What does it mean when the apple falls far from the tree? How do families adapt when their children have identities that differ significantly from what they expected?
In his book Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon explores families raising children with horizontal identities—traits that make children fundamentally different from their parents. Through interviews with over 300 families, Solomon examines how parents navigate raising children who are different.
Keep reading to discover how parents can move from confusion to acceptance and how both understanding and practical support help exceptional children thrive.
Overview of Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
When people say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they mean that children typically resemble their parents, in their physical and nonphysical characteristics. But, sometimes, the apple rolls quite far from the tree that produced it. In his 2012 book Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon explores the experiences of families raising children with identities that differ from what their parents expected or prepared for.
Solomon examines the lives of families with children with disabilities such as dwarfism, Down syndrome, and autism; children with psychological conditions such as schizophrenia; children who are prodigies; children conceived through rape; and children who commit crimes. While each of these conditions is different, the families he interviewed share the experience of having to radically adjust their expectations and redefine their idea of a “normal” life. These families also share common experiences of stigma, trauma, resilience—and a deeply human drive for self-acceptance and social belonging.
Solomon is a psychologist, writer, lecturer, and activist. He began studying identity formation in 1993, when he was assigned a story on Deaf culture by The New York Times. The experience led him to undertake a decade of research and interview more than 300 children and their families, investigating how families with exceptional children find meaning in their differences. Many of these children’s conditions pose challenges such as social stigma, lack of resources, and barriers to inclusion. Solomon argues that welcoming the full spectrum of human diversity is not just a moral imperative, but also enriches society as a whole: Many families who embrace exceptional children find meaning, growth, and joy in doing so.
In this overview, we’ll explore Solomon’s understanding of how children with significant differences from their parents form their identities. We’ll also examine what contributes most positively to people’s parenting in such exceptional circumstances.
(Shortform note: Some pomologists say the idiom “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is even less likely to hold true for apple trees than Solomon finds it is for people. William Mullan explains in Odd Apples (2021) that apples show immense diversity in appearance, flavor, and other traits because they naturally propagate new cultivars from seeds. Each time an apple seed takes root, a unique variety emerges. It’s not just the genetic material in the seed, but also everything in the tree’s environment—such as soil, fungi, and climate—that affects the flavor, shape, color, and aroma of the apples the new tree will produce. By the same logic, and by the same complex interplay of nature versus nurture, human diversity isn’t really so surprising.)
How Do We Form Our Identity?
Our sense of identity—how we understand and define ourselves—is fundamental to how we move through the world. It shapes how we relate to others, the choices we make, and our ability to find meaning and purpose in life. This makes understanding identity formation crucial for anyone interested in human development, particularly parents who want to support their children in building a healthy sense of self.
Psychologists describe identity formation as the process by which we develop a coherent and integrated sense of self. Our identity encompasses aspects such as our personal traits, values, beliefs, and social roles. Solomon explains that the formation of identity is a complex, lifelong process that’s influenced by many factors, both internal and external. The classic question of “nature versus nurture” arises: When it comes to identity, our inherent traits and genetic predispositions play an important role, but the environment and social context we grow up in also significantly shape how we perceive and define ourselves.
Among these external influences, the acceptance and sense of community we experience can impact how our identity develops: Identity is socially constructed and influenced by the experiences we have with others, the social groups that we feel a part of, and the extent to which we find a sense of belonging. Solomon explains this is particularly true for people with exceptional traits or characteristics that differ from their parents’ experience and expectations.
Vertical and Horizontal Identities
While we each develop a core sense of self, our identity contains multiple elements, from our cultural background to our personal traits to our roles in society. Solomon’s framework explores how these elements relate to our family background. He categorizes identity traits based on whether we share them with our parents or whether they set us apart, which affects both how our families relate to us and how we come to understand ourselves.
Solomon calls traits we inherit from our parents “vertical identities.” These are the characteristics passed down through families, such as race, native language, and often religion. Parents typically expect and feel prepared for these traits: They’re familiar territory, reflecting the parents’ own experiences and knowledge.
In contrast, “horizontal identities” come from traits that make children different from their parents. Some of these traits are present from birth, such as congenital physical disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, or exceptional intellectual abilities. Others become apparent only later, such as becoming physically disabled through injury or identifying as queer or transgender. What these traits share is that they weren’t part of parents’ expectations for their child and represent unfamiliar territory for the family.
While children naturally differ from their parents in countless ways, Solomon explains that not all differences become meaningful parts of a person’s identity. What makes a trait the basis for a horizontal identity isn’t just that it differs from the parents, but that it fundamentally affects how a person experiences the world and relates to others. For example, having hazel eyes when your parents have brown eyes is a genetic difference, but it rarely shapes how people understand themselves or navigate society. Similarly, being somewhat shorter than your parents might affect you in minor ways, but it doesn’t typically alter your fundamental experience of life.
