One of the things I’ve been most amazed by since becoming a mother is the softness I often feel towards others, much more easily than before having children. The hard edge I often brought to my assessments of others is noticeably absent — or at least much diminished — and I know for sure that having had the gift of knowing my children from the earliest moments of their lives, and seeing that many aspects of their personalities show themselves even at birth and continue through their lives, and that the harder aspects of a person’s personality often make the bearer suffer as much or more so than the people around him or her, has helped me to be a kinder, more compassionate person.
One example I’ve been thinking about a lot lately has to do with something that happened during my own high school running “career” of nearly twenty-five years ago. I’ve been thinking of it recently because in May one of my boys and I started running together regularly, and we’ve even run/walked the 5K (3.1 mile) Varsity Course at the State Park, which is where my high school memory happened and surely one of the reasons it resurfaced.
During Cross Country practices in high school, the task and expectation by the coach was that we would run, not walk, whatever course she had us do in practice, but one of my teammates would regularly stop and walk once we were out of sight of the coach. This teammate didn’t fancy herself a particularly good runner, and neither was I — in fact, I was the worst runner on the team — and yet I kept a steel grip on the requirement to run and not walk, even to the point of running so slowly that a walker could beat me. So it was particularly galling to me that every time my walking teammate heard my “running” steps coming up behind her, she would start running again until she put enough space between us, and then she would slow to a walk again. And she beat me in almost every race. I hated that I gave everything I felt I had to give and still came up short against someone who didn’t seem to give much at all, and I’ve seethed at that memory ever since.
Fast forward to this summer when my boy and I have been working hard — and it’s been hard work! We started with a Couch to 5K program in which the first few workouts consisted of running for one minute, then walking for one minute, and repeating ten times, and are now up to being able to run two miles without stopping (most of the time anyway). But the thing is, I now see no problem at all with stopping to walk if needed — I encourage my son to do so if he feels he needs to (with the intention of just catching his breath and then resuming running), since I can see how hard he’s working and I want to encourage him, and my goal for him is good physical health and the kind of mental strengthening that happens with doing something good but difficult, rather than being the best and fastest. With intermittent walking, he’s been able to keep going, keep improving, slowly but surely.
Of course, I know that the goals and measures of success for a kid who’s running on his own for good health and not part of a team (and with his middle-aged mother with finicky knees) are and should be quite a bit different from those of a high school Cross Country runner, or any competitive athlete of any age. Even still, I’ve been astonished at my own change of heart toward runners who stop to walk. I’m so moved by the effort I see my boy putting in, and since my goal for him is improvement rather than perfection, I’m happy with every step forward, whether walking or running. I even think back to that teammate of mine in high school — looking at her with a mother’s eyes, I have a better sense that she probably wasn’t actually trying to “cheat the system,” but rather that running was probably a challenge for her, and the fact that she kept with it all season and didn’t quit the team was a success in itself and one worth celebrating.
I have many examples of being astonished by my softening towards others the older I get, and it’s always with a particularly maternal heart. Having had my own children, I’m better able to see others as the children of mothers who love them and can see the best in them even when no one else can, who know they have their demons and private struggles and give them grace when no one else will. There’s something quite nice about that — something that, I think, makes the world a better place (if it doesn’t make for top runners).
Kate and her husband have seven sons ages 16, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7, and 2. Follow her at www.facebook.com/kmtowne23, or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
