In Which I Was Stubborn

Real life story about a stubborn little girl

I went to preschool when I was three and four years old. It was in a designated area of a Presbyterian church, but we didn't learn any church stuff. We were just a bunch of children with toys and crafts and snack time. I loved going to preschool. There were a million more toys than I had at home, I got to learn some letters and numbers, and every now and then I met a kid who was nice enough to play with.

Making friends is easy when you're a preschooler. It usually starts out with both of you showing an interest in the same toy, and then (providing you've both been raised right) you share the toy and become the most best of friends for the day. You're inseparable, and why wouldn't you be? You have so much in common, what with your love of the Fisher Price slide.

I had an instant best friend one day. I don't remember her name, but I'll call her Angie, and I don't remember why we became friends, but I'm going to assume it was a kitchen set because I loved to pretend to cook. So we spent a good few hours making fake meals on this fake kitchen set and had a really great time of it. We were such awesome friends, like no friends had ever been before, and I knew we'd be awesome friends forever.

Before snack time happened they usually shipped us kids off to the restroom to make room for all the impending sugary drinks, and we had to go with a partner. So, naturally, my new best friend and I partnered up for our trip to the restroom. We already knew where the restroom was and I was already underway in restroom activities when she poked her head under my stall door and shouted "HELLO!" at me and giggled.

I, understandably, was livid. I screamed for her to go away multiple times because she kept thinking it was so hilarious to peek at me while I was in the bathroom. By the third or so time she finally got the hint and ran off back to the classroom without me. When I got back to the room myself she had told some one-sided story to the teacher about how I had been mean to her for no reason and yelled at her and made her cry. The teacher told me I needed to apologize right now and didn't care one bit about the part of having my privacy violated while using the toilet.

I refused.

She demanded I apologize.

I refused again.

She said if I didn't apologize I would not get to have snack time.

And, bless my four year old heart, I still refused and gladly sad down to sulk without a snack because I knew I was right and the teacher was wrong.

That's quite an accomplishment for a four year old, I think. I would rather be secure in knowing I had done the right thing than have my delicious snack. How many adults in similar but more adult oriented situations do you think do the right thing? I don't have the numbers on that one, but I'm guessing it's not a lot.

So I sat down at the snack table, sulking away with my arms crossed as I refused to watch the other kids eating. It wasn't fair. I wasn't the one who had done something wrong! I wasn't the one who had violated another person's privacy. Why did I have to go hungry while Angie got to eat her snack? But I didn't give in, and when my mom came to pick me up I was still sitting at that snack table refusing to apologize and refusing to give in to the temptation of food.

My mom heard the teacher's tale first, about how I had been mean to another little girl, about how I had yelled, about how I had made her cry, about how I refused to apologize, the willful little thing that I was. My mom probably would have gotten quite mad at me too, if it wasn't for the fact that the teacher had left out the teeny tiny little fact of utter and complete privacy violation, which I was more than willing to tell her about.

My mother was furious. Not only had I been wrongfully punished, I had been denied food as punishment. It was horrific. The teacher could not have failed more badly than she had. When we got home my mother immediately placed a call to the head of the preschool, and closed her bedroom door for their chat. I don't know what was said because it was pretty well muffled, but it was also pretty loud.

The next day I went back to preschool and received an apology from the teacher in front of the class.

Reviews

[rnuff]

i really liked this story as well, description was good and so was the imagery. Love the plot.

[f1rstperson]

I really like this story and the conflicts it poses, also how they can relate to other parts of life. The layout of the preschool is very vivid and well done, as is you view into a preschooler's mind! I think the only thing I would like to see changed is to have the ending be longer? I mean, did you sit there long feeling like it was unfair before your mom came and picked you up? Stuff like that perhaps.

[daftalchemist]

That's a good idea. Some of these stories are so old now that pieces like that aren't immediately recalled when I try to remember them, but suggestions like this bring the rest of it to life. I'll have to review this one and do up the ending a bit differently.