When in the midst of parenthood, this is the "price" associated with letting your
kid do whatever they're doing that would normally annoy the living piss out of you in order to obtain a brief solace to accomplish any sort of meaningful task you've set out to do.
Think of it in this context:
Your 4 year old is outside flinging mud against the house. They're preoccupied, and normally you don't want your
kid caking your house in mud. However,
maybe you're talking with a neighbor or doing yard
work. You want to keep doing that thing because the
kid is distracted for a bit.
If we think about the situation pretty simplistically, you can either:
A) Yell at them to
stop, whereby they'll likely find something equally as irritating or perhaps dangerous to do while you're still engaged in whatever you were doing.
B) Let them keep doing it and stay distracted for an undetermined amount of
time, hopefully a while.
So once you're basically weighing how disruptive your
kid's activity is versus the bit of
time you'll receive to do what you need to do.
Person 1: Yesterday Timmy was flinging gravel across the yard all over the damn place.
Person 2) Is that why my damn window is
broken?
Person 1) Yeah, but you know, it was the price of
peace. At least I was able to finish up the
deck.
