the price of peace

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.