There is a heritage of stubbornness among my family — both sides, in fact. My wife has a similar heritage. It is something we fight against at times, when it’s not to our benefit. But, it’s also something that works in our favor much of the time.
I saw this at work in the life of my daughter recently. We’d been “fighting” about thumb-sucking. We’d gotten down to just at night time, but I didn’t see a clear path to stopping that practice.
Then, my daughter decided to be interested in finger nail polish. At first it was,”When you stop sucking your thumb at night, we’ll paint your nails.”
“Okay, I won’t suck my thumb,” she’d reply. Then, that night, she’d happily suck her thumb.
It went that way for a couple of weeks. Then, she got serious one day. And all that day, she talked about not sucking her thumb. And that night, whenever we checked on her (frequently, I might add,) she wasn’t sucking her thumb.
She wanted her fingernails painted, dang it. So, she did what she needed to do. And she won.
I think that heritage of stubbornness, as dangerous as it can be, is also a gift.