Bengaluru techie, an IIT-Roorkee graduate, spots one inherited trait in his 8-month-old daughter that leaves him worried: ‘I hope she does not get my anxiety’

A Bengaluru-based techie and IIT-Roorkee graduate has sparked a conversation about parenting, family patterns and inherited behaviour after sharing a personal realisation on X. The father of an eight-month-old daughter, Rumi, said he began recognising his own personality in her, from her determination to her sleeping position. But one similarity worries him more than the others: anxiety. A conversation between his friend and his parents helped him understand where his anxious behaviour might come from, prompting questions about what his daughter could learn or inherit.

Bengaluru techie reflects on his anxiety after friend meets his parents

The techie said a friend who had known him for three years visited his parents for the third time last week. During their journey back, the friend remarked that he finally understood why the techie behaved the way he did. The comment made sense to him because his friend had witnessed his anxiety on several occasions. Even during that trip, he recalled repeatedly rushing his friend while they made their way to the airport.

Meeting his parents appeared to offer an explanation. The techie said his mother becomes anxious whenever he has to take a flight or attend an important meeting, making him wonder how much of his own behaviour reflects the environment in which he grew up. He reflected on the difficulty of breaking familiar patterns, writing that people can spend years working on themselves, changing their behaviour and improving their skills, yet still resemble the way their parents lived.

‘I can already see me in her’: Father notices similarities in his baby daughter

The experience also made the techie look more closely at his eight-month-old daughter, Rumi. He said he could already recognise parts of his own personality in her, particularly her determination when she wants something. As an example, he described how Rumi crawled across an entire bed, climbed over two pillows and moved past her mother to reach an air-conditioner remote. Her strong preferences reminded him of himself.

The father also noticed an unexpected similarity in their sleeping positions. According to his post, Rumi is placed on her back but flips onto her tummy, turns her face to the left, tucks one arm underneath herself and raises her bottom into the same position he adopts while sleeping. “Nobody taught her that,” he observed, expressing surprise at the resemblance between them.

The techie also shared photographs comparing himself and Rumi at a similar age. Both were wearing yellow dresses and had similarly serious expressions, adding a visual element to his reflections on the traits they appear to share.

IIT-Roorkee graduate worries his daughter may inherit his anxiety

While Rumi’s determination and sleeping habits amused her father, the possibility that she might develop his anxiety was a more serious concern. The techie admitted that he does not know how much of the anxiety could already be present in his daughter or how much she might pick up by watching him. He said he was still trying to understand what he could do about it.

He hopes she will instead take after her mother, whom he described as calm. His post raises a familiar parenting question: how much of a child’s behaviour reflects inherited temperament, and how much develops through observing family members and growing up in a particular environment?