If you think about it, the Hortons family have had a lot of "screw ups". They have all that their share of misfortune – Mickey/Bill and Laura (Mickey’s son is really Bill’s and then Laura is committed- where she meets Jack, Julie and her wild ways (David Banning) and marrying her mother’s husband Doug, making her Hope’s step mother and half sister, Tom the war hero, Marie the nun, Mickey and Bonnie, just to mention a few.
The Horton family on the surface is an upstanding founding family, but deep down there are more skeletons in their closet than in a haunted house. Not to mention starting out as ole line Protestants to becoming Catholic!