Living in the COVID-19 World ... and Beyond #26: The Profound Impact of Early Childhood Experiences

In high school, I would describe myself as shy regarding girls.  I interacted with them on projects as required.  Many of my best male friends were going to dances, dating, and being intimate with girls.   I was not – I avoided dances and had no females that I had anything more than a transactional relationship with relative to school matters.

When I look back on high school, I thought I was just reserved regarding relationships, shyer that other boys that were my friends, but not a big problem.   I recognized this as an area that I wanted to address, chose to go to a college where boys and girls lived in the same dorm together, and my shyness gradually lessened during college.  

When I look back on this, I have wondered why I was so much more reserved towards girls than seemingly all of the other boys in my age cohort.  This has led to me probing my own memory to try to gain greater understanding of how I became me.

When I was growing up and going to elementary school, one of my best friends and top academic rival was ZZZZZ.   All through elementary school, we would be in classes together and I would race to complete in-class assignments before she did, I would try to win at the public spelling bees, and compare grades with ZZZZZ and hope to do as well if not better than her.   We were friendly rivals.  We were also good friends, played together after school, and I even stayed at her house for a weekend when my parents were out of town.  

ZZZZZ was a girl, and I was a boy, and we were both Jewish.  ZZZZZ was the kind of girl that my parents expected me to marry – Jewish, smart, and our parents were friendly with each other.   But as a boy in elementary school in the 1960’s, my mind and my focus was not at all on girls and romance.   Boys and girls were all just friends with each other, went to school together, and played together.   We all seemed to get along (or not, in some cases) and I don’t remember there being any tensions or attractions.   And there certainly was not any dating or boy/girl partnering in elementary school.

This all changed for me one day on the playground at recess in what I think was 5th grade.  I was with a group of boys, and they started chanting: “Mike likes ZZZZZ, Mike likes ZZZZZ.”   And they gathered around me and started pushing me.  I could see ZZZZZ in a group of girls at the top of the steps leading back into school.   And girls were gathered around ZZZZZ and seemed to be holding her in place.  The boys were pushing me in ZZZZZ’s direction and continued their chanting.   This all came as a surprise to me ... I had no warning or no expectation that something like this might happen.    In the moment I reacted by pushing back.  If they wanted to get me closer to ZZZZZ, then my goal was to stop that from happening.  I pushed back as hard as I could but there was more of them than there was of me, and I was being pushed up the steps in ZZZZZ’s direction.   I remember that the bell rang, and recess was over, one of my sneaker’s had fallen off during the pushing, and the boys had not achieved their goal of ZZZZZ and I being physically together.

However, when I recovered that memory of the story with ZZZZZ I realized that I had not been shy as a much younger person.  I think what happened is that I felt some form of ridicule for liking ZZZZZ back then, as if I was not supposed to.  The other boys were taunting me.  They were my friends and I’m sure they did not mean to be malicious in any way.  However, I think what was intended to be a playful playground prank, actually made me hesitant to pursue girls for a number of years.  Somewhere in my mind was lodged that memory from recess, and I was afraid of being made fun of again for liking a girl. 

Back in 5th grade, I did like ZZZZZ.  She was my friend.  She was a good friend.  In retrospect, I wish in that moment when the boys started chanting and pushing, I had had the presence of mind to say something like: “Yes, I like ZZZZZ.  She is my friend.   You all want us to get closer.   That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing.  Thanks for your encouragement.”   Instead, I experienced their taunts as ridicule that was quite uncomfortable and, in retrospect, I can see in my teen years I was determined not to experience that ridicule again and I so chose to be “shy.”  

It is informative to see how early childhood experiences can impact a person and the choices that they make.   I am fortunate that I got help in my later teen years and early 20’s from friends who were supportive and encouraging, and I overcome that early experience and “grew out of my shyness.”   And now I’m thankful to be able to enjoy close friendships with men and women alike.

What were some key childhood experiences for you?   Can you see the impact that those childhood experiences had on you as you moved forward in your life?