I was a Neutral kid pretty much verbatim.
My dad was an Active parent, resulting in this:
Neutral child vs. Active parent
This scenario is thought to produce Enneagram type 9
The Neutral child is often overwhelmed and frightened by the controlling, domineering Active parent. Lacking self-assertion skills, he prefers to withdraw and stay out of the way, minimizing his own needs and avoiding the parent as much as possible. On the few occasions the child reaches out to the caretaker, he ends up feeling rejected and bullied around for no apparent reason, which causes him to withdraw again. The loneliness, however, also feels like rejection and soon enough the youngster will be ambivalent towards both being alone and being with others.
Most of the time, a compromise will be made. This type will seek out company but will not invest themselves in it, preferring to keep in the background and go with the flow, partly removed from their actual situation. When alone, they will avoid introspection, which will bring about old feelings of depression and rejection, instead they'd rather numb themselves out with food, TV or other unimportant routines to avoid emotional pain.
I have a strong 9 component to my personality, but it feels more like an add-on... like I basically pulled back further than I wanted, deal with a lot more ambivalence than I should be dealing with, and became far more diplomatic because I had no other way to deal with my father that wouldn't trigger aggression and invasion.
I struck out the one part that didn't match for me, and that's where the 5 and 4 types come out -- dispassionate 5 has to look at everything in order to remain honest, and self-focused 4 needs to soak itself in its own unique pain. However, as terrible luck would have it, I still manage to succumb to the stupid numbing mechanisms described.
I think that issue with my dad (his invasiveness) left me with a bad taste toward Actives for much of my life; I didn't really have enough courage to engage Actives until my 30's.
My mom was a Responsive parent:
Neutral child vs. Responsive parent
This scenario is thought to produce Enneagram type 5
In this relationship, the Responsive parent is inclined to give a lot of unrequested attention to the Neutral child, who perceives his parent's supportive and affectionate attitude as a form of smothering. The youngster will tend to withdraw from his environment, preferring solitary activities and contemplation, but as opposed to the previous scenario (of type 9), loneliness will not be accompanied by a feeling of rejection. At the contrary, being alone is a matter of choice and it gives a feeling of security and well-being, knowing that there is always someone to communicate with when they decide to seek out company.
Such children are genuine loners, who prefer and enjoy their solitude. They are introspective, insightful and love learning and discovering things on their own, usually rejecting any help or intervention from the outside. They are afraid of being intruded upon because their parents used to make a fuss over them and suffocate them with attention and demands for closeness.
My mom was oddly smothering + oddly detached. She would fluctuate between glowy and very stoic/reserved -- the latter partly because she realized her smothering nature was offensive to me + she had been emotionally abused by my father and it shut down her emotional centers. But it created a lot of distance... so much that I actually have felt a large sense of rejection in that my mother doesn't understand me whatsoever. So I don't feel like the connection is real; anyone could be plugged into the role of "me," even a rock or a plant, and she would treat them the same.
Maybe I need the reassurance of a closer relationship (rather than feeling happy being "alone" all the time) because I never really felt security and well-being or that someone would communicate with me when I needed company? I actually WAS alone in the world, against my will, which sucked even if I did enjoy the solitude.
SO it's hard for me to judge this definition. Theoretically it seems to make sense, my own life just did not play out this way.