Dear Anonymous:

I think that we often don’t know our parents. No one is more invested in seeing one’s parents in the most positive light than a child. And not only when a child is minor, but in adulthood. As a stranger I can see a person more accurately in one day than the child of that person sees in his/her whole life, simply because I never had the strong motivation to feel safe with that (other person’s) parent, that is, I was never and am not emotionally invested

We often don’t see people as they are once we are invested in them. Emotional investment shapes how we see people.

It is not only about missing such dramatic issues as one being a pedophile. We miss a lot of less dramatic things as seeing one as loving to us while that person is not. Not talk-show-attention-grabbing but very significant nonetheless.

anita