Ever since my daughter’s character started to show, we were convinced that she was sociable. More sociable than her brother who, despite his reserved nature, is outgoing and makes friends easily. To give you an idea of how sociable Johnny is, I only need to recount a recent visit to the local park. Upon seeing a group of kids playing with a ball, he casually approached them and asked, “re, can I play with you?,” joining the little football game within seconds. Despina, we thought, was even more sociable. We were also convinced that she was more sociable than us— an admittedly low bar, considering that on the spectrum from misanthrope to social butterfly, both Sunshine and I lean towards the former.

This perception of Despina as a social person got quickly accepted as fact. And like most facts, we stopped questioning it. In reality, this perception was not a product of observation. We did not notice her approach other children, nor show much curiosity about them. In fact, she exhibits quite the opposite behaviour—Despina enjoys spending time by herself, she doesn’t like to share, and she has an aversion to loud and busy situations. Why, then, did we assume she was sociable?

Well, we got carried away by what I consider to be her defining attribute—her obstinacy. Despina is as strong-willed, if not stubborn, as all the important women of my life: Sunshine, my mum, and my sister. I wrote about these strong women in a previous entry. Like them, Despina knows what she wants, she will claim it, and “no” is not an answer she accepts without protest. At the same time, we were also influenced by how she behaves around us—around loved ones she is cheeky, argumentative, and sometimes unable or unwilling to stop talking.

It is this combination of stubbornness and expressiveness that led us to believe that Despina is a social person. This perception blinded us to the fact that, around children she did not know well, she is quite private and prefers to play alone. During our discussions with her kindergarten teachers, we were assured that she was playing with other children, but we did not quite register that it was only a couple. Nor did we question it when she spoke about the same one friend she played with throughout the day.

The teachers did not pick up on it either. They assured us that she is developmentally on par with her age, while casually noting that she mostly socialises with a small group of children. They attributed it to her age, being among the youngest in her Montessori classroom. The teachers were instead more eager to note her strong-mindedness—that she wouldn’t concede to their authority if she didn’t want to, which they again assured us was of no particular concern, noting that a strong character can be an asset in life, especially for a girl who shall one day become a woman.

Ironically, both Sunshine and I are quite different persons in public and in private. In public, we present as reserved, proper adults. In private, we are different people, with Sunshine being borderline unhinged, far from the serious person she seems in public, while I am closer to my fourteen-year-old self, in terms of temperament and risk-taking—though my constant whining suggests otherwise. Maybe others are like that too, though I suspect some are as grey in their private lives as their public personas indicate.

Nevertheless, we didn’t consider the possibility of a disconnect between Despina’s public and private demeanour. And we never questioned what we thought was one of her core traits. Αfter her teachers mentioned her shyness a few times over, it made us wonder, initially, whether there was some sort of problem at school, and only when that likelihood was dispelled did we realise that she may indeed be a shy, strong-minded girl.

Of course, it’s not a big deal. We’ll discreetly encourage her to cultivate social skills. For sociability is a skill that can be learned; we are both proof of that. Some people are shy, some are not—it’s nothing I worry about. What concerns me, however, is that I now wonder how many other pre-conceived notions I hold that are not grounded in reality. What I want to avoid is my children performing to their father’s pre-conceived notions of who they are, instead of living their own lives.

I don’t have a conclusion. I only know that I am now more alert to question my assumptions when it comes to the children, also realising that their characters will change and develop over the years, shaped by both biology and nurture.

This is part of a series of entries titled Fatherhood Diaries where I record thoughts on life as a new dad. Click here for all the Fatherhood Diaries.