I don't think I expressed myself as well as I meant to, I wasn't meaning to make an argument of semantics, but rather show the difference in points of view. For example:
Let's a say you have a set of parents that never let their child play outside, now at first glance that might seem cruel. What if a doctor told them that if their child plays outside he will very likely die? Then they have a good reason, or at least they think they do. But what if that doctor turns out to be a quack, and their child will actually be no worse off if he goes outside? Then the parents aren't cruel they just failed to get a second opinion. (Which I would call lazy, but that does not equate to cruel.)
And you also have to keep in mind that this "doctor" is an old friend of the family who has been taking care of their medical needs for decades, meaning that they are going to automatically try to ignore anything negative about him, and may even fear that getting a second opinion would offend him.
From their point of view they are expressing love, but as is often the case they lack the full picture, and if the child did go outside despite their rules, they may even punish him, but that doesn't mean they don't love the child. Just that have been tricked into this situation in which they administer a punishment that doesn't actually help anyone.