Learn English – what’s the difference between “important to” and “important for”

Using the way describes the more concrete and specific chain of events in the process of treatment. If you say that someone treats their children the way an officer treats his soldiers, you're basically saying the whole process is the same.

Using like means that they behave towards their children as if they were soldiers, but don't necessarily force them to go through the same routine as soldiers do.

Imagine and compare the following:

My father treats me like a child, although I'm not a child anymore.

This means he imagines I'm still a child and behaves as if I were one towards me, but that doesn't necessarily say what exactly he makes me do.

My mother is happy with how she raised my older brother, so she treats me the way she treated him.

This means she makes me go through my childhood exactly the same way she did with my older brother, as she's satisfied with how he's been raised.

Out of context the sentences can mean the same but are partially ambiguous. Do you currently eat good food or not? This is not clear. But whichever is true, eating good food is unimportant.

However, only the second sentence allows a second interpretation, namely:

• You currently eat good food, but the fact that you do is unimportant.

A statement with this meaning might continue:

• It is not important that you eat good food; it is important you were born of the right parents.