Andrew Solomon Son Identity Analysis

In the reading “Son” by Andrew Solomon, horizontal and vertical identities are compared and dissected through the lenses of society’s perceptions. A vertical identity consists of “attributes and values … passed down from parent to child not only through DNA, but also through shared cultural norms”, while a horizontal identity occurs when “someone has an inherent or acquired trait that is foreign to his or her parents” (370). Horizontal identities need to be separated into two categories. One—Identities that face struggle based on societal stigmas (sexual orientation) versus, two—Identities that struggle in society due to a debilitating physicality(deafness). I believe debilitating identities can be eradicated from an offspring since it will

The author narrates his struggle with identity from his early ages to present, and shows the development of his ethical views on the “taboo” horizontal identities that most of society negates. He first describes his experience with Deaf culture as eye-opening since he began to understand his parent’s strong actions against anything that subjected the term gay upon himself (“wanting a pink balloon instead of a blue one”) , not because they didn’t love him, but more so because they didn’t want society to harm him, just like all parents, Solomon included, who would have strongly thought and acted upon giving a cochlear implant if their child was deaf at the infancy stage as to give them a chance for hearing sound (374). “My first impulse would have been to do whatever I could to fix the abnormality” (371). The actions of these parents stems from the urge to protect their children from struggle in the society’s harsh reality of ill perceptions against horizontal identities, and thus should not be blamed but instead reformed through

The key detail in this experience was the questions from the mother of the dwarf child: “should she make sure her daughter had dwarf role models; or whether she should investigate surgical limb-lengthening” (371). The bafflement for this mother can be related to most parents of children with horizontal identities: should they accept their child’s future and help habituate them to their differences, or should they try every way possible to rectify the “aberrant” identity that society will ridicule and not accept easily? Here lies one of Solomon’s most important conclusions throughout the reading: “Difference unites us” (371). Although Solomon had different horizontal identities than those that he was disclosed to, he realized the different differences in each of these identities actually united all of the people and allowed them to share the same burden of being a “deviant” of society; This was a truly empowering discovery—that the “exceptional is ubiquitous” while the “typical is the rare and lonely state”