In contrast, having a form of dwarfism that makes a person significantly shorter than the general population becomes a horizontal identity because it profoundly influences daily life, self-image, and social relationships. People with dwarfism must navigate a world designed for taller people, often face discrimination and stigma, and may find community with others who share their experience—all factors that make this difference identity-shaping in ways that minor height variations aren’t. Such profound differences also often require families to radically adjust their expectations for their children and their understanding of what makes a meaningful life.
Solomon also makes an important distinction about how much agency we have in different aspects of our identity. While some elements of identity are socially constructed—meaning we actively shape them through our choices and how we present ourselves to the world—other aspects are simply part of who we are, regardless of choice or social context. We can’t change them, even if we want to. For example, a person doesn’t choose to be born with dwarfism, but they (and their family) do have some choice in how they understand and relate to this condition as part of their identity.
Why We Need Others to Understand Us
In exploring vertical and horizontal identities, Solomon reveals a fundamental principle of human psychology: our basic need for belonging and acceptance. This need plays out differently for vertical versus horizontal identities. With vertical identities—the traits we share with our families—we naturally find a sense of belonging at home. Our parents understand our experiences firsthand and can guide us through challenges they’ve faced themselves.
But horizontal identities present a unique challenge: When children have traits their parents don’t share, they can feel isolated even within their own families. From a young age, these children must look beyond their immediate family for validation and understanding of crucial aspects of who they are. Solomon explains that when others reject or fail to understand our differences, we struggle to integrate these aspects into our identity, often developing internalized stigma and low self-esteem.
This is why finding a supportive community becomes especially crucial for people with horizontal identities. When we connect with others who share our experiences—whether it’s other deaf people, other transgender individuals, or other people with autism—we find the understanding our immediate family might not be able to provide. These communities can offer guidance, resources, and coping strategies, along with the crucial message that our differences are valid and valuable. Through these connections, we develop a positive sense of identity that helps us face the challenges of being different.
Feeling a sense of belonging and connectedness with others is critical. Yet because the trait underlying a horizontal identity isn’t shared by a person’s parents, children need to look beyond their immediate family to understand how to navigate life with their unique trait. Solomon explains that we construct our horizontal identities socially: While our identity isn’t determined by others, we need role models and mentors who share our specific difference—for example, other deaf people, other transgender individuals, or other people with dwarfism. These aren’t just any peers, but specifically people who can relate to and guide us through the particular challenges of our horizontal identity.
Why Are Horizontal Identities Challenging for Parents?
Figuring out how to raise an exceptional child challenges parents on many levels. Solomon explains that raising a child who has a horizontal identity can be a challenging experience for several reasons, including the difficulty of coping with an unfamiliar and unexpected trait and our natural desire for a sense of normality. We’ll take a closer look at each of these psychological challenges next.
1. Parents Struggle to Understand a Horizontal Identity
First, horizontal identities challenge our empathy and understanding because the underlying trait and its effects are unfamiliar and unexpected, Solomon explains. Many children who will later come out as gay or transgender are born to parents who are straight or cisgender. These parents don’t know what it’s like to be attracted to people of the same gender (or to people of varying genders) or to have a gender identity that differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. They also didn’t expect their children to differ from them in this way.
Solomon notes that most of us don’t anticipate that our children will present traits and acquire identities unfamiliar to us: Many of us expect a child to reflect the best qualities of each of their parents and to have the same experiences growing up that we did. When, instead, they have an identity we don’t have, we may react negatively.
Solomon explains that one way that parents can react negatively to a child who doesn’t match their expectations is to see the traits that form the basis of their child’s horizontal identity as an illness. For example, hearing parents may see deafness as a defect. Yet, while deafness can be caused by a disease or a genetic variation, Deafness is also a rich identity that grants entry into a rich community of nonhearing people.
In this way, a horizontal identity can grant a child access to a culture that’s new and foreign to their parents. Hearing people are often unaware that Deaf culture consists of unique values, traditions, and languages. They also might not know that some people who embrace Deaf culture reject the notion that deafness is a deficiency to be treated with interventions such as cochlear implants. The Deaf community asserts that deafness is a natural human variation and rejects the idea that children need spoken language and hearing ability for normal cognitive development. Recognizing Deaf culture as a legitimate culture requires learning to perceive and engage with the world beyond the dominant hearing culture most of us are familiar with.
2. We Want Our Children to Be “Normal”
Second, horizontal identities are challenging for parents who consider themselves “normal” because we want our children to experience life as “normal” people, too. This desire for normality can make it hard for parents to accept a child’s horizontal identity. It can also lead them to see the identity as a problem to be fixed, rather than a difference to be embraced. They might think the solution is to change their child’s identity—straight parents might want a gay child to be straight, or neurotypical parents might hope for a child with autism to be “cured” of the disorder. Yet Solomon explains this calculus often has more to do with the parents’ discomfort with their child’s identity than with any distress it causes the child.
