How to get localPosition to work on parented object C#

Sorry, this is probably really simple stuff, but I can't seem to find any similar post. I can't seem to get "localPosition" to work in conjunction with parenting. When I parent the instantiated object then it appears at the exact same position as its parents even though I am changing its "localPossition".

Simply put, the following code works perfectly. But if I un-comment the commented line of code, then all of the instantiated prefabs appear on top of each other at coordinate of the game object running the script.

 public void showInputs(){
         int inputCount = 0;
         for(int a = 0 ; a < 3 ; a++ ){
             for(int b = 0 ; b < 2 ; b++ ){
                 input[inputCount] = Instantiate(Resources.Load("InputPrefab")) as GameObject;
                 Vector3 temp = gameObject.transform.position;
                 temp.x += startingWidth/ Screen.width + (inputWidth / Screen.width) * (float)(a);
                 temp.y += startingHieght/ Screen.height - (inputHieght / Screen.height) * (float)(b);
                 temp.z = 5;
                 //input[inputCount].transform.parent = gameObject.transform;
                 input[inputCount].transform.localPosition = temp;
                 inputCount++;
             }
         }
     }