Tragic indeed, and I've told my wife far too many times how hard we would lay into her grandma for dropping the parenting bar. It's bizarre how direct and open Khmers can be when commenting on one's physical appearance, income, etc., but when it comes to the stuff that actually matters, the culture doesn't permit criticizing like this, which I feel allows more societal and moral decay.
I find it's a common thing here that a woman marries a guy and a has a few children, but because folks often marry too young here and also don't discover themselves until much later in life, these first families/marriages end in divorce or partial separations. All too often the new love/husband refuses to be a stepdad and wants genetic children only, I guess because the thought of mixing new "mini me's" with some other guys kids is just unacceptable.
If our neighbors lived in Kentuckiana, everyone would eventually get choked out within a few weeks for acting the way they do. I'm not a huge fan of my country, but I am glad that we as citizens do hold each other to a certain standard of human decency.