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Negotiating the Golden Rule

By Chris Colcord

Fort Wayne Reader

2018-12-09

One thing I’ve noticed about doing considerate things for strangers is, a lot of times, they don’t like it. Like holding the door open for someone—I do this reflexively in public, and often the response from people is a little grimace of annoyance. I don’t take it personally, for I sort of understand it—often a held door will compel people to speed up or move differently that they wanted to, and it works against their momentum. Which I totally get. As a hyper-vigilante, propulsive walker who seeks the most efficient route possible, I, too, get annoyed when I’m knocked off my gait.

But I still do it, because… well, this is what you do. You hold doors. When you’re in public, there’s a social contract that dictates that you should try to be considerate, even if it’s not always received warmly. It’s an old custom that is rapidly fading, however, as the new paradigm of personal isolation in public has become more preferred. At the grocery store I see a lot of people with their head phones on, and I can read the message pretty clearly: no trespassing here, bub. That “social contract” stuff no longer applies while I’m shopping. But I’m afraid I can’t act differently — I’ll keep holding doors and waiting in my car at crosswalks for pedestrians to scurry across uncertainly, just because I can’t think of a way not to do it.

And I know I sound like I’m two thousand years old here, but actually I’ve learned to adjust to most of these new social changes. At one point it would have horrified me to take a personal call while hanging out with a friend, but now I do it all the time. And so do they. When I get off work, I do that “idling” thing that everybody does, where you sit in your running car for five minutes and catch up on all the things you’ve missed while estranged from your phone. I’m not entirely happy about this influence my phone exerts on me, but I can’t deny the pleasures of escaping into my own bubble-world as well. It’s just the way it is.

And while I do make it a rule to try to engage with my fellow citizens when I’m out in public, I also understand the compulsion to not let anyone do you any favors. You don’t want to owe anybody. It’s like at work, when someone makes a coffee run and then won’t let you pay for it; you like your co-worker and appreciate the gesture, but it’s a little too close, and you don’t want to be beholden to anyone, ever for $3.25. I think most people have gotten very used to the idea of establishing boundaries, of not letting others do nice things for them, even if the intent of the do-gooders is completely honorable and benign. It’s just: you go your way, and I’ll go mine.

Which I understand. But every once in a while, you’ll be the recipient of an act of such benevolence that you’ll be knocked off your isolationistic path. You’re not going to start hugging strangers in the street, or become Mother Teresa, but you’ll also recognize that you can’t pretend that you’re not connected with some pretty decent humans out there.
It’s a bit unnerving, to realize that sometimes you have to allow strangers to see you humbled, even vulnerable.

This year my autistic daughter started going to a pre-school that didn’t have any other autistic or special-needs kids enrolled. It was an unusual arrangement, but we worked out an agreement with the school, who was willing to give it a shot. One of the teachers had a son with Asperger’s, and she thought she would have some insight in dealing with our
child in a school setting.

This was September. I expected that it might be a difficult, emotional time for our family, but in no way did I expect what the teachers and the head of the school would do, or how it would affect me. From the moment they agree to enroll May, they committed to her in a way that I thought only blood relatives could. On their own dime, they sought out the Early Childhood teachers that May had previously worked with, and asked about how she had progressed. On their own time, they met with the other parents of kids in May’s class, and explained what they were going to be doing with May. They tailored the class to accommodate many of the challenges that she would have working with “regularly-developed” classmates and made contingency plans for any eventuality. They asked us about what her specialist thought, and what medications she was using.

It was more than just doing their job extremely well. They chose to love her and accept her. When a stranger chooses to love your child, you can’t pretend that it doesn’t affect you. That wall of impersonality that you’ve carefully built simply can’t stay upright. On May’s first day of class, the teacher’s son—the one with Asperger’s—was so nervous
for her, and he spent the whole day wondering how she was doing. When his mom told him after school that May had a good day, he let out a little whoop of victory. For a girl he’d never met.

The teacher told me that story at the ice cream social during the first week of school. It was hard to keep a public face, there, at the table with the Kroger ice cream and chocolate sauce and sprinkles, and not be overwhelmed by the loving decency the school had showed my daughter. “Thank you so much for what you’re doing,” is what I think I
eventually said, though what I really meant was, “I love everybody here forever and now I’m going to a corner to cry for a thousand years.” The teacher gave me a little nod. I think she understood what I meant.