I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously […].

Anne Frank’s story is well known: she was a Jewish teenager who spent roughly two years in hiding with her family and others in a secret annex in Amsterdam during WW2 until the Nazis found and killed her.

While Anne’s diary from that time typically serves to understand the historical context, I want to analyze it from a different angle: what it’s like being a child, and particularly, what it’s like for a child to not be taken seriously. Hers is a unique insight – children writers, especially published ones, are rare. That said, I don’t want to abuse Anne’s writings to showcase how I think children should be raised, or to make her a poster child for Taking Children Seriously (with whom I have no official affiliation anyway, so it wouldn’t be my place). I want to be cognizant of the fact that Anne and her diary deserve respect and dignity. And, to those of us who do take children seriously and consider compulsory schooling one of the worst mechanisms of the oppression of children, it may come as a surprise that Anne liked school overall, even looked forward to going back to school after the war,¹ although teachers were a lot stricter back then.² (Schools have since gotten better, but there is still much progress to be made, as evidenced by the great irony of forcing children to visit Anne’s hiding place during field trips.)

Of course, Anne’s situation in hiding with the looming threat of discovery and death is much worse than the average child’s today. Still, I think you’ll find that many of the quotes³ below apply to children generally. A recurring theme of Anne’s diary is how much children suffer when you don’t take them seriously. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – everyone wants to be taken seriously.

That said, here’s a collection of quotes from Anne’s diary, shining a light on what it’s like being a child who yearns to be taken seriously. Anyone with a traditional upbringing has felt this way at some point or another in their childhood. As adults, we often forget.

Sometimes, the source of Anne’s frustration is being ‘babied’:

Mama always treats me like a baby, which I can’t stand.

Anne also dislikes being made the topic of discussion (rather than being part of the discussion) and not being able to choose books freely:

No one here understands why I take such an interest in the Royal Family. A few nights ago I was the topic of discussion, and we all decided I was an ignoramus. As a result, I threw myself into my schoolwork the next day, since I have little desire to still be a freshman when I’m fourteen or fifteen. The fact that I’m hardly allowed to read anything was also discussed.

One of the people in hiding with her, a Mrs van Daan, does not respect Anne’s privacy:

I’d just finished writing something about Mrs. van Daan when she walked into the room. Thump, I slammed [my diary] shut.
“Hey, Anne, can’t I even take a peek?”
“No, Mrs. van Daan.”
“Just the last page then?”
“No, not even the last page, Mrs. van Daan.”
Of course, I nearly died, since that particular page contained a rather unflattering description of her.

Scolding a child, in addition to being immoral, does not even have the desired effect:

[W]hen I’ve been scolded for the umpteenth time and have all these other woes to think about as well, my head begins to reel!

Adults, even those who are said to adore children, denounce them to their parents and conspire against them:

Mr. Dussel, the man who was said to get along so well with children and to absolutely adore them, has turned out to be an old-fashioned disciplinarian and preacher of unbearably long sermons on manners. Since I have the singular pleasure of sharing my far too narrow room with His Excellency, and since I’m generally considered to be the worst behaved of the three young people, [looking at neighbors through binoculars to cure my boredom is] all I can do to avoid having the same old scoldings and admonitions repeatedly flung at my head and to pretend not to hear. This wouldn’t be so bad if Mr. Dussel weren’t such a tattletale and hadn’t singled out Mother to be the recipient of his reports. If Mr. Dussel’s just read me the riot act, Mother lectures me all over again, this time throwing the whole book at me. And if I’m really lucky, Mrs. van D. calls me to account five minutes later and lays down the law as well!
   Really, it’s not easy being the badly brought-up center of attention of a family of nitpickers.
   In bed at night, as I ponder my many sins and exaggerated shortcomings, I get so confused by the sheer amount of things I have to consider that I either laugh or cry, depending on my mood. Then I fall asleep with the strange feeling of wanting to be different than I am or being different than I want to be, or perhaps of behaving differently than I am or want to be.

Anne is the object of so much unsolicited criticism she wishes she…

[…] could ask God to give [her] another personality, one that doesn’t antagonize everyone.
But that’s impossible.

Parents use the silent treatment, a form of abuse, to punish their children. Anne is keenly aware that she has no recourse, which adds to her despair:

More than once, after a series of absurd reproaches, I’ve snapped at Mother: “I don’t care what you say. Why don’t you just wash your hands of me -- I’m a hopeless case.” Of course, she’d tell me not to talk back and virtually ignore me for two days. Then suddenly all would be forgotten and she’d treat me like everyone else. It’s impossible for me to be all smiles one day and venomous the next. I’d rather choose the golden mean, which isn’t so golden, and keep my thoughts to myself. Perhaps sometime I’ll treat the others with the same contempt as they treat me. Oh, if only I could.

