It can be rare to make a connection to a character in a book, but the relationship that Hank Rearden has with his family reminded me of mine. Balancing schoolwork, a job, and a social life can be very hard and parents or family members won't always see the extraneous amount of effort you apply to your daily activities. Instead, all the see is a child who leaves early in the morning and comes back late at night exhausted, tired and unwilling to spend much time with them. So, rather than being praised for your exertion, you are looked down upon as a child without a care. 
          Hanks family looks at him the same way. No matter how hard he tries to please them, his attempts are futile. "He had offered his mother unlimited means to live as and where she pleased; he wondered why she had insisted that she wanted to live with him." (page 42) Being treated as poorly as he is, parents morf into some kind of evil creature that leeches on you and never leaves. He has never once been congratulated for creating a whole new evolution of metal which he has worked hard on for his whole life and even my parents do a poor job sometimes of showing their appreciation for all that I do.
          However, my parents do not go as far as to insult me greatly. "'That's the way he's been since he was five years old - the most conceited brat you ever saw - and I knew he'd grow up to be the most selfish creature on God's earth.'" (page 42). Of course parents may throw around a few derogatory words once in a while when they grow fed up, but never as far as to constantly suppress ones successes. Little do Hanks parents know, the more they chastise him, the more his love for them will diminish. "He felt nothing for them now, nothing but merciless zero of indifference, not even regret of a loss." (page 43).