Our first Basset, a sweet tricolored little baby was my best companion during the early days of our marriage. She slept with me at night and spent long hours waiting for my husband to come home from his shifts as a paramedic. But I will tell you, if something wasn't her idea, she would dig her heals in and do out of character stunts to let us know just how much she thought of our ideas. My husband and I would joke that we had to make everything seem like her idea or she would immediately do something spiteful like using the carpet as her personal bathroom space (while staring you in the face) or go find a shoe that looked especially tasty and shred it. Even something as fun as going for a walk would sometimes become a battle if she didn't feel it was a good time for it. We lost that sweet girl a few years ago and got another Basset. This one is even more gentle and has a really sweet disposition. But from time to time when we say it's time for bed or tell her she needs to get off the couch, even if she has followed the command 100 times, she will look at us as though to say, "Seriously? Do you think I'm going to just do that?" But within 5 minutes of you leaving the room she will do it because you are not expecting her to.
Our children are a lot like this. I, of course, am not saying my children are dogs. But their personalities are a lot like this. We ask our children to do many things during any given day. Pick up your clothes, do your school work, do your best. Most of the time, they will do it without question. But the 9th out of 10 times, someone might just put up the fight of the century. And then, we as parents scratch our heads and wonder what awful rebellion we are in for or wonder where we went wrong. So then we have two choices. We can either draw a line in the sand and really put up our dukes or wait until it is their idea and then try not to say, "I told you so." I am apt to get feisty and go head to head with a kid over respect issues or a child not doing their personal best. Other things I let go (while secretly wishing that someday they have 10 kids just like them) and hope that they will suddenly decide down the line it is their idea.
Our son began picking around on a guitar when he was 5 years old. He picked music up, little by little, with the help of fabulous youth leaders and people who took an interest in a little tiny boy with a little Baby Taylor. He began at a very young age playing in our church and youth groups he was too young to actually take part in. My husband and I began to think that maybe God had big plans for this little boy. We began to talk to him about God gifting him with musical abililities and what all he could do with those abilities for God's glory. He voraciously learned and practiced music for years. And then he turned 10. And the guitars sat in his room and got dusty. And we embarked on a whole new era of parenting....Tweendom. And it was scary. He wasn't outwardly rebelling. He was just being quietly stubborn about this whole God Gift thing. I originally pestered him to death about it. "Did you practice? Do you think you might be wasting the gift you've been given? Do you want to play and sing at church?" To all questions I was met with what I thought was stubborn refusal. The more I pestered the less the guitars were picked up. Finally I realized, this had to be his own doing. He had to come by this knowledge on his own and through God. My husband and I consoled ourselves that he was only 10...and then 11...and finally 12. Then this year, a miracle. He has decided that this may be his gift. He has decided that this is the coolest thing ever. He sits for hours learning new things and now he is pestering youth leaders and other guitarists to show him this or that on the guitar. He gets it. He is living the Basset Hound Theory. Head strong but sweet, and gentle. Doing things when he decides it is right.
So in the end, we all know someone who fits this theory. But in the end, maybe it's not stubbornness as much as a need for patience on our part. People will come to things in their own good time. We can plant a seed and pray for rain but in the end only the other person will do the actual growing. Or maybe not. We can't make people do things. You can lead a horse to water, but cannot make them drink. And as for our children, we can facilitate, pray for, and teach, but in the end it will be them that actually learn the lessons. So what I thought was going to be a blog about stubbornness and people having things their own way has actually been a lesson in grace and patience for all of us......don't you love it when that happens?
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