there would be an awful lot of people walking around without an identity.

There are an awful lot with a most uncertain identity.

Some of them, though, got that way through being subjected to an over-affirmed "parental project".

Even pets have distinct personalities. The idea that children wouldn't, from birth, seems nonsensical.

There is a certain left-academic belief in personality as a blank slate that can be shaped wholly by society, culture, family and so on.

But I've never been even remotely convinced by it. The links between genetics and behaviour in animals are too obvious and too strong to ignore. And there are interesting things happening on the borderlands between biochemistry and psychology.

Parents can of course influence and I think most people go through a maturation where they keep some elements of family conditioning and attempt to replace or redefine others.

But I see absolutely no reason to believe that parents can ever define personality absolutely, or that genes don't play a part.