Growing into Childhood: The Peace of a Given Identity

“You’re a wizard, Harry.” 
“I’m a what?” gasped Harry. 
“A wizard, o’ course” [1].

There is little that compares to childlike wonder. Childlike wonder is not the wonder experienced at the edge of the Grand Canyon or staring into the open ocean—that sort is for adults too. The wonder of a child, as Harry discovered, is a unique ability to wonder about oneself in hopes of discovering something beautiful, unique, and maybe even unexpected. In a word, it is an experience of identity.

Our culture strongly emphasizes the process of discovering your identity, the “distinguishing character or personality” that distinguishes you [2]. We tend to treat the process of finding our identity like a perilous quest straight out of a young adult adventure novel. Desperately seeking to ‘find ourselves,’ we equate our identity with our value. Understanding the path to identity formation holds crucial implications for mental health, internal peace, and a vibrant society.

But how do we discover our identity, and how is it formed? A child’s identity reveals the foundation of who they are, stripped of achievements and life experiences. Careers and abilities cannot define them, nor does a quartet of letters or an assigned digit determined through online quizzes. While we are still too young to speak, our identity must be given to us. Parents, guardians, and other adults involved in a child’s upbringing become “purposeful co-participants” in identity formation during such a period of self-insufficiency [3]. Before we ever decide or discover who we are, we are first told.

In our broken and painful world, identifying characteristics attributed to children hold equal power to wound as they do to strengthen. A child told they are ‘worthless’ lacks the foundational identity to recognize that this value statement does not define them. Before children are able to forgive scarring outbursts from their frustrated parents or ignore insults from strangers at the grocery store, the purposeful co-participants in their lives must teach them the truth of their worth and build their internal fortification. Sadly, loved ones and strangers alike will threaten us with our insignificance all our lives, even without intent. Trusting in a given identity that transcends all earned or chosen identifiers shields us against the barrage of doubts, challenges, and accusations that each of us must endure.

Alongside our parents, cultural influences play a deeply important role in the process of identity-formation at an early age [4]. Adams and Marshall (1996) emphasize that children joining and connecting with society is equally important to their identity formation as their independent journey of ‘self discovery’ [5]. As community and institutional support in our late-modern societies weaken, children are increasingly left responsible for their own identity formation [6]. Our fascination with journeys of self discovery stems from this shift in societal support. In light of this individualistic society, the relationship between children and the adults co-participating in their identity formation becomes even more critical. As psychiatrist Curt Thompson said, “We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us…[and] we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives” [7]. Secure attachments with our parents, the first faces looking back for us, communicate acceptance. Acceptance ultimately emboldens children to not fear exploration, knowing that their identity and value don’t depend on their discoveries [8]. 

Oftentimes, our society encourages identification through the benchmarks of success measured on a resume, recognizing someone for their job, their accomplishments, or their role in society. We seek promotions, pursue education to gain higher status, showcase our productivity through expensive purchases, and boast in our discipline in shaping our physical appearance. Work, among all else, falls as a “principal source of identity” [9]. But even those of us who prefer to not see ourselves as these functional cogs inadvertently categorize each other through our roles in society. One glance into your contacts might reveal the identifying monikers ‘Jake from State Farm’ or ‘Doctor McStuffins.’ Within our society these identifiers are useful for remembering faces and connecting associations, but tying a complex being’s identity up in their professional role is fraught with complications, not the least of which are stress and anxiety [10]. Jobs can be lost, education discredited, and legacies forgotten. Placing the full weight of who we are on roles and achievements that can be stripped away by decisions and environments completely outside of our control is foolish.

Identities are also composed of demographic factors such as age, race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, socioeconomic class, citizenship status, and ability [11]. For children, cultural backgrounds influence the societal structures that play significant roles in identity formation. One study found that the familial relationships traditionally found in Latin American and Asian cultures often value family cohesion and unity over individuality, as compared to Black and White youth who typically experience activities associated with individual autonomy at a younger age [12]. This is just one small example of how these factors play a role in our identity formation, even though they are factors we have little control over. Demographic markers have a place in the composition of our identities, but they fail to adequately represent the personalities and beliefs that are core to who we are. Harry Potter, for example, could never be fully described as just a straight white half-blood British boy.

Alternatively, our identities can be composed of external impressions of who we are. Research defines self-esteem derived from other’s perceptions as “reflected” or “reflexive” [13]. Outsourcing our identity through reflected perceptions is dangerous because we tend to accept it [14]. Though there is merit in mindful self-reflection based on external feedback, it would be horrific advice to tell a child to believe everything anyone ever says about them. As Burke (1991) explains with the term ‘identity-interruption,’ any disparity between the internal perception of one’s identity and the reflected appraisals of others creates stress and anxiety [15]. Taking this principle to the most extreme extent, forfeiting complete control over the core of your identity leaves you vulnerable to external threats as well as internal reactions [16].

Leaning on benchmarks of success, demographic factors, and external impressions of ourselves cannot consistently deliver fulfillment and reassurance. Like a child, we need an identity that we can never lose and that will never be weaponized against us. Identities rooting deeper than superficial roles and characteristics that are resilient allow us to sleep soundly amidst suffering and failure, resting in the assurance that nothing can threaten who we are.

