Here's an anecdote for you:

Soon after I had discussed my GL openly with my mother for the first time, she told me about a conversation she had had some years before with her father. Apparently he had told her (when she was an adult) that he had not only loved her as a child, but had been in love with her. I think she had been quite touched by his saying it, too, though from what I recall, she had never sensed it as a child.