the kindness of strangers

For those that have read a few posts on this blog, you probably know that we live in a big city (New York). You may also know that we don't have a car and rely exclusively on public transportation. In our case, that means a subway most of the time. We also have little A in daycare that isn't walking distance from our apartment, so we take her to and from the daycare on the subway. For anyone who has ever visited New York City, you may have noticed that most subway stations don't have elevators. The station near our house does not have an elevator, and we need to take a total of three flights of stairs in order to get onto the train. The second-closest station to little A's babysitter's apartment has an elevator all the way from the subway platform up to street level.

We are lucky in many ways that each of us (Mr. P and me) has only one leg of the trip to or from daycare. Mr. P takes little A in the mornings since he goes into work much later, and I pick up little A after work. The babysitter's apartment is just a few blocks away from the school where I work. Even though there is a much closer subway station, I walk the extra blocks to the station that has the elevator so that I don't have to carry little A in the stroller plus the two bags (her diaper bag and my school bag) down the stairs.

And then we get to the station where we live. No elevator. Three flights of stairs. About 40 pounds to carry up.

I would say more times than not people do not offer to help me with the stroller up the stairs, and even less do they offer Mr. P help with the stroller. When people do offer help, I always accept, though I never ask for anyone to help me. I would say it's about even the number of women and men that offer me help. But whenever a woman has offered me help, she ALWAYS has said something to the effect of "I know how it is/I've been there". Several times people have really gone out of their way to help me carry the stroller up the stairs. For instance, a couple of weeks ago there were some teenagers in the station doing a public service announcement thing about pickpockets. One of the boys offered to help me up the last two flights of stairs, even though he obviously wasn't going up himself. People are super friendly whenever they've helped me and I enjoy the small exchanges we have (and of course I enjoy getting the help with the 40 lbs!!)

I am really fascinated by the whole thing. It always strikes me when people will walk right by without offering help. I mean, I don't think people ride the trains in order to help me with my kid, but to me it's the same kind of courtesy as holding a door open. I ALWAYS offer to help a person (usually a woman) with her stroller when I can (that is, when I don't have a stroller myself.) Our theory about people not helping Mr. P as much with the stroller is that maybe people think that offering help will somehow be emasculating. Or people could just figure that men are stronger and therefore it's not as big a deal to carry the 40 lbs. But who would actually want to do that alone if help was being offered?

The other morning on my way to work when I got on the train there was a woman on the train with three kids: one very small baby in a front baby carrier, another school-age (maybe 5 or 6) kid sitting next to her and another toddler asleep in a stroller. She got off the train before my stop at a station that I know doesn't have an elevator. I can't imagine how she got up those stairs by herself! I almost wanted to hop off the train with her just to help her up the stairs and then catch the next train. I can only hope that someone going her way gave her a lift with the stroller.

Anyway, here's a salute to the kindness of strangers, in big ways and small.