Still, we face a problem. Our parents who are responsible for giving children this solid foundation of identity are also the same parents who get tired and snap after a long day of work, who forget birthdays, who overreact to innocent mistakes, and who suffer from all of the same crippling insecurities, selfish desires, shameful thoughts, and guilty histories as the rest of us. In light of all these shortcomings, it should be no surprise that children grow up and question the identity they were given, recognizing its cracks and faults. In order to have a completely secure identity, it must come from a steadfast and reliable source. Perfectly good assurances promised by hypocritical people are not reassuring.

“But God.”

Against the myriad of competing sources of identity, the identity offered by the life and teachings of Jesus parallels the gifted identity of a child. In a manner fully aware of the way children are intended to construct their identity, Jesus offers his followers the ability to let down their self-enforced identity, and simply to rest and wonder at who they are as beloved children of God [17]. Unlike our imperfect parents, God, our Heavenly Father, knows and loves His children perfectly [18]. Despite sinful hearts and decaying bodies, God gives His people value and worth simply because He made them a reflection of His goodness [19]. Recounted in the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son who squanders his father’s money and lives in disgrace. Rather, when the son returns to his father’s house to repent and atone for what he has done, the father greets him with great celebration and joy, stating “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” [20]. Such is the goodness of God the Father, that even as His name is disgraced He greets all with immeasurable love and forgiveness [21].

Though everyday we will fail to live perfectly, Christians can place their worth firmly in the identity that has been given by God, understanding that they certainly did not earn it by good deeds and achievements and therefore cannot lose it by failures and shortcomings. Like children reassured of their love at home, they then can go into life boldly and courageously, living for the glory of the God who makes us who we are. Jesus uses the example of generous parents in Matthew, encouraging his disciples: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” [22]. To the same degree, if a loved identity instilled by our parents and loved ones is a source of peace and security, then how much more wonderful is a God-given identity received as His children?

References

1. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, (New York: Scholastic, 1999).
2.  “Definition of IDENTITY,” October 9, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identity.
3. Elli P. Schachter and Jonathan J. Ventura, “Identity Agents: Parents as Active and Reflective Participants in Their Children’s Identity Formation,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 18, no. 3 (2008): 449–76, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2008.00567.x.
4. Henceforth, co-participants in identity formation will be abbreviated to parents. Studies have primarily focused on this biological relationship, and so the data surrounding this topic lacks the depth to analyze the dynamics of other guardians independently. Therefore, when I refer to parents in this context, my logic and reasoning applies also to grandparents, siblings, foster parents, teachers, and all other guardians responsible for ‘parenting’ children through identity formation.
5.  Schachter and Ventura, “Identity Agents.”
6.  Baumeister & Muraven (1996), Côté (1996), Schachter (2005a),
7.  Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves, 1st ed. (IVP, 2015), 138.
8. Wim Beyers and Luc Goossens, “Dynamics of Perceived Parenting and Identity Formation in Late Adolescence,” Journal of Adolescence, Adolescent Self and Identity Development in Context, 31, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 165–84, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.04.003.
9. Mark Tausig et al., eds., “The Sociology of Work and Well-Being,” in Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health, Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research Series (Dordrecht, NETHERLANDS, THE: Springer Netherlands, 2012), 23, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vand/detail.action?docID=973851.
10. Tausig et al.
11. Oliver Colbert, “Student Center for Social Injustice & Identity: Navigating Difficult Conversations” (Sarratt Cinema, October 29, 2024).
12. Janel E. Benson and Glen H. Elder, “Young Adult Identities and Their Pathways: A Developmental and Life Course Model,” Developmental Psychology 47, no. 6 (November 2011): 1646–57, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023833.
13. Peggy A. Thoits, “Self, Identity, Stress, and Mental Health,” in Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health, ed. Carol S. Aneshensel, Jo C. Phelan, and Alex Bierman (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013), 357–77, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_18.
14. Thoits.
15. Peter J. Burke, “Identity Processes and Social Stress,” American Sociological Review 56, no. 6 (December 1991): 836–49, https://doi.org/10.2307/2096259.
16. Marina Abramovic, a Serbian artist known for exploring the limits of the physical body and the mind, challenges this concept of complete surrender of oneself. For six hours, she performed her piece “Rhythm 0” (1974) during which she was to be solely treated as an object. As she surrendered her autonomy, people went as far as to strip away her clothing, stab rose thorns in her stomach, slice her neck and drink her blood, lay her down on a table with a knife placed between her legs, and bring her own hand to her temple holding a loaded gun. This haunting demonstration stands as a mirror reflecting human nature and how terribly we fail to provide good-will towards one another. Marina Abramovic on Performing “Rhythm 0” (1974), 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTBkbseXfOQ.
17. John 1:12, Rom. 9:8, 1 John 3:1-2 ESV
18. Ps. 139, Matt. 10:29-31 ESV, 1 John, 4:7-8 ESV
19. Gen. 1:27 ESV
20. Luke 15:11-32 ESV
21. Exod. 34:6 ESV
22. Matt. 7:11 ESV