I am not very good in large social gatherings. I’m fine in a medium sized group of good friends (10-15 people), even better in a small group of five close people. Drop me in a large group of people during a social gathering, a wedding, a fund-raiser where I do not know very many people there, and I really struggle. I have a hard time knowing how to enter and exit conversations, I feel anxiety over how to move through a room, and I don’t really know how to handle talking over loud music or crowd noise.
In these situations, I often find myself talking to my wife, retreating to a quiet area outside near a bathroom to take a break. I guess it’s not a big surprise that when Ollie is at a birthday party with a large group of people, sometimes he prefers to play by himself.
The whole idea of the “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” is that people’s behavior, temperament, and personality can be explained and understood in the context of their parents. Manifestations of this can be both a wonderfully reassuring thought, and also a sad, almost tragic reflection.
I don’t believe that we are destined to be our parents, however we can’t escape the reality of our parents influence. Like racial bias, the influence of our parents will never leave us, even though we may grow to acknowledge and deal with this influence in a more productive way.
As a father, I hope that my kids demonstrate attributes I like about myself, but also are not burdened with parts of my personality that have caused me anxiety. I thought for a time when Ollie was a baby waving a smiling at every person he met and came across that my inability to handle certain social situations would not be passed on to Ollie.
As Ollie got older, it became clear that the same reserved manner that is characterized as “shy,” was exhibited by Ollie. Somehow, I feel responsible, because it’s my genes, my parenting that put him in a situation where he is dealing with the same challenges I am socially. I don’t need my sons to help me process my insecurity. I get no comfort from the idea that I am better than them. I want nothing more for them to be better than me, and to teach me how to be a better human being, which in many ways the already have.
The reality, not the emotional experience of parenting, is that I cannot take responsibility for my children’s personality. It is my responsibility to help them get to know who they are and help them understand how to be their genuine selves, while being an empathetic and caring member of society.
I’m not saying that I did not have a influence of the formation of my children’s personality, but at this point with a five-year-old and a 10-month-old, who I currently have strapped on to me with a baby carrier, trying to figure out how my past actions as a parent have led to my child being “shy,” is an unproductive exercise fraught with unnecessary guilt, and theories of correlations that can probably never be proven to be true.
Learning to know and love yourself is embracing the parts of you that you do not love, parts that cause you anxiety and stress. Loving your child is no different. As much as our children mirror ourselves, they are not our reflections. Sometimes we want them to be, but this is flawed because it brings us to a place where reflections of our own perceived flaws in our children quickly overcome any pride of success that we mistakenly take credit for in our children.
Ollie is like me. We both struggle with social stuff. We have that in common. And that’s something I get about him that other may not, and while that may seem like a flaw, I’m glad I share this with him so he understands it’s not something that he should feel shame about.
I know that part of me is with my son, but there's more than just me. There's my wife, there's his ancestors who died in Auschwitz, and resisted the Japanese in the Pacific. He may be an apple but it's more than just from a tree. It's part of an incredible forrest.
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