Answer Miep Gies: "Well, I thought so, but reading her diary, I noticed a sharp disappointment. Her father had the same emotion. We both thought we had been very intimate with Anne, but from her diary we learned, to our dismay, that she had not shared her deeper feelings with us. Otto assumed, that this was because we considered her being just a child. Thus, she might have been afraid we would not accept her ideas. So, she kept them for herself. Therefore Otto told parents, whenever he wrote them, to enter into every effort to read the minds of their kids by listening very carefully and paying them respect, "because otherwise", he said, "your child may be just as lonely as once my daughter Anne"!"