Adults often discount children’s views simply because they are younger. This is not an innocent mistake – adults do this on purpose, out of ‘respect’ for other adults. Anne speaks of herself in the third person:

[Father and Mr Dussel] first discussed whether Anne should be allowed to use the table, yes or no. Father said that he and Dussel had dealt with the subject once before, at which time he’d professed to agree with Dussel because he didn’t want to contradict the elder in front of the younger […].

When Anne hurts herself, she is not comforted but scolded for being too loud:

[…] I bumped into the cupboard door so hard it nearly knocked me over, and was scolded for making such a racket.

Adults often don’t respect children’s physical boundaries. Consider this instance when Anne has the flu. Maybe Mr Dussel was a creep, or maybe he had a genuine interest in her health, but he should have respected her boundaries either way:

The worst part was when Mr. Dussel decided to play doctor and lay his pomaded head on my bare chest to listen to the sounds. Not only did his hair tickle, but I was embarrassed, even though he went to school thirty years ago and does have some kind of medical degree. Why should he lay his head on my heart? After all, he’s not my boyfriend! For that matter, he wouldn’t be able to tell a healthy sound from an unhealthy one.

Anne makes her desire to be taken seriously explicit (emphasis added):

Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss -- every day and every hour of the day -- having a mother who understands me. That’s why with everything I do and write, I imagine the kind of mom I’d like to be to my children later on. The kind of mom who doesn’t take everything people say too seriously, but who does take me seriously.

Though she has a difficult relationship with her mother, she takes her mother seriously and shows empathy:

I was furious at Mother (and still am a lot of the time). It’s true, she didn’t understand me, but I didn’t understand her either. Because she loved me, she was tender and affectionate, but because of the difficult situations I put her in, and the sad circumstances in which she found herself, she was nervous and irritable, so I can understand why she was often short with me.

From what Anne writes, her mother does not take motherhood very seriously. Sometimes, Anne sounds more mature than her:

I’ve suddenly realized what’s wrong with [mother]. [She] has said that she sees [my older sister Margot and me] more as friends than as daughters. That’s all very nice, of course, except that a friend can’t take the place of a mother. I need my mother to set a good example and be a person I can respect, but in most matters she’s an example of what not to do.

Note also that friends do not have obligations toward each other (other than commonsense moral ones such as good faith, respect, and so on), whereas parents do have many obligations toward their children, such as caring for them, making them feel loved, feeding them, providing shelter, and so on. Perhaps the most important parental obligation, one I learned from Lulie Tanett from Taking Children Seriously, is to help one’s children by their own lights. People have no such obligations toward friends, so when a parent considers their children ‘friends’, that reeks of irresponsibility and neglect. Anne continues:

I imagine a mother as a woman who, first and foremost, possesses a great deal of tact, especially toward her adolescent children, and not one who, like Momsy, pokes fun at me when I cry.

Making fun of your child when she cries is incredibly cruel. Anne then recounts a particularly vivid example of the horror of not being taken seriously:

[T]here’s one incident I’ve never forgiven [mother] for. It happened one day when I had to go to the dentist. Mother and Margot planned to go with me and agreed I should take my bicycle. When the dentist was finished and we were back outside, Margot and Mother very sweetly informed me that they were going downtown to buy or look at something, I don’t remember what, and of course I wanted to go along. But they said I couldn’t come because I had my bike with me. Tears of rage rushed to my eyes, and Margot and Mother began laughing at me. I was so furious that I stuck my tongue out at them, right there on the street. A little old lady happened to be passing by, and she looked terribly shocked. I rode my bike home and must have cried for hours. Strangely enough, even though Mother has wounded me thousands of times, this particular wound still stings whenever I think of how angry I was.

Not being taken seriously wounds children for a long time.

It’s unclear to me why having her bike with her meant Anne couldn’t come along. Another thing that stands out to me, apart from Anne’s understandable reaction, is that what shocked the “little old lady” was presumably not the injustice of the situation but Anne ‘disrespecting’ her elders. But is there anything more innocent and harmless than sticking your tongue out at someone to voice your displeasure?

Anne calls out her mother’s hypocrisy:

Everyone here is reading a book called A Cloudless Morning. Mother thought it was extremely good because it describes a number of adolescent problems. I thought to myself, a bit ironically, “Why don’t you take more interest in your own adolescents first!”

