How do certain traits become meaningful parts of our identity? Why do some differences from our parents shape how we see ourselves while others don’t?
Andrew Solomon explores the distinction between traits we get from our parents (vertical identities) and those that set us apart from them (horizontal identities). This framework helps us understand how families navigate unexpected differences and how people develop a sense of self when they differ significantly from their parents.
Keep reading to discover how horizontal identities affect both parents and children and how families can embrace differences rather than trying to “fix” them.
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 (vertical identities) or whether they set us apart (horizontal identities), 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.
(Shortform note: While Solomon introduces vertical and horizontal identities to distinguish traits inherited from parents versus traits that diverge, the biology of genetic inheritance adds nuance to this framework. Geneticists point out that even our most “vertical” inherited traits result from unique DNA combinations: A child receives chromosomes from both parents, and through a process called recombination, sections of DNA are exchanged between parental chromosomes. This creates a distinctive genetic blueprint that makes each person unique, even in traits they share with family. While we inherit many traits from our parents, even vertical identities contain elements of individuality and difference.)
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.
| How Do Our Traits Affect Our Self-Image? As Solomon points out, different traits have different effects on how we see ourselves. This is particularly important when considering horizontal identities: Psychologists explain that our self-concept develops through our experiences, especially in childhood and adolescence, as we learn how our traits influence our interactions with others and our place in society. Some traits, such as having a visible disability, can strongly impact specific aspects of how we see ourselves, such as our social confidence or sense of belonging in certain settings. Other traits, such as our temperament, may shape our broader self-concept in more subtle ways, influencing how we approach relationships or handle challenges. Other experts agree with Solomon’s point that it’s crucial to exercise agency to choose how we navigate our identities, both for children with horizontal identities and for their families. Bruce Feiler writes in Life Is in the Transitions that transformative life changes—such as having a child who is profoundly different—disrupt how we find meaning in our lives. Feiler explains that we have three sources of meaning: our sense of agency, our connections with others, and our sense that we’re part of a larger cause. When a major change occurs, it challenges our dominant source of meaning. We have to adapt by learning to emphasize a different source to restore our sense of equilibrium—and figure out how we want to actively navigate the change. |
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.
Exercise: Build Understanding Across Differences
Parents of children with horizontal identities often must learn to understand experiences that are very different from their own. This skill is valuable for anyone seeking to build meaningful relationships across differences.
- Think of someone in your life who has an identity or experience significantly different from yours (this could be related to ability, gender identity, neurodiversity, etc.). What assumptions did you initially make about their experience?
- How have those assumptions changed as you’ve gotten to know them better?
- What actions could you take to better understand and support someone with this different identity or experience? Consider both practical support and empathic understanding.
