- 18:00
From birth, the individual is compelled to differentiate in order to exist. Between parental desires, the quest for individuation and adolescent pressures, this path toward authenticity collides with the illusions of conformity, making difference more necessary – and more difficult – than ever.
“To exist is to not be confused with the surrounding environment, it is to be heterogeneous, it is to be different. Each color is only itself through the contrast with the color that faces it. It only has value in opposition.” This quote from biologist Albert Jacquard illustrates how a subject’s true identity is formed through otherness, difference and uniqueness, as opposed to fusion, imitation and blending into the environment.
From birth, each child is immersed in a parental desire that is unique to them. Despite parents often claiming they treat their children “equally,” psychoanalysis shows that the desire of the Other – here, that of the parents – is always singular. Jacques Lacan once said, “The child is the symptom of the parents,” meaning that each child comes to embody something unique about the parental desire. In other words, father and mother unconsciously invest each newborn with specific fantasies, expectations and projections, because each child evokes a particular subjective echo in them. D. Winnicott emphasizes this: “The parental desire for each child is unique, and the relationship with each child is necessarily different despite appearances.”
The emergence of a child’s own difference can be compromised if the parents make them a narcissistic extension of themselves. Freud pointed this out: “Parental love, so touching and, at heart, so childlike, is nothing other than their narcissism reborn.” The child is loved not so much for who they are in themselves, but for what they represent in the eyes of the parent – often, the idealized continuation of the parent’s own being. The unfulfilled dreams of the father or mother sometimes become tacit missions assigned to the child. How many parents, consciously or not, want their offspring to “follow in their footsteps,” continue a family legacy, take over the family business, or achieve the career they once aspired to? The child, then, is no longer seen as a different being, but as a mirror of the parent, a younger alter ego meant to pursue the same path.
Such a relational dynamic severely hinders the child’s individuation process by encouraging the formation of a false self that is overly adapted to parental expectations. The child disconnects from their true nature to fit the image the parents want of them. Out of love, the child sacrifices their uniqueness on the altar of parental narcissism, becoming a “perfect child” or “child-king,” in line with the parents’ fantasy. In doing so, they risk losing touch with their deep authenticity. Their self develops as an extension of the parental Ego, and not through creative opposition. Such a situation, often tragically consequential, can later lead to identity crises: the individual must one day shatter the narcissistic mirror to discover who they are, beyond the image projected by their parents.
The Oedipal dynamic comes a little later, offering the child a chance to find their own path while integrating certain parental reference points. Ideally, by the end of this period, the boy distances himself from his desire for the mother and strengthens his identification with the father, while the girl renounces her Oedipal attachment to the father and identifies more with the mother. This identification is not mere imitation or blind mimicry, but a creative internalization of certain aspects of the parental image. Each child, in identifying with the father or the mother, does so in a unique way, depending on their experiences and unconscious imaginings. The result is not a parental clone, but a new, original personality marked by these influences without being limited by them.
By accepting the differences of sex and generation, the boy who identifies with his father does not become his shadow; instead, he grants himself permission to become a father in turn – but not the same father. The girl who identifies with her mother internalizes the feminine, but in order to make it flourish in her own unique style, not to be a carbon copy. This contrast between generations – this vital contrast – allows the “new color” that is the child to fully emerge, rather than remain diluted in the parental hue.
If childhood ideally ends with a certain degree of individuation, adolescence reopens the identity construction process with a bang. Adolescence is often described as a second birth or a second Oedipus. In reality, it is an period of rupture: a break from childhood, from parental authority, driven by the urgent need to be other than what the family has shaped. The adolescent, confronted with the transformations of puberty, seeks to define an identity, often in stark contrast to the environment in which they were raised. They challenge family values, confront imposed limits, and willingly experiment with opposition. The resulting conflict is a healthy sign of individuation in progress: the adolescent breaks free from childhood dependency and tries on various “identity colors” – clothing styles, music preferences, political ideas – to assert their difference. This is a fundamental opportunity for identity construction, a moment in which the individual must learn not to merge with their environment of origin, but to exist independently within society.
However, this adolescent rupture is often compromised or diverted by contemporary social factors. Today, especially in Lebanon, where social pressure and outward appearances carry great weight, adolescence may take the form of a false rebellion. Instead of truly confronting parental and societal structures, many young people engage in surface-level dissent, channeled through overconsumption or entertainment. Consumer society offers a ready-made array of responses to adolescent anxiety: brand-name clothing to project identity, the latest tech gadgets, wild nightlife. Thus, a young person who adopts the latest fashion trend or indulges in the same experiences as their peers may believe they are asserting themselves, when in reality they are simply swapping family conformity for a commercial one. In a context like Lebanon, where modernity coexists with strong traditions, this dynamic is striking: the adolescent may be tempted to resolve internal tensions through ostentatious consumerism (luxury clothes, cars, lavish parties, drug use) rather than exploring their unease and difference more deeply.
Excessive consumption masks symbolic conflict: it numbs identity questioning beneath a surface of instant gratification and shallow group affiliation. One thinks they are standing out by buying a product, but in reality, they are imitating an advertising model, blending into the mass of consumers. The result is an identity dead-end: true difference – the kind that would make them a unique and autonomous being – struggles to emerge under the masks of consumerist conformity. Adolescence should be the age of contrasts, of fertile opposition to established models; if society diverts this energy toward trivialities, the young adult will pay the price later, often in the form of a delayed existential crisis.
Comments