What My Son and a Razor Taught Me About Accepting Change
A lesson in resilience from a four-year-old's insult
"Daddy, when your beard went away, did you know your chin is yucky?"
The last time I was clean-shaven, my son was barely two. He's four now, and he has a gift for flattery. But I have to hand it to the little guy. He's dealt with a lot of change in his four short years. He was born in Wisconsin. A year later we moved to Tennessee. The following two years were relatively stable, but the past year has been tough.
Both of our dogs died, we've gone through three cars, moved into a new house, and experienced job loss. And now, I've shaved my beard.
Even something as small as a clean-shaven dad can feel like a disruption to a four-year-old. But here’s what’s remarkable—he's handled it all better than most adults would. He notices changes, asks questions, and sometimes even mourns them in his way. But then, suddenly, it's over. There’s no lingering bitterness, no resistance to what is. He adapts and moves on.
Change is hard for adults because we attach ourselves to stability. We create routines, build expectations, and grow comfortable in the illusion that things will stay the same. When life inevitably shifts—whether through loss, relocation, or even something as simple as a new job—we resist. We are cursed with an awareness of the past and future, so much so that we can't grasp the present. We try to hold on to what was. We demand time to adjust. We complain. We struggle to process and accept.
But kids? They live in the present. They don’t have years of experience telling them how things “should” be. They don’t dwell on an imagined past or stress over an uncertain future. They accept what’s in front of them and keep going. That’s a lesson worth learning.
That’s not to say children don’t struggle. My son has had his moments—asking when our dogs are coming back, getting frustrated when we had to pack up his toys for the move, feeling uneasy about the shifting routines. But what makes kids so resilient is that they don’t get stuck in that struggle. Their grief is real, but so is their ability to adapt. They don’t try to negotiate with reality. They feel, they acknowledge, and then they move forward.
It's common to hear parents say something like "My children have taught me as much as I've taught them." This resilience to change is something I hope to learn from my son. All adults could benefit. We spend so much energy resisting change, fearing it, resenting it. But change doesn’t ask for our permission. It arrives whether we’re ready or not. The sooner we accept it, the sooner we can find peace within it.
Think of a river. It doesn’t resist the rocks in its path; it flows around them. It doesn’t rage against the changing course—it moves forward, carving a new way if necessary. When we stop trying to force life to fit our expectations and instead learn to adapt—like the river, like a child—we find a certain freedom.
So maybe my son's reaction to my missing beard—blunt and honest as it was—was a perfect reflection of how we should all face change. Notice it. Acknowledge it. Express what you need to express. Then, without hesitation, move on to the next thing. Because life is always moving forward, and the sooner we embrace that, the lighter we’ll feel.
Even if it means accepting a yucky chin.