The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne's father is the only person in the family who provides Anne with a “last ounce of family feeling” (41%) and by whom she feels understood and loved. However, she never manages to talk to him confidentially without immediately bursting into tears. Since she loves her father dearly and idealizes him, she is particularly hurt when she feels that he does not take her side but prefers her sister Margot: 

I model myself after Father, and there’s no one in the world I love more. He doesn’t realize that he treats Margot differently than he does me (…) I’d like to feel that Father really loves me, not because I’m his child, but because I’m me, Anne. (41%).

When her father asks her to be careful in her dealings with Peter (cf. p. 299) and not to become too intimate with him, Anne feels that he is restricting her independence. She writes him a letter in which she reproaches him for not having helped her in her times of grief and loneliness. Now, as a seemingly self-confident girl, she feels no need “to account” (84%) to her parents but can raise herself: “Don’t think of me as a fourteen-year-old, since all these troubles have made me older; I won’t regret my actions, I’ll behave the way I think I should!” (84%).

After a conversation with her father, Anne is ashamed of her letter and realizes that it was not justified to accuse her father in this way. Nevertheless, the stubborn girl does not really take back the opinion she expressed in it. Weeks later, she is still convinced that she has been her own best teacher. Many teenagers tend to overestimate their abilities.

Anne’s father had tried to understand Anne, but never treated her as equal, as she would have wished. He cannot become the confidant she would have so desperately wanted: “I’ve hid any- thing having to do with me from Father, never shared my ideals with him, deliberately alienated myself from him.” (98%).

Margot and Peter

The diary focuses on Anne's conflicts with her parents' generation, but there are indications that Peter and Margot, who are otherwise well-behaved and well-adjusted, do not always have a harmonious relationship with their respective parents. For example, Peter wishes he didn't have to see his parents “for a year or two” (60%) and doesn't think his father is “as nice as he looks” (60%). Margot also seems increasingly bothered by the everyday presence of her parents in her life: “Everything’s fine here! Except that Margot and I are rather tired of our parents.” (66%).