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Overall Summary

Andrew Solomon’s book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity (2012), examines how parents cope with children who are nothing like them. He also discusses what it means to be different from your parents. The author is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Cornell Medical School. In 2008, he received an award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry for his contributions to mental health research and awareness.

Solomon’s book, Far from the Tree, discusses how parents and children are different. Solomon believes that being different is part of human nature. He also says that it’s normal for a child to be unlike his or her parents in many ways.

Solomon argues that the biggest problem parents face is whether to accept their children for who they are or try to change them. He suggests that most people want to love and accept their children, but also want them to be successful and fulfill their potential. Solomon uses his own family as an example—his family struggled with accepting his sexual orientation, which made him wonder how other families react when a child turns out very differently than what they expected.

For many parents, children are their immortality. Children mean that they’re not gone and forgotten, but live on in future generations. However, if a child is different from them or goes against what they expect of them, it can be difficult for the parent to accept the child as theirs. It’s easier to accept a stranger who resembles us and acts like us than our own children.

Solomon covers the difference between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities, such as skin pigmentation, are passed down from one generation to the next. Horizontal identities, such as sexuality and IQ, are traits that we don’t share with our parents. Solomon gives examples of mentally disabled children born of average-IQ parents and gay children born of straight parents. Most psychopaths also do not come from psychopathic families.

Solomon then states that it is possible for people to change their identity later in life by changing their behavior patterns through therapy or other means.

Solomon argues that there is a difference between changing our children and letting them make their own decisions. Parents are responsible for providing their children with education, morals, manners, and correcting some of the child’s behavior. Most parents understand this.

Parents should not try to change their children’s sexual orientation, because it is unique to that child. Many families struggle with what they should change about their child and what they must leave alone. This struggle unites all of us.

Solomon explains that even if we’re not as different from our parents as we think, there are many ways in which each of us is unique. Many people will make choices that their parents would never have made, such as converting to a different religion or choosing a career path that’s very different from what their parents chose. In this sense, being unique is an essential part of the human condition. Parents can hope for children who are just like them, but they’ll never achieve it completely because all children inevitably develop into individuals with their own personalities and interests.

At the end of the book, Solomon shares his personal experiences. He recalls how he was teased for being different as a kid because of his dyslexia and homosexuality. Parents often try to change their children’s differences into something they’re not, which caused him unnecessary distress as a teenager.

Solomon is honest with his subjects in Far from the Tree. He understands how difficult it can be for parents to raise children who are disabled because he has experienced that difficulty himself. Solomon also knows how relieved he feels when one of his own children doesn’t have a disability, as he finds relief in knowing that there’s no reason their lives will be more challenging than those of other people. In addition to being honest about these things, Solomon expects honesty from the people whose stories are featured in this book and offers an equal amount of honesty back to them.