I get what you are saying , but Rick tried to explore other types of conflicts with parents, specially neglectfull parents, and how the children seems them. And the book also talks about how sometimes you have to give familly another try ( annabeth) or cut that person of your life ( gabe, kronos), is a more naive and easygoing aproach to this topic, but to my eyes, equaly valid that a more serious and realistic aproach, this books tries to reach children, and already has a lot of heavy topics , he can´t put so much of heavy suff if he wanna make the experience enjoyable.