Children "will search for the faintest flickers of light, even if the light illuminates nothing and even if it carries little warmth." They search — if there is little warmth at home — for light in teachers, random adults, pop singers, acquaintances who may abuse them. Children who must make such choices have, as one observer remarked, "settled for so little from the start that they think a little is a lot."
— Robert Bly, The Sibling Society