Observing a Kid's Search For Identity

In the midst of the joy of welcoming our baby daughter, Sarah and I anticipated that our kids would go through some sort of adjustment period. Daniel has, for the most part, done just fine, but our Sophia, perhaps not surprisingly, has found the adjustment a bit more difficult.

It makes sense. Sophia used to be the baby of the family as well as the only girl. The arrival of our baby girl has changed both of these parts of her identity. She's also a charmer and a bit of a ham, so the loss of attention has probably been a bit of an adjustment, too. Fortunately, I guess, her "acting up" has been mostly targeted towards her mother and me as opposed to her new baby sister, with whom Sophia has been nothing but doting and affectionate. Some of this behavior manifests itself in a marked increase in tantrums, defiance, regression and even the occasional potty accident.

Sarah and I will continue to muddle through this - my being at home provided a little bit of a transition period - but we'll do our best to help Sophia realize that she is very much treasured and loved, and to also help her embrace all of what's good about being an older sister and middle child, though I don't think Jan Brady ever solved this dilemma on the Brady Bunch. Lisa Simpson seems to have done just fine. Anyway...

Seeing Sophia's sub-conscious struggle served as a reminder of how the losing of one's self-identity is a very scary thing. At our church fellowship group, we've been studying Tim Keller's The Reason For God, and a recent chapter touched on this very notion of identity while discussing the essence of sin. Keller quotes philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: "Sin is: in despair not wanting to be one self before God... Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God."

The point is that our sense of self defines our sense of worth, and if we ultimately don't tie it to our relationship with God, we tread on dangerous ground. Insomuch Sophia's identity was tied into being the "baby girl" of the family, this came crumbling down when her baby sister showed up. But the truth of the matter is that I struggle with this as much if not more than my daughter does. I wonder how much of my identity and self-worth is really tied into my ability to provide for my family, my success at work, my kids' "success" or even my service to the church and others? What happens when those things "fail" or I find myself incapable of doing those things? Does my sense of value disappear along with it? That's the kicker: many if not most of the things that we struggle with in terms of "alternate" self-worth and identity aren't bad things at all - many are really good and praiseworthy. We're just misguided when we choose to exclusively define ourselves by those things.

As for Sophia, your mom and dad both love you very much. It didn't take you being the baby girl of the family for us to do so.