Curiosity Killed the Cat, But Persistence Changed Its Mind

            I have a mother who is very consistent.  She does what she says she will do every time without fail.  As a child, this frustrated me because I could never persuade her to buy me the candy bars at the store, reduce my timeout sentence, or anything else that little kids want that isn't good for them.  By "never" I don't mean she held out 99% of the time or only gave in when she was in a particularly bad mood.  I mean that there was literally never a single instance of her letting my persistence convince her to change her established policies.  Trying to change her mind through sheer force of will was like running into a brick wall or resisting a law of physics.  That isn't to say that she wasn't willing to make adaptations if I gave her a good reason, but purely emotional arguments never worked.

            Neither language nor logic was the persuasive element that ultimately convinced me to stop resisting my mom's policies and just get with the program, although she often used both.  It was the consistency with which she thwarted my efforts that did the trick.  At six years old I wasn't very willing to listen to reason, so my mother simply let me run into her iron will a few times until I got frustrated and decided that it wasn't worth it.  Later on, her earlier persistence combined with many other things became a convincing witness that she loved me. 

            When something is truly good, such as my mother's commitment to raise me the right way, it doesn't take a lot of dressing things up for it to have persuasive power.  It just needs to be given the right environment, the right timing, and a level of simplicity suited to the listener's understanding.  As my mom implemented of each of these elements, her love shone through and changed the very fabric of my life.

"Dark Chocolate 10/26/2007," no changes made, by Diana House.  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode