once in a while. Parents too busy with their own dysfunctions to do right by their kid. Parents too damn selfish and self-absorbed to even realize that he is there.
Truth is, even under the best of circumstances, raising a kid is a difficult job with no guarantees.
Indeed, you can smell it coming like rain on the wind. You look into the dull and lightless eyes of a child who's been allowed to see things children ought not and it shakes you. Makes you grieve for innocence lost before its time. Understand that the child's parents may have themselves been raised by bad parents and so not know any better. Understand the role that lack of money, incompleteness of education and meanness of streets can play in warping good intentions, in making things come out malformed and wrong.