Jackson Was Loving and Attentive Father, Many Say

US Weekly editor Janice Min, whose magazine reported on Jackson's children this week, was surprised to discover how positive an outlook many Jackson associates had on the kids and their lives. "I would have thought it was a very gloom-and-doom picture, but across the board, everyone talked about these nice and seemingly normal kids," she says.

Still, for many people, the hardest thing to get past about Jackson's parenting style was those facial disguises. Geller, for one, is convinced the family saw it as a game. "It was a private joke on the media between Michael and the kids — the kids loved it," Geller says. "That's what Michael told me."

But others speak of more serious reasons. Stacy Brown, a former Jackson family confidant who fell out with the family at the time of the 2005 molestation trial — he was a prosecution witness — says Michael was truly afraid of kidnapping. But also, Brown notes, there was a strategy: If the kids wore masks when they were with Jackson, they could go safely unmasked when they weren't with him.

Still, says Brown, who co-wrote "The Man Behind the Mask," a Jackson biography, "mentally, it was just not right. Why put a mask on these beautiful children?"

There may be another, more poignant reason. "He detested the media interest in whether he looked like his children," says Boteach, the rabbi. "I think that was another concern. Those rumors were hurtful to them."

Such discussion has only increased since Jackson's death, as the world wonders not only who will get custody of the children but also whether Jackson is their biological father. Jackson's ex-wife, Deborah Rowe, the mother of the two older children, says the children were conceived by artificial insemination. The surrogate mother of the youngest has not been revealed.

For now, Rowe is weighing whether to seek custody of her two children, while Katherine Jackson, the singer's 79-year-old mother, has temporary guardianship of all three. Jackson's will asks that permanent custody go to his mother.