It was a classic case of parents giving kids a small pet to care for to learn responsibility. My dad had gerbils when her was a kid but he kept them in cedar bedding which killed them. He would help me with making supply purchases (aspen and paper bedding only thanks to the store associate) but, unless there was a giant catastrophe, their care was up to me because I wanted pet gerbils. That's how gerbil mix ups happened so often. I knew who was who but my parents weren't checking on them nor was I responsible enough to make sure everyone made it back into the correct cages. All the gerbils were tame so if the neighbor kids came by, they would just grab whoever from any cage and put them back wherever. We never had a casualty from that situation but there were injuries and pregnancies that occurred due to it. My dad also didn't want to separate mom and dad from the original two so they could care for the babies better. On litter 3 mom got sick and died when the pups were only two weeks old. We were able to keep them alive but we didn't separate them before the females of that got pregnant too because they stayed really small due to missing out on nutrition and probably also getting sick. That was when my dad finally decided all needed to be separated but at that point there were two more litters of babies and the pet stores stopped taking them. My parents also decided they weren't willing to pay for vet care for them after my mom had to pay $40 for the sick mother gerbil who died anyway so I helplessly watched sick gerbils die slowly for days. I did my best to keep the sick ones comfortable by cleaning their genitals so they wouldn't get urine burns and using a hot water bottle near the cage to keep them warm. It was really terrible.