Dr. Gregory House

House was born in 1959 , One possible birthday is June 11, 1959 (according to his hospital admission bracelet in No Reason) which is also actor Hugh Laurie's actual birth date. Another is May 15, 1959, according to his Driver License in Two Stories and the sheet of information he sticks to his bathroom wall in After Hours in case of his death.[1] (to make it even more confusing, he gets birthday wishes in The Socratic Method broadcast in December). He is the child of Blythe House, a housewife who was married to Marine pilot John House. At the same time that John was overseas, Blythe was also having an affair with Thomas Bell whom House believed was his biological father due to the physical characteristics they share, but this turned out to be false.

Young house-love is blind
Young House. Love is Blind

As his father served on active duty through most of House's childhood and adolescence, House has lived in a variety of countries, such as Egypt, the Philippines and Japan. As a result, House is able to speak Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, has conversational Brazilian Portuguese and is able to read at least some Hindi. Furthermore, he was once shown reading a French medical journal and an untranslated Japanese manga. He additionally has some knowledge of several others. For example, he used Yiddish, Russian and Latin phrases several times, but it is unknown how much of these languages he knows.

House was obviously a bright child, a mixed blessing as his harshly demanding father and enabling mother obviously had high hopes for him. He cultivated a variety of interests, such as chemistry, playing the piano and guitar. However, it appears that his isolation from people his age and his poor relationship with his parents led House to become something of a loner. He had little to no friends growing up which probably contributed to his antisocial behavior. It is implied that he frequently rebelled against his father and was punished as a result with both intense physical discomfort and emotional isolation.

At the age of 12, realizing that his father had been away during his conception, House deduced that John was not his biological father. House confronted John with this information, and as a result they stopped speaking to one another for an entire summer, communicating only through hand-written notes. Their relationship, however, returned to normal following this brief spat (although there is sufficient evidence presented throughout the series that points towards John's abuse of a young House). John treated House coldly, likely due to a lack of understanding between the two. It could be said that John did not resent House, but was a believer in tough love. Another theory is that, considering his punishments were so harsh, John more than likely abused House as a way of exercising his frustration at Blythe's infidelity. This fact did not stop Blythe from supporting her husband, which made House all the more resentful towards his father. In One Day, One Room House confides in Eve that his father repeatedly abused him throughout his childhood, making him take ice water baths and sleep outside in the cold as a way of administering discipline. House strongly hints at this being the source of the fragility in his and his father's relationship. House is emotionally damaged by the dysfunction in these primary relationships, citing his mother's dishonesty and his father's hostility as causes of his damaged personality. His colleagues have acknowledged that this is the source of House's deep-seated unhappiness, and cynicism; his fear of intimacy, praise, and the unknown; as well as his lack of acceptance regarding traditional societal values and rituals.

It was during his visit to a Japanese hospital in his early teens that House met a disheveled-looking man appearing to be a janitor but despite his appearance, was actually the greatest medical practitioner in the entire hospital. He later discovered the man was a buraku, an "untouchable" in the Japanese caste system who made no attempt to fit in with the rest of the hospital staff. When one of House's friends is gravely wounded in a rock climbing accident, the doctors turn to the buraku healer for his expertise. House cites this as the primary motivation behind his choice to become a doctor, noting that when all else failed, the doctors heeded the buraku's advice despite their intense distaste for him. The treatment of the buraku healer presumably mirrors the manner in which House was treated as a young man: being ignored by his "betters" despite his atypical, prodigious intellect, profound understanding of human nature, and wisdom beyond his years.

In his late teenage years, House went to a prep school in the United States where, in addition to keeping very good grades, he played varsity lacrosse and demonstrated a keen interest in music, both modern and classical.