Are you stubborn? Are you the stubbornnest person you know? I'm pretty stubborn, but nothing is worse than a four-year-old who doesn't want to say 'excuse me'. What's the stubbornnest thing that you have ever done or witnessed?

-- Kymm (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), July 12, 2000

Answers

I think I am stubborn, but as I sit here trying to think of the stubbornest thing I've done, nothing springs immediately to mind.

I have stubbornly stuck it out through a series of truly bad (almost psycho) bosses. I dug in my heels since I didn't want any of them to win, which they would have done had I left. From a mental health standpoint, it would have been better for me to pack it in and admit defeat.

I did win in the end.

I'm not sure, really, it if was stubborness or inertia...

-- Laura (windmills@diaryland.com), July 12, 2000.

Being Irish on both sides, my son is arguably the world's most thick- headed boy. One day a couple of years ago when he was about 5, the two of us are exiting a mall and heading to the car, which is parked on the way far side of the lot. Just outside the mall doors, Tommy sees a bright pink shuttle bus and decides he really needs a ride on it. I, being in charge and being late, say no. He launches a full Category 5 tantrum which swirls and builds and strengthens as we drag and kick and scream our way across the parking lot. As we approach the car,an older gentleman comes streaking across the lot, excitedly challenging me to prove I'm not kidnapping this kid. After awhile, everyone calms down and we move on. As we're driving home my still tearful son turns to me and says, "Dad, can we go on the pink bus tomorrow?"

-- Jon Arthur (zanne1504@aol.com), July 12, 2000.

Nah ... I'm too non-confrontational to be stubborn. I'll give in, and develop an ulcer from inwardly seething about it later.

-- Jackie (jackiec@diaryland.com), July 13, 2000.

I've been reading Kymm since forever but this is my first post here. The theme is dear to my heart: I have a HUGE stubborn streak. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of spectacular battles of wills with my dad. Once when I was maybe four, when I came into a room and slammed the door he demanded that I go back and "close it the right way." From my POV, the door was already closed and there was no point to re-opening and closing it. The standoff ended what seemed like hours later with him carrying me over to the site of my offense, taking my tiny little hand and putting it on the doorknob and then opening and closing the door himself.

Food was another common theme. Once at a restaurant I demanded to order a chef's salad. I had no idea of what it actually was but wanted to see if it would be brought out by a guy in a chef's hat. Knowing that I didn't even like salad, my dad refused the request. I announced, perhaps a bit more loudly than necessary, that if I couldn't have a chef's salad I wasn't eating anything. Eventually I was banished to the car, where I amused myself by telling passersby that my family was in there eating but I wasn't allowed to.

I've learned to be a bit more flexible, thank heaven, but now I see the same thing in my son (named, with great prescience, Will). When he was a toddler he would respond to any sort of thwarting by lying down on the sidewalk or the grocery store aisle or wherever he was and going absolutely limp. We used to call him "Baby Gandhi."

-- Donna (ds202@chickmail.com), July 13, 2000.