When parents disagree with their children or don’t understand them, they shrug it off as their children just going through a ‘phase’:

Mother does sense that Margot loves her much more than I do, but she thinks I’m just going through a phase.

Taking ‘inspiration’ from adults and internalizing the notion that old deserves more respect than young, older children sometimes don’t take younger children as seriously. But now that Anne has grown up more, Margot does (recall that Margot is Anne’s older sister):

Margot’s gotten much nicer. She seems a lot different than she used to be. She’s not nearly as catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little kid who doesn’t count.

Another reason parents and children can’t be friends is that there’s a crucial asymmetry between them: parents can manipulate children to comply by withholding love. Conversely, children depend on their parents. That means children can’t always realistically resolve even reasonable complaints:

Sometimes I’d decide to stay angry [at Mother], but then I always had so much to talk about after school that I’d forget my resolution and want Mother to stop whatever she was doing and lend a willing ear.

Again, Anne points out that she’s not being taken as seriously as she would like; that people underestimate her:

Which of the people here would suspect that so much is going on in the mind of a teenage girl?

Anne feels poorly understood not only by her mother but also her father:

[…] I still feel hurt when Father’s nerves cause him to be unreasonable toward me, but then I think, “I can’t blame you for being the way you are. You talk so much about the minds of children and adolescents, but you don’t know the first thing about them!”

Traditional parenting makes children feel inadequate; like they have not yet been molded into the right shape:

I forgive Mother too, but every time she makes a sarcastic remark or laughs at me, [being preoccupied with myself is] all I can do to control myself.
I know I’m far from being what I should; will I ever be?

One of the ill effects of traditional parenting and schools is that children ‘learn’ to disregard their own judgment and refer to their parents’ and teachers’ judgment instead. In a dispute between her family an the van Daans, Anne admirably tries to not let this happen:

I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb “The apple never falls far from the tree.” I want to reexamine the van Daans and decide for myself what’s true and what’s been blown out of proportion. If I wind up being disappointed in them, I can always side with Father and Mother. But if not, I can try to change their attitude. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to stick with my own opinions and judgment.

She also displays a remarkable degree of self-awareness and a constructively self-critical attitude (both of which teenagers are often falsely said to lack):

Up to now I was absolutely convinced that the van Daans were entirely to blame for the quarrels, but now I’m sure the fault was largely ours. We were right as far as the subject matter was concerned, but intelligent people (such as ourselves!) should have more insight into how to deal with others.

When adults around her make mistakes, Anne forces herself not to correct them. She has a natural truth-seeking attitude but must suppress it to please her elders (emphasis added):

[I]f only the grown-ups weren’t in the habit of repeating [certain] stories […], each time embellishing them with a few details of their own, so that I often have to pinch my arm under the table to keep myself from setting the enthusiastic storyteller on the right track. Little children, such as Anne, must never, ever correct their elders, no matter how many blunders they make or how often they let their imaginations run away with them.

Anne is not wrong when she concludes later on:

The grown-ups are such idiots!

Skipping a bit, she continues:

You can’t forbid someone to have an opinion, no matter how young they are! The only thing that would help [us young people⁴] would be great love and devotion, which we don’t get here. And no one, especially not the idiotic sages around here, is capable of understanding us, since we’re more sensitive and much more advanced in our thinking than any of them ever suspect!

Again, the ill effects of reproaches cannot be overstated, and the only lasting relief, the only way to be taken more seriously, is to slowly grow older:

When I was at home, my life was filled with sunshine. Then, in the middle of 1942, everything changed overnight. The quarrels, the accusations -- I couldn’t take it all in. I was caught off guard, and the only way I knew to keep my bearings was to talk back.
   The first half of 1943 brought crying spells, loneliness and the gradual realization of my faults and short-comings, which were numerous and seemed even more so. I filled the day with chatter, tried to draw [father] closer to me and failed. This left me on my own to face the difficult task of improving myself so I wouldn’t have to hear their reproaches, because they made me so despondent.
   The second half of the year was slightly better. I became a teenager, and was treated more like a grown-up.

It’s worth noting that, once we accept the necessity of taking children seriously, that doesn’t mean we should take them too seriously – there is a right amount and you can overdo it:

Margot is very kind and would like me to confide in her, but I can’t tell her everything. She takes me too seriously, far too seriously, and spends a lot of time thinking about her loony sister, looking at me closely whenever I open my mouth and wondering, “Is she acting, or does she really mean it?”

