Love the Chaos, or Fight It. Guess Which One Works?
Parenting isn’t about control—it’s about adaptation. And sometimes, that means talking like a terrified noodle.
“Please don’t eat me!” the noodle said, but my son’s mischievous grin made it clear he wasn’t in a merciful mood.
Three minutes earlier, he had been whining he didn’t like noodles (one of his favorite foods). Twenty minutes into dinner, and he hadn’t eaten a bite. So, I resorted to one of my many “break-in-case-of-emergency” parenting tactics. I made his food beg for mercy, appealing to his primal instincts. He laughs maniacally, and the moment I stop to take a bite, he's the one begging.
“Talk like a scared noodle, Daddy!”
I do this with him daily. He just turned four, and “no” has become his mantra. To get him to brush his teeth, I do my best Burgess Meredith impression and prepare him to fight the “sugar monsters” threatening to burrow holes into his teeth. To wash his hair, it’s the “greasy hair monsters.”
After he’s asleep, I lie awake, his laughter barely loud enough to drown out the voice in my head.
"Can't you find a better way to parent than becoming cartoon characters?"
"Your kid doesn't respect you. You're not a dad. You're Patty the Paternal Clown!"
I can’t help but wonder if I’m sowing the seeds of lasting mental health issues by encouraging his inner wild animal and filling his world with imaginary victims, or if I’m simply playing my part in the improvisational theater that is parenting.
But when I step back and view this from an honest perspective, I realize I'm just adapting. The truth is, you can't force a four-year-old. You have to meet them on their level and turn their responsibilities into games. It plays into the Stoic idea known as amor fati or "love of fate." The Stoics taught often about accepting whatever comes as if it's exactly what you wanted—you can't change things that are out of your control, and resisting only causes suffering. The only real choice is acceptance. Resisting my son's defiance doesn’t just make things harder for me—it makes things harder for him too. Instead of demanding obedience, I create a reason for him to engage. I embrace the absurdity that four-year-olds crave. Fighting him now could have lasting consequences on our relationship, but meeting him here, in this ridiculous moment, builds something stronger.
Maybe one day he won’t need sugar monsters or pleading noodles to motivate him. But right now, this is where he is, and this is where I’ll meet him. I can either fight it, or I can love it. And when I think about it that way, I can't help but laugh. Because really—what else is there to do?