Your Toddler Is on a Hero's Journey

Donna Lichaw sees every product through story structure. The hero faces obstacles, gets help, emerges transformed. It's not about the tool, it's about the arc.

Your toddler putting on pants is the same journey, except louder and with more sobbing. They're the hero. The pants are the villain. You're the mentor nobody asked for. When both legs finally go through the right holes, they've conquered something monumentally stupid that will mean nothing tomorrow.

Lichaw says when superheroes discover their powers, "they wreak havoc and they make a mess, and it's uncomfortable." That's your kid with scissors. With paint. With the toilet plunger. With literally anything.

Every tantrum is Act Two. Every bedtime is the climactic battle scene that somehow lasts forty-five minutes. When they insist on doing it themselves, they're not being difficult—they're the protagonist, and you just became the obstacle. Your job is to stand there and not fix it while they spend eleven minutes putting on one shoe.

The mess is part of the story. So is your exhaustion.