Don Cardi,
You are really on to something --- how does a 9 or 12 year old boy, completely estranged from all of his relatives - develop such a strong sense of family? Obviously have his mother blown away right in front of him had something to do with it --- but scenes of Vito with his father would have been awfully intriguing too. Because in the movie, this is the family Vito creates from scratch, so to speak.