Following up on my earlier post:
As most of us do, I know people who have kids but aren't around them anymore or haven't been much of a parent all along. If one of those kids dies, then -- assuming I don't already know the parents killed the kid themselves -- I'll express my sympathies to the parents because it's the decent thing to do. It doesn't mean I approve of their parenting skills. It doesn't even mean I like them. And I'm sure not going to put them through a vetting process to determine if they're deserving of receiving human kindness. A child died, and that's reason enough. If the sympathies are wasted on the parents, that's their cross to bear.
That is why I took issue with the Mushnick article, written how it was and when it was. My mom would kick my rear end for being that much of a jerk just as surely as she would have kicked it for having multiple children out of wedlock.