Once again, adults do not care for the opinions of children:

Here are the opinions of the five grown-ups on the present situation (children aren’t allowed to have opinions, and for once I’m sticking to the rules): […]

Here’s another example of being taken too seriously:

[W]hen you’re [Margot’s and my age], you want to make a few decisions for yourself, get out from under [your parents’] thumb. Whenever I go upstairs, they ask what I’m going to do, they won’t let me salt my food, Mother asks me every evening at eight-fifteen if it isn’t time for me to change into my nighty, and they have to approve every book I read. I must admit, they’re not at all strict about that and let me read nearly everything, but Margot and I are sick and tired of having to listen to their comments and questions all day long.

In that same vein, Anne quotes Margo:

“What really bothers me is that if you happen to put your head in your hands and sigh once or twice, [mother and father] immediately ask whether you have a headache or don’t feel well.”

Anne then connects this frustration with the hopelessness of ever being understood:

[…] I’d like nothing better than to do without [my parents’] company for a while, and they don’t understand that. Not that Margot and I have ever said any of this to them. What would be the point? They wouldn’t understand anyway.

In this next paragraph, I can’t quite tell if Anne has internalized the misconception that children are lesser people or whether she’s saying that being dependent on a parent makes on feel like less of a person. Regardless, she has developed a sense of her right to independence. Note in particular that Anne has many rational qualities teenagers are said to lack, and this alleged lack then serves to legitimize their oppression (emphasis added):

Even though I’m only fourteen, I know what I want, I know who’s right and who’s wrong, I have my own opinions, ideas and principles, and though it may sound odd coming from a teenager, I feel I’m more of a person than a child -- I feel I’m completely independent of others. I know I’m better at debating or carrying on a discussion than Mother, I know I’m more objective, I don’t exaggerate as much, I’m much tidier and better with my hands, and because of that I feel […] that I’m superior to her in many ways. To love someone, I have to admire and respect the person, but I feel neither respect nor admiration for Mother!

Incidentally, basing love on admiration and respect rather than someone’s shortcomings is a core objectivist idea that Anne came up with independently. This intellectual achievement should not go unnoticed.

It takes more than pet names and niceties here and there to build trust with a child:

[A]ll of Father’s and Mother’s pet names were meaningless, […] a kiss here and there didn’t automatically lead to trust.

Children never deserve violence, but Anne has internalized the mistaken notion that sometimes they do:

Mother slapped me last night, which I deserved. I mustn’t carry my indifference and contempt for her too far. In spite of everything, I should try once again to be friendly and keep my remarks to myself!

Being taken seriously at the wrong times, and being laughed at at the wrong times:

[Our parents] laugh at us when we’re serious, and they’re serious when we’re joking.

Anne points out how adults have too much patience for boring things:

[T]he radio is switched on every morning at eight (if not earlier) and is listened to every hour until nine, ten or even eleven at night. This is the best evidence yet that the adults have infinite patience, but also that their brains have turned to mush (some of them, I mean, since I wouldn’t want to insult anyone). One broadcast, two at the most, should be enough to last the entire day. But no, those old nincompoops . . . never mind, I’ve already said it all!

When Anne develops a friendship and a bit of romance with a boy named Peter van Daan, her mother forbids her from seeing him, allegedly to spare his mother’s feelings, proving again that, when an adult’s and a child’s preferences conflict, the adult’s automatically win:

[…] Mother has virtually forbidden me to go up to Peter’s, since, according to her, [his mother] Mrs. van Daan is jealous.

(Anne’s mother could be lying; maybe she’s the one who’s uncomfortable with the idea of Anne seeing a boy. So Anne’s mother blames Mrs van Daan’s preferences to avoid accountability.)

The adults are making it hard for Anne to develop her relationship with Peter:

He and I could have a really beautiful relationship, so why are the old folks poking their noses into our business again? Fortunately, I’m used to hiding my feelings, so I manage not to show how crazy I am about him.

Once again, she fights to maintain independent judgment:

Do you think Father and Mother would approve of a girl my age sitting on a divan and kissing a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old boy? I doubt they would, but I have to trust my own judgment in this matter.

And she describes the struggle to retain her own judgment as a “battle” she has won (emphasis added):

[T]here’s only one person I’m accountable to, and that’s me. When I was having problems, everyone […] closed their eyes and ears and didn’t help me. On the contrary, all I ever got were admonitions not to be so noisy. I was noisy only to keep myself from being miserable all the time. [N]ow the battle is over. I’ve won! I’m independent, in both body and mind.
   […] I’ll behave the way I think I should!

