Why can't they just leave me alone ?

I am the kid on this photo.
This is one of my mother's favourite photos of me. A friend of her had put her hat on my head, and they found that so cute that my mother took this picture.

A few years ago, during a dinner with my family (I was still living with my parents at this time), my father expressed some concern about me. I was going through especially harsh times. I don't think I was actually more anxious and depressed than usual. It's just that I was so tired that I couldn't hide my inner state very well anymore.

He told me :

There is this picture of you as a little kid. You are playing, and suddenly somebody put a hat on your head. You turn towards this person and look so sad. It was like your face was saying : "why are you people annoying me? Leave me alone". Well, those days you have that same look on your face.

My father was not considering young children just as cute objects, but as persons. And as such, they had feelings and deserved respect. He cared about my feelings and as a consequence was neither the person that put the hat on my head, nor the one that took the photo. He is the one that perceived my sadness but probably thought it was useless trying to explain to people around why this picture was not actually cute.

"The Child's Right to Respect" is a book from Janusz Korczak. One of many that are patiently waiting on my reading list. I still didn't read any books from this author, but from what I currently know about him, I think he must be some great man. Someone that could contribute to restoring some of my faith in humanity.

Maybe there is a connection here with my grand father shaking the hand of babies to say hello, which always shocked my mother. She perceived it as an impossibility to display, or maybe even feel, tenderness. She perceived it as some important issue in any way. Knowing myself a bit, knowing my father a bit, and having no hard time imagining my grand father having similar traits, I always considered she was right about "our" difficulties with displays of emotions. But my grand-father's behaviour may also have had the purpose of showing the people around that babies too were persons. After all, he was a psychiatrist. And I think he actually liked children. I remember that he would give positive comments about the fact my parents bought little chairs, tables, and armchairs especially for their children. I did hear him say something like "Good. I see that's a littles-friendly place".

I wish I had talked to him more. I'd like to go on his tomb. I'd like to see his name on the stone. My name.
He published around 50 papers, studied all his life, and left us thousands of books. I wonder whether he had found something about life. Something that could help me.
But he was no-one like "the old rabbi". As I remember him, he was rather constantly discoursing. But that's ok, because I don't think I would be satisfied with "all you need is love, be a good boy". And I am not certain that would really be an answer from someone that actually went to the bottom of life.

I think my grand-father was constantly flooding people with loads of informations about entire worlds they had never even heard of. He must have felt very intellectually lonely.
At the end of his life, he had a "girlfriend". There is an ambiguity in French. The word "copine" is a common word for either "friend" or "girlfriend", depending on the context. One often plays on this ambiguity. He never said anything about her. But we know she would come several times a week. He even paid for her tickets as she used to park in front of his apartment with no consideration for the law. My aunt said she saw them together. They would just sit next to each other in front of the window and watch the park. We didn't know her name and had a hard time finding her when my grand father passed. What they were talking about, together, in front of the window, we'll never know.