picture in my mind

Alhamdulillah, more of the science saying what the Quraan (and apparently many other spiritual systems too) has always been saying about the heart.

The Quraan has always mentioned about how the heart thinks 

(literally, God often asks and reprimands, "Do you not have hearts that think?")

I've been reading up a lot on infant-attachment theories, parenting behaviour, theory of mind, and sociopathic tendencies, in view of my current social skills clinic training. Man, is this stuff fascinating or what. For example, if you often leave a child to cry and console itself in the first 6 months of life, then you've missed a crucial emotional bonding development window; after which, the child grows up not really caring if the parent or a random adult attends to them i.e. they don't have proper emotional attachment with a parent (honestly, it's natural for kids to scream bloody murder until they get, specifically, Mummy, and not anyone else). If you leave these children at childcare or with random strangers, they're likely to cry less or not cry at all. Which sounds awesome -- at first. Until you learn that it's a common symptom of sociopathic individuals! Who cannot form true emotional bonds, cannot trust, and cannot empathise!

I'd just like to say, I am very grateful for my parents. How much a parent affects the development of a child in the first few years of life especially is unspeakably huge. It affects one's entire life trajectory, almost. This is probably why in the hierarchy of gratitude, after Allah and the Prophet s.a.w., parents come next.

Everyone grows up learning how their parents fall short in some ways. They're human too. So when you're old enough to reflect and think, learn to forgive them, and be grateful for them, and return their love. How some people can stay resentful to their parents is plain immaturity to me. Do you not know that even your most basic functions of living, your ability to give and receive love of any kind, and your ability to think rationally, can be attributed to those first years of life when they didn't abuse, neglect or abandon you? If they had even in some small way done any of that, Subhanallah, you would have grown and turned out quite differently, likely for the worse.