> The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids.

A good question to ask is why these people are making the decision to have children in the first place if this is how they treat them.

Maybe an order of magnitude or so less people should have children. People who want to have their cake and eat it too, raising their children largely passively, shouldn't be having kids at all. It's not something you "need" to do or should do without a very good reason and high confidence in your ability to do so effectively. Society should be strongly discouraging these kinds of people from having kids, but it's currently encouraging them.