Bidirectional ADHD: can lack of attention cause lack of attention?

In my career I have reported on occasion how Ritalin and other stimulants can be life- changing in positive ways for children and adults with ADHD.

But I also have to wonder how many "attention deficits" are actually the result of children and the adults they ultimately become, who did not feel their emotional needs were being met: in other words, the attention deficit was in the parents or others who did not pay enough or the "right" kind of attention to the child.

Why didn't they? Perhaps that is the heredity factor in the condition: generations of people too (fill in the blank: sorrowful, distracted, angry, addicted, vain...) to fully love the ones that needed them to.