When it isn't safe to use the Parent property of a control

While working on MyDataSourceControl (see my other articles) I have found an interesting thing. It appears that when properties of a control are set to the values provided as attributes in the aspx file, the control is not yet very functional. The most important thing that my be not set is the Parent and other control-tree related properties of the control! It seams however that it is not always so. I may be mistaken, but from my observation it is possible that sometimes the Parent property will be set before the properties defined in the aspx. If somebody can shed some light on this I will be grateful.