I recently watched two amazing videos that both, in their own way, discussed the importance of having a family and our constant need for acknowledgement. We all want to be seen and heard, especially by our parents, but what happens when our parents are not there for us? What if we don’t even have them? This is an issue that many people deal with, how do we cope with the the fact of being alone? 

In Walter Mosleys video ”Triumph of Love” we get to know a man who’s parents both suffered great loss at a young age and see how this effected their relationships as they started their own family. His father who lost both his parents at the age of eight, craved for attention and his mother who’d been abandoned as a child couldn’t express her love and could only focus on one person at a time, his father. Even though Walter was neglected as a child by his mother, his father loved him passionately. But even though his father showed him affection he would also compensate by telling him how useless he was and he would beat him. As his father passed away Walter had to deal with watching his mother enter the early stages of dementia and as they spent more time together he was contantly fighting for her affection. He repeatedly told her that he loved her and she would always respond with a thanks, but she would not say it back, not until the very end.

This story was so powerful and emotional because this is what makes us all human, wanting to belong, to love and be loved and to be someone. As we grow up almost all of us become rebels at some point, trying desperately to make ourselves heard.

How we see ourselves is a pure reflection of how we’ve been treated while growing up. Something that Eve Lederman talks about in her video ”Brand New Nose”, where being neglected as a child brought her all the way into surgery. Even though this story might not be as strong as Walters, simply because there is no real change from within, we learn that changing ourselves in order to be seen doesn’t really work. We all want to be seen as who we are, on the inside, but how do we get people to really look when we’re too self-absorbed? For Eve’s mother it took seven years to even notice the change. Eve then quite nervously (and with a bit of humor) admits that she would not want her mother to see her new face as much as she would want her to recognize her old one. How can we learn to see beyond the end of our nose and start to show our affection and interest for one another before it’s too late?


This made me think of all the Disney movies, where the loss of a parent or dealing with an unattentive parent is a common theme. Maybe the stories and fairytales are all desperately trying to get our attention, to make us more humble and caring in a world that is not.