Ideally, an infant's first year or two of life is spent developing a deep, secure bond of love with the mother that leads to a healthy sense of personal identity. With a solid sense of identity and a confidence that his or her needs for love and care will be met, a child has a good foundation for future growth and development. When this foundation is disrupted, the child is vulnerable to all kinds of problems. Depending on the child's temperament, this can be expressed by withdrawal, apathy and passivity, or by intense aggression and uncontrolled emotion. This can manifest itself later in life through an overwhelming drive to connect with and find their identity in another person.
Many people experience some degree of rejection in their early years.
But when a little boy fails to connect with his father and a little girl doesn't form a close relationship with her mother, the groundwork is laid for future sexual identity struggles. Inborn temperament plays an important role, too. Boys who are born with a sensitive, intuitive, artistic nature can be more vulnerable to disruptions in their relationships with their fathers. In fact, if a little boy like this experiences rejection and ridicule from his dad, it's almost a sure bet that he will have sexual identity struggles later on. Inborn temperament and body build affect girls' early development, too.