Why I Hate Treadmills, and Parenting

Sometimes it's not the parenting we hate, it's the not actually getting anywhere that wears us down.

This week I discovered, yet again, how much I hate running.

“That’s no big deal” some might say. Except it is because I’ve signed up to run the London Marathon next spring in aid of my daughter’s hospital.

But there is good news in this. I’ve realised it’s not that I hate all running, it’s that I hate running on a treadmill rather than outside.

When I run outside I can go out in the fresh air, see new places, go new routes and engage in 'real world' activities and experiences and I am perfectly(ish!) happy. Put me on a treadmill though and within minutes something in me starts getting hot, tired, bored, sweaty, frustrated and strangely lonely. I’ve discovered it’s the running without going anywhere that I hate.

Caring for children like ours can so often feel like running on a treadmill. It's so often the same; there are no real views, it's a journey to nowhere in particular, it takes time, effort and energy, and it feels like it's never-ending.

And yet that's not a feeling about parenting per se. We all know that there are good days and bad days. There are good bits in bad days and bad bits in good days. There are laughs, shouting, pain, joy, fun, conversation, memories, appointments, tears, and plenty of ‘stuff’ in between.

And in fact these things are universal to all parenting journeys.

It took me a while to actually separate those two things out. The first is the one about how I feel about parenting, the other is about how parenting actually is. And sometimes they feel like they are the same thing, even when they’re not.

In other words parenting for us can feel like we’re on a permanent treadmill of relentlessness, lack of capacity, failure, fear and hypervigilance. Those things are likely very real. And yet they don’t tell us the whole story of the parenting journey.

The love isn’t the thing that goes missing on the long hard and repetitive days, it’s the view that goes missing. We lose perspective of the whole journey. And once I noticed that distinction I could stop trying to fix the wrong problem. I wasn’t failing as a parent, and nor are you. I was standing on the treadmill of the parenting journey forgetting I was there for the whole experience of running.

The treadmill is all we have sometimes, and that’s okay, because that’s the reality. But the goal is not for us to be grateful and love every minute of this marathon, it is a recognition that we can love our children and find pockets of the good stuff mixed in too.

In other words, even if we’re on the treadmill we can still choose the incline, choose the view, choose what we think about, and sometimes even chose to consider that we don’t want to run on a treadmill and would prefer to dance today instead!

Life is for living, experiences are there to be taken, achievements are personal and change is always possible, for all of us.

So whether you choose to run on a treadmill, run outside, take a moment to dance, go play dominoes or even sit and stare into space, it’s all part of being you in a world of being tied into the life of another.

And if you need help or support in managing any of the issues I've raised here please do get in touch. I'm here to help, as are other people in the private facebook group Mamas In This Together.