Do you see why children can be “noisy” sometimes? Not because they’re in a phase, not because they’re ‘defiant’, but because it’s a way to stay sane when surrounded by, and depending on, people who don’t take you seriously.

Anne describes a bout of violence between Peter and his mother, which his mother started after Peter helped her look for scissors to give him a haircut. As you read, observe your reaction – who are you more outraged at, the mother for attacking Peter, or Peter for defending himself and thereby ‘disrespecting’ an elder? Emphasis mine:

Peter helped her look, rummaging around in her cosmetics drawer. “Don’t make such a mess, Peter,” she grumbled.
   I didn’t catch Peter’s reply, but it must have been insolent, because she cuffed him on the arm. [I think “cuffed” means ‘hit’.] He cuffed her back, she punched him with all her might, and Peter pulled his arm away with a look of mock horror on his face. “Come on, old girl!”
   Mrs. van D. stayed put. Peter grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her all around the room. She laughed, cried, scolded and kicked, but nothing helped. Peter led his prisoner as far as the attic stairs, where he was obliged to let go of her. Mrs. van D. came back to the room and collapsed into a chair with a loud sigh.
   “The Abduction of Mother,” I joked.
   “Yes, but he hurt me.”
   I went to have a look and cooled her hot, red wrists with water. Peter, still by the stairs and growing impatient again, strode into the room with his belt in his hand, like a lion tamer. Mrs. van D. didn’t move, but stayed by her writing desk, looking for a handkerchief. “You’ve got to apologize first.”

Mrs van D knows she’s in the wrong but wants him to apologize regardless. Anne’s diary continues:

“All right, I hereby offer my apologies, but only because if I don’t, we’ll be here till midnight.”
   Mrs. van D. had to laugh in spite of herself. She got up and went toward the door, where she felt obliged to give us an explanation. (By us I mean Father, Mother and me; we were busy doing the dishes.) “He wasn’t like this at home,” she said. “I’d have belted him so hard he’d have gone flying down the stairs. He’s never been so insolent. This isn’t the first time he’s deserved a good hiding. That’s what you get with a modern upbringing, modern children. I’d never have grabbed my mother like that. Did you treat your mother that way, Mr. Frank?” She was very upset, pacing back and forth, saying whatever came into her head, and she still hadn’t gone upstairs. Finally, at long last, she made her exit.
[…]
   She didn’t come up again until eight, this time with her husband. Peter was dragged from the attic, given a merciless scolding and showered with abuse: ill-mannered brat, no-good bum, bad example, Anne this, Margot that, I couldn’t hear the rest.

Here’s another instance where Anne’s family members laugh at her for being upset. A vase had fallen over:

Mother was down on her hands and knees mopping up the water and Margot was fishing my papers off the floor. “What happened?” I asked with anxious foreboding, and before they could reply, I assessed the damage from across the room. My entire genealogy file, my notebooks, my books, everything was afloat. I nearly cried, and I was so upset I started speaking German. I can’t remember a word, but according to Margot I babbled something about “incalculable loss, terrible, awful, irreplaceable” and much more. Father burst out laughing and Mother and Margot joined in, but I felt like crying because all my work and elaborate notes were lost.

Another reason scolding is not only ineffective but also just leads to more conflict:

What’s so difficult about my personality is that I scold and curse myself much more than anyone else does; if Mother adds her advice, the pile of sermons becomes so thick that I despair of ever getting through them. Then I talk back and start contradicting everyone until the old familiar Anne refrain inevitably crops up again: “No one understands me!”
   […] Sometimes I’m so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again. If only I had someone who took my feelings seriously.

To his credit, her father realizes something important about child rearing:

[…] I’m beginning to realize the truth of Father’s adage: “Every child has to raise itself.” Parents can only advise their children or point them in the right direction. Ultimately, people shape their own characters.

Anne’s answer to who struggles more while living under the Nazi regime, the young or the old (albeit with an unfortunate display of religiosity):

“Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.” I read this in a book somewhere and it’s stuck in my mind. As far as I can tell, it’s true.
   So if you’re wondering whether it’s harder for the adults here than for the children, the answer is no, it’s certainly not. Older people have an opinion about everything and are sure of themselves and their actions. It’s twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God.

On the closing pages of her diary, Anne describes how she has had to develop an alter ego to deal with not being taken seriously – a side of her which is not as good as her true self, but which can deal with the constant attacks on her for being young. She has to hide her virtues to fit in – another objectivist insight:

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared.

Taking a child seriously helps her develop and keep her virtues. Not being taken seriously, however can cleave a child’s mind in two. For many, only the lesser of the two personalities survives into adulthood.