Children deserve parents who have thought about the responsibility of parenting and settled on fulfilling that responsibility – before bringing children into the world. They deserve sufficient and healthy food, an education, encouragement, and a safe place to live. They deserve two parents who love them.
They deserve direction.
The ability to think through, formulate, and make good decisions is due in large measure to the direction children receive growing up. These are life skills that must be learned, and parents are responsible for teaching them.
It may very well be that some children, even properly reared ones, go bad. There are a lot of influences in a child’s life and once the child leaves home, parents have little control (though they should always have a say and even an adult child should listen and consider the direction given). But if this happens, let it not be because the parents did not provide the necessary direction and guidance. As Solomon points out in 19:18, failure to do this makes the parents complicit in the failure of the child.