When parents confront horizontal identities in their children, their instinct to “normalize” their child’s difference can manifest in various ways. Solomon explores this dynamic through two examples: how families navigate gender identity and disability.
Gender Identity
Though gender identity is deeply personal, many parents struggle to understand when their child expresses an experience different from their own. Gender identity refers to an individual’s internal sense of being male, female, or somewhere else along the gender spectrum. Most people’s gender identities align with the sex they were assigned at birth based on their biological characteristics. For transgender and gender nonconforming people, their gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth. They may identify as male, female, nonbinary, genderfluid, or another identity that resonates with their internal experience.
Solomon writes that it’s crucial for parents to recognize their child’s gender identity as a fundamental part of who they are, not a phase or choice. When a child expresses gender variance or identifies as transgender, they need their parents to respond with open-mindedness, empathy, and a willingness to educate themselves and reflect on their own biases and assumptions. Creating an environment where children feel safe and comfortable expressing their gender identity and asking questions is crucial, as is using their chosen name and pronouns. Only when parents put their expectations and assumptions about gender aside can they help their children feel safe to be their authentic selves.
Disability
The need to set aside expectations and question assumptions also comes up for families parenting children with disabilities. Solomon explains that though illness and identity (or cure and acceptance) might seem like opposites—or at least like mutually exclusive views of a horizontal identity—the reality is more complicated. Many traits that lead to horizontal identities, such as a physical disability, can be understood as both illness and identity. By understanding their child’s identity in both of these contexts and seeing it as a normal human variation, parents can seek to alleviate a disability while also accepting the identity.
Solomon explains that setting aside the natural desire for normality can also prepare parents to question their assumptions about what gives a person value and what imbues their life with meaning. Disability refers to physical, mental, or developmental conditions that impair a person’s ability to function in certain areas of life. The perception of disability goes beyond the medical condition itself: Society shapes how disability is viewed and experienced. Historically, it was seen as a defect that needed to be fixed, and people with disabilities were often segregated, institutionalized, or denied basic rights and opportunities. This view stemmed from a medical model that located the “problem” of disability within the individual.
Over time, the disability rights movement has advocated instead for a social model of disability. From this perspective, disability arises not just from a person’s condition, but from the way society is structured to create barriers and prejudices against them. Being unable to walk is an impairment, but being unable to access buildings due to lack of ramps is a disability created by society. This social model sees people with disabilities as a minority facing systemic discrimination and exclusion, not just as individuals with medical problems. It calls for removing societal barriers and changing attitudes, rather than treating or curing individuals. It also recognizes disability as a natural part of human diversity and embraces it as an identity.
Solomon also confronts fundamental questions about how society values human life, particularly when discussing severe disabilities. He examines and criticizes philosopher Peter Singer’s controversial argument that not all humans qualify as “persons” deserving of moral consideration. Singer proposes measuring human value through capabilities such as self-awareness and the ability to perceive oneself over time, suggesting that infants and people with severe cognitive disabilities might not experience their lives as people in the way others do. Solomon rejects this framework for measuring human worth, showing through his interviews how it fails to capture the value in the lives and relationships of people with severe disabilities.
How Can You Parent a Child With a Significant Difference?
Solomon writes that parenting a child with a horizontal identity is a life-altering experience that presents unique challenges and opportunities. It requires a deep commitment, resilience, and a willingness to adapt and grow alongside the child. We’ll examine Solomon’s advice for parenting a child with a horizontal identity.
Understand and Accept Your Child’s Differences
Solomon explains it’s imperative to understand and accept your child’s difference, no matter what it is. Educating yourself prepares you to provide appropriate care, support, and accommodations. Accepting your child’s abilities enables you to nurture their strengths and foster a strong sense of self-worth. But Solomon acknowledges that achieving understanding and acceptance is a process: Parents have to come to terms with the emotional impact of having a child with unexpected differences or disabilities. It’s natural to feel grief, anger, fear, and even guilt. Yet it’s essential to work through these feelings to cultivate a mindset of hope for the child’s future.
When parents first learn about their child’s condition, the learning curve can be steep. For example, Solomon explains that autism spectrum disorder affects how a person perceives and interacts with the world around them: They may struggle to understand social cues, make eye contact, or engage in back-and-forth conversations; show repetitive behaviors (such as rocking, hand-flapping, or repeating words or phrases); have restricted interests or experience distress with change; and experience sensory processing issues that make them hypersensitive or hyposensitive to certain stimuli. Parents have to learn about their child’s unique experiences to determine how to best interact with them, raise them, and advocate for them.
