This terribly interesting essay in the NYT discusses the paradox of good parents with bad children. Not “bad” in the sense that they grow up to be bank robbers, but that they are just mean individuals. For all of the talk about how children are the product of their environment — which is clearly very often true — we often hear a focus on positive parenting turning out positive children, bad parenting turning out bad seeds or children who overcome bad parenting to turn into well-adjusted adults. This is a different story.