The child can indeed become an innocent victim of parental neglect if parental expectations, ideas, and inner problems begin to determine the attitude toward the child at the expense of who he truly is.

Conditional Love: When Parental Expectations Betray Innocence

The child can indeed become an innocent victim of parental neglect if parental expectations, ideas, and inner problems begin to determine the attitude toward the child at the expense of who he truly is. Several texts emphasize that parents often project their own ambitions, unfulfilled dreams, or even complexes onto the child, which leads even an innocent child to feel like an object of condemnation and rejection.

For example, as noted in one source, if parents constantly see the child not as an independent individual but as a reflection of their own unfulfilled expectations, then any deviation from the desired behavior automatically becomes proof of a lack of love:"If you don’t love, everything annoys, she’s always at fault, and poor thing can never justify herself… Is the child always at fault with us?

Then we don’t love him." (source: link txt)

The second aspect is the conditionality of parental love, when love is provided only on the condition that the child fulfills the imposed image or the ambitious plan of the parents. If the child cannot embody these dreams or expectations, their evaluation of him changes drastically:
"In the future, it will be difficult for him to regard a woman as an individual, someone just like him—a person with reason and emotions. Ambitious love is conditional love: 'If you fulfill my dreams, embody my dreams in life, I love you. If not, I treat you differently.'" (source: link txt)

Another reason is the inability of parents to love themselves, which reflects in their attitude toward their children. Parental neglect may arise not so much because of the child's fault, but due to the adults' errors in understanding and expressing their own emotions. It turns out that a lack of inner love and self-confidence forces parents to demand that the child justify their expectations, which leads to the child feeling rejected:
"First: parents are ignorant about accessing the source of love—God or their own ideas of God, which they pass on to their children are distorted. Second reason: parents do not love themselves... The third reason for the insufficiency of love for children is that parents mistakenly believe that children are obliged to justify their expectations." (source: link txt)

Finally, when children are seen by their parents as movable property or as a means to achieve personal goals, any discrepancy between expectations and reality is perceived as confirmation of their dislike:
"Many parents consider their children as movable property, as a form of possession. ... A father or mother, with words filled with deadly venom, says: 'I don't love you like that!' ... The child begins to feel unloved." (source: link txt)

Thus, an innocent child can become the object of parental neglect due to several factors:
1. The projection of parents' own ambitions and unfulfilled dreams onto the child's personality, making love conditional and dependent on the successful realization of these ambitions.
2. The internal problems of the parents, such as low self-esteem and an inability to love themselves, which turn their expectations into a form of emotional distance and even hostility.
3. The treatment of the child as property or a tool for personal satisfaction, which deprives him of the right to unconditional love and acceptance.

Supporting quotes:
"If you don’t love, everything annoys, she’s always at fault, and poor thing can never justify herself. Is the child always at fault with us? Then we don’t love him." (source: link txt)

"In the future, it will be difficult for him to regard a woman as an individual, someone just like him—a person with reason and emotions. Ambitious love is conditional love: 'If you fulfill my dreams, embody my dreams in life, I love you. If not, I treat you differently.'" (source: link txt)

"First: parents are ignorant about accessing the source of love—God or their own ideas of God, which they pass on to their children are distorted. Second reason: parents do not love themselves... The third reason for the insufficiency of love for children is that parents mistakenly believe that children are obliged to justify their expectations." (source: link txt)

"Many parents consider their children as movable property, as a form of possession. ... A father or mother, with words filled with deadly venom, says: 'I don't love you like that!' ... The child begins to feel unloved." (source: link txt)