Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby don't love their children at all, only giving their love to each other.
Just when it looks like the parents are going to turn their lives around, they cruelly shove their children aside and take the dirigible. That's right, they left their own kids to freeze to death.
A reviewer describes Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby's relationship as " Gomez and Morticiaif they hated their children", which is so accurate it hurts.
The fact that the children don't have separate rooms. They’re all crammed into a bare-boned attic with only hammocks to sleep in.
The fact that the children aren't even allowed to have a fresh meal. Their parents force them to wait for leftovers, and half the time they don't even leave the children any of those. It's frankly a miracle the kids didn't starve to death long ago.
The Barnabys are forced to share a sweater, even though their mother is constantly knitting. It's difficult to imagine how they even got the single sweater out of her, or if she even gave it to them at all. It's possible they had to steal it just like they had to steal the food.
It's clear that they cherish that sweater so much. When they try to pass it between each other on top of the mountain and it shatters in the cold, they're devastated.
Based on the tally marks on the wall, Tim has spent a lot of time in the coal cellar as punishment.
Jane singing to herself-only to be yelled at to be quiet.
The parents ordering the kids to get rid of the orphaned baby without any concern for her fate for safety, showing it isn't just their own kids they're apathetic and disdainful towards.
Just the very thought that the baby was rejected by both her biological parents and her would-be adopted parents, all on the same day.
What's more, their ultimatum, which they end up screaming toward the kids, that they are not be allowed to return home until they got rid of the baby somehow. To top it off, it's the last straw for Jane, who had just gotten attached to the infant.
Nanny's reaction to the coal bin. It's the first time she starts to realize just how horrible the Willoughby parents are to their children.
The reveal that Tim wrongfully ratted Nanny out to CPS. Tim’s My God, What Have I Done? reaction and everyone else’s disappointed looks speak volumes.
Made even sadder when you think about it from Tim's perspective. He had just started to trust her until finding a message from his parents telling her that they've sold the house and to get rid of the kids (possibly to give them up to the CPS). Believing that Nanny was still working for his parents, he calls the CPS to report her, but the next day, finds out that not only did she take part in their plan to save the house, but decided not to give them up. Tim is relived and hugs her but by then, it's too late; Orphan Services shows up and the above happens.
The Willoughbys getting separated into different foster homes.
The children are all put in homes that pertain to their interests, such as Jane in a family that loves to sing and the twins in a home full of electronics and the internet, but they are miserable without each other.
Later, when Tim runs away from his newest foster family, he find that his childhood home has been sold and demolished.
This is especially sad when one considers that household was a memento to past generations Willoughbys who were quite ironically actual good parents compared to today'sWilloughbyparents. And now, thanks to the chain of events, it's gone...
And to top it off, Tim, after running away from his foster families too many times, is apparently labelled "unplaceable" by Orphan Services and is confined to a cell at their headquarters. It's especially sad, considering he now seemingly has no one to give him the love and proper care he has been deprived of for his entire life (having rejected it from both Nanny and his foster families), and on top of that, he is stuck living alone with the overwhelming guilt of having driven away the one adult who had ever truly cared for him and his siblings, and subsequently broken up his family as a result. This is heightened by the numerous bowls of uneaten oatmeal seen in his cell later, indicating his refusal to eat out of his guilt, and possible desire to starve himself to death as comeuppance for what his actions have done.
The kids huddling together as they embrace before being potentially frozen to death. Thankfully they are found by Nanny, Melanoff and Ruth.
Tim hugging Nanny for the first time, and just clinging to her. This is almost certainly the first time he's received any sort of physical affection from an adult in his life.
