“He’s afraid you might embarrass him when you drop him off,” my daughter, Madi, said, with shrugged shoulders and a half-smile, her body language signaling me not to take my ten-year-old grandson’s concern too seriously.
Eli needed a ride to school for a field trip. He’s in fourth grade, but there would be some older kids in this group besides his school-age friends. The uncertain terrain—not knowing who would be there— had made him a little skittish.
“Do I have to get out of the car?” I asked Madi. It was early morning before school started, and I volunteered to take him. I’d been up a few hours but still wore a well-worn hoodie and sweatpants. Maybe Eli was expecting me to be dressed up, I wondered.
“No, just drop him off,” Madi said.
“Well, then, what’s he afraid of? What’s he think I’m going to do, get out of the car and call all the teachers and kids together for a prayer meeting?” I teased.
When I returned home, I told Lori about Eli’s fear.
“He’s just like Madi was at that age,” she immediately responded.
“Hmm,” I thought. “Can fear of embarrassment be an inherited trait?” And, of course, it can be, at least to a degree. According to studies, some aspects of temperament, including shyness, can be detected as early as four months of age, suggesting it’s largely inborn. But that doesn’t mean a person will be introverted. Nor does it mean shyness will be a lifelong personality trait. According to psychologists, just because our temperament has a biological basis doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. It has to do with the age- old “nature vs. nurture” dynamic.
I was shy as a boy, hesitant about meeting new people or mixing in a crowd. When I was nine years old, about Eli’s age, I went forward in church one Sunday to make what people in my faith tradition call a “profession of faith.” The preacher, Dr. Gene Garrison, asked me to step forward and stand next to him so he could tell the congregation about my decision. Looking out at the auditorium full of people, I literally stepped behind Dr. Garrison, trying to hide from everyone. “Now, David,” I remember him saying while the whole church chuckled as he pulled me from behind his back, “come around here so people can see you.” I did, albeit reluctantly.
Kids go through stages. Some may be predisposed to shyness. In time, that can be overcome, although there is nothing wrong with being reserved in social situations. Part of it is contextual: how comfortable a child or adult feels in certain settings. Eli had never been afraid of talking to strangers when he was with me or someone he felt safe with. His other granddad jokingly called him “Brother Eli” because he was so talkative to people in the grocery store. He was like the village parson.
The fact is, our personalities evolve. While certain characteristics remain relatively stable, we do change. I’m not exactly the same as I was at twenty, thirty, or even fifty, thank goodness.
We can be content with who we are yet willing to grow into who we are ever becoming. Even the Apostle Paul hinted at that over two-thousand years ago when he confessed, “By the grace of God, I am what I am” (I Corinthians 15:10) while admitting that God’s grace was transforming and shaping him and other believers into the image of Christ, so that although “now we see things imperfectly,” as he put it, “like puzzling reflections in a mirror,” there will be a day, “when we will see everything with perfect clarity” (I Corinthians 13:12).
But not yet.
So, I won’t worry about Eli’s apprehension with his peers. Come to think of it, I’m sure I would have been a bit wary if my grandad had shown up to take me to school in sweatpants and a hoodie that looked like they were ready for the trash bin. I’ll just have to remind my grandson that God’s not finished with PopPop, either.