Another crucial part of the learning process is to acknowledge the importance of acceptance and find a community where your child can feel they belong. Solomon writes this can foster stronger bonds and healthier relationships within your family, and it can also help your child accept their own differences. Your celebration of what’s different about your child lays a strong foundation for self-acceptance. Helping your child find peers who share similar experiences or identities can help them feel validated (particularly during their teenage years, when peer acceptance is more important). Also, helping them find positive representation in media, literature, or public figures can inspire them to take pride in their identity.
Solomon contends that cultivating a more empathetic understanding of a horizontal identity makes society more inclusive for everyone with that identity. For example, by learning about the experiences of people with autism spectrum disorders, we make society more accepting of individuals with these differences. This can help reduce stigma and negative stereotypes, and the discrimination and social isolation they create.
Solomon explains that by cultivating a better understanding of what people with a horizontal identity experience, we can also equip ourselves to advocate for the changes needed to make our world more inclusive of and accessible to people with this difference. For example, with a better understanding of what people with autism experience, we can become more informed advocates for creating environments, educational programs, and social opportunities that enable individuals with this difference to thrive and lead fulfilling lives.
Make a Practical Plan
It’s crucial to understand and accept a child’s horizontal identity—and also to figure out the practical aspects of how to best parent a child with a difference, especially one that constitutes a disability. Solomon explains that families need to plan how to meet the child’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social needs. He recommends a range of practical strategies he observed in families parenting children with a variety of needs and circumstances.
1. Seek professional support: Solomon writes that it’s important to collaborate with health-care professionals, therapists, and educational specialists who have experience with children like yours. By assembling a team of professionals who can advise you, you can develop an individualized plan for your child’s care and development. Working with professionals can also help you ensure your child receives comprehensive support in all the areas they need it.
For example, if you have a child who is Deaf, professionals can teach you to communicate with your child in American Sign Language (ASL), to advocate for their educational rights to sign language instruction and accommodations, and to make informed decisions on assistive technologies such as cochlear implants that align with the values of Deaf culture.
2. Embrace early intervention: For many conditions and disorders, early intervention programs can significantly improve a child’s developmental outcomes. Solomon recommends finding and engaging with these programs as early as possible to maximize their effectiveness.
Solomon explains that, for example, early diagnosis and intervention can make a big difference for a child with autism. Solomon explains that therapies such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and social skills training can be started when your child is very young to address specific challenges and help them develop in a healthy way. Some families choose methods specific to their child’s difference, such as applied behavior analysis (ABA) for autism spectrum disorders.
3. Foster independence: While it’s important to provide your child with the support they need, Solomon explains it’s also crucial to encourage them to develop a healthy sense of independence and autonomy. Parents can teach their exceptional children life skills, promote self-advocacy, and involve them in decision-making processes as appropriate for their age and abilities. In doing so, they help their child live their fullest and most fulfilling life.
4. Build a support network: Parenting a child with disabilities can be emotionally and physically demanding. Solomon recommends seeking support from family, friends, support groups, or counseling services to maintain your well-being and prevent burnout. Finding other people who have experience with the difference or disability your child has can also connect you with an invaluable source of guidance and advice and with people who can empathize with your family’s particular challenges.
5. Advocate for your child: Educate yourself about your child’s rights, the resources they’re entitled to, and the accommodations for which they qualify. Solomon explains that parents need to actively advocate for their child’s needs in educational, medical, and community settings.
6. Celebrate milestones: Every achievement, no matter how small, deserves recognition and celebration, according to Solomon. He explains that it’s important to acknowledge your child’s progress and efforts, as this can boost their confidence and motivation.
7. Plan for the future: Consider long-term planning for your child’s future, including legal and financial arrangements, housing options, and potential guardianship or support systems. This proactive approach can provide peace of mind and ensure your child’s well-being is secured.
Realize That Your Child Will Change You
Solomon writes that parents and children are shaped by their relationships with one another, and this mutual influence can be profound when a child has a horizontal identity. Solomon observes that when you become a parent to a child who is exceptional in some way, the experience often exaggerates your characteristics and parenting style. As a result, your influence on your child is more extreme—much better or much worse—than it otherwise might have been. In this way, who you are and your beliefs about the world shape your child and how they see themself and their difference.
But Solomon contends that, in addition to making a parent more themselves, a child with a horizontal identity also changes the parent: To love a child who differs from what was expected, you have to change your idea of what kind of child you can raise, what kind of person you can build a relationship with, and what kind of human you can love. He explains that instead of loving a child for what they reflect back to you of yourself, you can love them as and for themselves. By learning to accept an exceptional child, you can expand your capacity for empathy for your children, for yourself, and for the wider diversity of human experiences.
