Stubborn

Stubborn : unreasonably or perversely unyielding.  Stubborn is just one of the inherited traits I received from my mother... along with her chin, her quick wit and her love for arts and crafts.  I have spent many years trying to tame the stubborn streak.  She was stubborn.  I was stubborn.  Two stubborn people tend to get in a headlock over and over.

 

 

 

Me, Lisa, Catha*

 

 

 

This story of me as a child, that my mother told many times, just sums up the amount of stubbornness we both held within us.

 

 

 

While both of my sisters had already started elementary school, I stayed at an in-home daycare...Mrs.  Turner's.  I called her Turner.  My memory of this time zooms in on the little cots that we napped on.  I have always loved sleep so it's telling that I remember the "bed."  I also remember that she had a large, dark lady in the kitchen who would cook all morning while we played.  I was about 4 at the time.  One day, when my mother arrived to pick me up, the children were in the middle of picking up the toys.  There was one truck left out and my mother asked me to put it away. 

 

 

Me:  No.

 

Mother:  Put it away.

 

Me: No.

 

Mother:  Julia Dian, you will put the truck away NOW.

 

Me:  (silent but standing ground with my arms crossed.)

 

Mother:  Turner, please leave the truck right where it is, we'll be back.

 

 

(I was being taken home for a talking to and probably a spanking)

 

 

So back at Turner's with an attitude adjustment.....so my mother thought.

 

 

Mother:  Okay, we're back.  Go put the truck away.

 

Me:  No.

 

Mother:  I said PUT.  IT.  BACK.

 

Me:  (shaking my head back and forth)

 

Mother:  We'll be back.

 

(Second trip home...same scenario)

 

And now we're back at Turner's for the second time but the third try at putting away the truck. I walked in with a big smile and picked up the truck and threw it in the toy box.  Turned towards Turner with a sweet smile on my face and....

 

Me:  (with the most innocent smile on my face)I love you, Turner!

 

Mother:  (exhausted from the last hour of standing her ground and two trips home to spank me and talk to me)  sigh.

 

Way to "work a room"....  I'm sure I thought I had those 2 adults under my control.

 

I've heard this story so many times but I really don't remember the actual event.  I feel sure I didn't want to put the truck away because I probably didn't get it out.  But this story clearly defines the amount of stubbornness my mother and I both had on that evening. 

 

This same stubbornness got in our way many times over the years.  She would hold her ground and I would hold my ground.  She eased up over the years and I have eased up.  That's one of the nice things about growing older.  But I understood that part of her because I, too, had that stubborn thing running through my veins.


I know she understood it.  Didn't like it, but understood it.



 



* By the way, Catha has the best hair of all of us now.  This picture was taken in her Pixie cut days.