This morning I conducted a social experiment. I needed to mail 4 boxes at the Post Office. The boxes reached to my chin and were awkward, but not heavy, so I elected to carry them in rather than use a cart. I had to walk about 20 yards from the car to the door of the Post Office, so I decided to see if anyone would offer to help. Only about 5 yards from my car a woman (who was going the opposite way) asked if I needed some help. I assured her that the boxes weren't heavy and thanked her. About 5 yards from the door, a man walked out, looked at me, and kept going. It would have been easy for him to hold the door, but he offered no help. As I was close to the door, a woman inside saw me coming and rushed to open the door.
Final score: women--2; man--sucked. Apparently this man had parents who did not teach him to help others. Sad.
It was interesting to see what happened. I had no preconceived notions on who would or would not offer to help. My son's teacher has 3 pages of "GC" (good citizen) rules for his classroom. I thought it was overkill at first, but they're really common sense things that parents used to teach their children when teaching them how to be polite (many parents no longer do this). One of their rules is to open the door for others. Between Mr. Miller's "GC" rules and the Nickel home rules, we'll have that situation covered!
***I realize that I'm behind, and I swear I'll catch you up on what we're doing this week--complete with pictures and everything!
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1 comment:
I saw something like this once. I was waiting for a bus on a dreary day (it had rained, but was at that time simply overcast and wet). I was there with two or three women and an older man, in his 60's or older. When the bus finally came, the old man rushed the door in front of the women. I waited for the women to get on, as that was what I've come to believe is the proper behavior, but I also realized that my generation had terrible examples to follow, and that so have our children.
Craig, in Fresno
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