For many, the Adrian Peterson child abuse case spanning Texas to Minnesota has been tough to grasp as, up until several weeks ago, he was viewed by most people who knew anything about him as a good man, not just a great football player for the Minnesota Vikings. Compounding matters is that the charges against him have exposed a parallel universe of baby making and child rearing that most Americans don’t get to see every day. But when they do, most find it hard to fathom.

It’s not irrelevant to matters at hand that Peterson has fathered at least four children with perhaps four different women, including one who’s now his wife. At least one (unconfirmed) report saying he has sired as many as seven children with an unspecified number of women. And it’s decidedly not irrelevant that one of his children—a two-year-old son who he had known nothing about—was murdered last year by a boyfriend of the child’s mother.