My inner emo-kid emerges.

You can love your child and not see pain.
You can love your child and not see their happiness.
You can love your child and not see dysfunction.
You can love your child and not see their dreams.
You can love your child and not see their feelings.
You can love your child and not see their talents.
You can love your child and not see their fears.
You can love your child and not see they are being abused or bullied.
You can love your child and not see their interests.
You can love your child and hate the things they do.
You can love your child and not see the pressure they are under, by you or their peers.
You can love your child and not see the difficulty they have reading, or writing, or hearing, or seeing, or  speaking.
You can love your child and not see disability.
You can love your child and not see that how drastically your actions are affecting them, negatively OR positively.
You can love your child and not see they feel abandoned or neglected.
You can love your child and not see their affection for you.
You can love your child and not see mental illness or addiction.
You can love your child and not see that they are separate from you.
You can love your child and not see what it is that really makes them wonderful.
You can love your child and not see their vulnerability.
You can love your child and not see their strength.

What I'm trying to say here is that you can love your child and not see beyond your own hopes, dreams, expectations, and fears for them. What I'm trying to say here is that no parent is even close to perfect, and neither is any child. What I'm trying to say here is that it is okay to mess up, whether you're someone's parent, or child, or both.

But what I'm really trying to say is that while it can be difficult to see beyond your own hopes, dreams, expectations, and fears for your kids, it is absolutely imperative that you do. "Different" from what you hoped they'd be is neither more nor less than you hoped they'd be; it is merely different. You are a tremendous influence on their lives, but by no means are you their only influence. The way you thought or hoped their life would go does not matter nearly as much as what actually happens, and how you handle it together.