Why So Stubborn?

I don't get it. When God was making our children, what was He thinking when He decided that they should have the stubborn trait? What was that all about?

Today, I picked Owen up from school, and the teachers went on, again, about how stubborn he is. And it's not just my child, every child with Down syndrome seems to have this stubborn streak. It's as if that extra chromosome gave them some extra stubborn juice, or something. I know exactly what his teachers meant, too. Even though he is very capable of doing something, he won't. He refuses, and he looks away, as is by avoiding looking you in the eye, he can get away with it. I hate it. I wish that God had thought a little harder about our kids when he did that. I mean, really, they will have a tough enough time as it is in school, so they have to be stubborn on top of it??

Then I thought about it for a while. And I thought, you know, our kids are just more real than other kids, more honest. They won't follow the rules and do what they are supposed to do because they don't work from a place where they realize they must abide by society's rules. So they refuse to cooperate if they don't want to do it. Is that so wrong? Why am I trying to fit my child into the universally excepted idea of what a child at 3 should be doing? But I suppose at the end of the day, I do want my child to fit in and to succeed. I want him to be able to be liked by other kids, and by the people in his life. I mean, we love him to death because he is our child, but when he is being stubborn and refusing to abide by certain rules that our society dictates, how will other people view him?

I suppose I should be more like my husband and not care what people think, but I know that it does matter. Maybe Owen and Tess will be lucky enough to have inherited Erik's amazing sense of self-esteem, and it won't matter to them, either.