Wrong PID

my machine, I start the following command:
/bin/sh /usr/local/bin/mysqld_safe
/var/db/mysql/my.cnf
/var/db/mysql /

For some reason my PID file does not contain the parent PID, instead it
contains one the children's PID. So when I attempt to stop MySQL, it stops
only one of the child mysqld processes and not all of them.

For example, when mysqld_safe starts up, the following PIDs are running:

23349 mysqld_safe
+ 23378 mysqld
+ 23379 mysqld
+ 23380 mysqld
+ 23381 mysqld
+ 23382 mysqld
+ 23383 mysqld
+ 23385 mysqld
+ 23386 mysqld
+ 23387 mysqld
+ 23388 mysqld
+ 23389 mysqld
+ 23390 mysqld
+ 23391 mysqld
+ 23392 mysqld
+ 23431 mysqld
+ 23445 mysqld
+ 23567 mysqld
+ 24078 mysqld

But the PID file will contain 23383 which is not the parent process.

How can I resolve this?

Thanks,