I've seen a pretty good handful of people just... blatantly denying the fact that max was/is being neglected?
I've noticed a pattern wherein it's often also the same people who hate dadvid with their whole heart (no shade). which, don't get me wrong, you don't gotta enjoy something if it doesn't float your boat, but i'll sometimes see people saying things such as:
"dadvid is so unrealistic because max isn't even being neglected! his parents are just busy, they still love him!"
and like... yeah, I can understand thinking they do, in fact, love him to an extent (since oftentimes situations such as these are more nuanced than just "his parents HATE him and want him DEAD") but even then, love on its own can't make up for the neglect he experienced, and I feel as if a lot of people think that loving someone = giving them the proper care they need, which just isn't true.
throughout the course of the show, there are a lot of actions and beliefs that max displays that are later explained to be a result of his neglect. specifically, his nihilistic and hopeless outlook. do children just pop out of the womb thinking that humanity is inherently crude and selfish? ("life sucks, and we live in a world of desensitized, apathetic assholes.") almost the entirety of who you are as a person is shaped by your environment, including the people around you and how you're treated by said people. childrens' entire world are their parents, and max believes that the entire world is inherently careless because his parents are careless.
even without involving max's psyche into the equation, other episodes also imply what max's parents are like (eggs benefits and especially parents day). eggs benefits is an episode showcasing the different parenting styles that the campers show as a direct reflection of how they were raised. neil is too involved (his father), nurf has a temper and fights w/ preston (his parents), and, naturally, max doesn't care in the slightest. ("we could just send it to a summer camp and have strangers take care of it for three months.") I feel like, even without parents day as a main source, this episode on its own makes it pretty obvious how uninvolved max's parents are as a whole.
it's actually impressive how many people i've seen denying the fact that parents day, at its core, is an episode about understanding max's circumstance first and foremost. order of the sparrow was about understanding david's point of view, and so naturally this episode is about understanding max's point of view. (i.e. his home life and how it has shaped him as a person.)
throughout the episode is this back and forth between david and max; max continually mentioning how his parents won't show up ("...because there's no way my folks are coming..." <<< said literally in the first ~minute), with david rebutting, denying max's statements and arguing that they're just late. (which, ironically, sounds a lot like certain people in fandom.)
the climax reveals that max's parents, in fact, do not care, contradicting what david was saying about them eventually showing up. max's sign-up sheet has no activity, no information on it other than his name for that matter, showing that max really did mean it when he mentioned time and time again that his parents just sent him to camp in order to get rid of him for the summer. (also, in the storyboards, there was a portion of the sign-up sheet that said "allergies: ask him," which imo might be one of the most incriminating details. what kind of parents don't know their sons' allergies?)
all of this to say: it mildly irritates me when I see people saying, "because max is a lying little ten-year-old he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to his parents! he just doesn't understand how much they do for him!" it just gives the impression that people would rather make up information regarding characters we barely know than listen to the neglected child.