Work is not family. At work, I thrive on benign neglect.
While I would love for my boss to purposefully ignore me; it's ok if my boss is only ignoring me because there's no time for me after tending to the other employees. I will not be sad or resentful if my 1:1 had to be canceled because my boss had something else to do.
Your boss spending all their time on a trouble employee means they're also not doing the fifty other things they could to help the team other than bothering you. Yes, managers do have things to do other than bothering their reports. At least good ones do.
so fire the underperforming kids? got it
As a peer and/or lead I've found a process that should help with this. Unfortunately you rarely get a boss who will fire someone (layoffs are another story) and so the most you can do is slowly take away their responsibilities and give them to someone else. Effectively, ghosting them.
Essentially you build tools that help avoid some of the problems you're seeing, and slowly ratchet up from beta test to mandatory as the tool becomes more reliable. At the end if the problem person refuses to use the tool, then you have a clear HR problem.
The people who make mistakes aren't your enemy. The people who make mistakes and insist they don't need help are the enemy.
I disagree. It's like parents who spend all their time on the problem child, and then the children who are doing well become bitter and resentful. You're neglecting the rest of the team for one individual, who they all probably see is problematic, which is not a good way to run a team.